Railroads are the quiet workhorses of our economy — moving the goods that keep manufacturers humming, farmers exporting, and small businesses stocked. They invest billions in infrastructure without taxpayer subsidies. And they are a natural fit for President Trump’s innovation and growth agendas.
Yet today, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is not adequately empowered to modernize outdated rules. Many of these regulations have been on the books for decades and ignore years of safety data and technological progress. If the Trump administration wants to unleash American innovation, rail reform should be at the top of the transportation agenda.
Take the FRA’s blanket crew size mandate, inherited from the Biden era. It requires two people in the locomotive cab of every freight train, no matter the route, train type, or available technology. There is no evidence this improves safety. In fact, Europe runs one-person crews on busier, more complex networks with no reduction in safety performance. For small railroads — all 696 of America’s Class II and Class III carriers meet the federal definition of a small business — the cost is especially punishing, threatening service to rural communities and driving shippers toward trucks, which reduces options and overlooks important issues such as truck accidents and traffic density.
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