ASLRRA program helps contractors comply with new safety regulation

ASLRRA

The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) has developed a program to assist contractors with compliance requirements set forth by Part 243.

According to the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association (NRC), “FRA Part 243 Minimum Training Standards requires each railroad or contractor that employs one or more safety-related railroad employee to develop and submit a training program to FRA for approval and to designate the minimum training qualifications for each occupational category of employee. The rule also requires most employers to conduct periodic oversight of their employees and to develop annual written reviews of their training programs to close performance gaps.

“This rule places railroad contractors under direct regulation of the FRA for the first time. Employers with more than 400,000 employee work hours had until Jan. 1, 2020, to submit training programs to the FRA and employers with less than 400,000 employee work hours had up until May 1, 2021, to submit programs.

“With these deadlines behind, employers that submitted training programs must begin and/or have already begun the minimum training qualifications outlined in the submitted FRA templates by Jan. 1, 2022. Additionally, training organizations and learning institutions (TO/LI) that have provided training to safety-related employees prior to Jan. 1, 2019, may continue without FRA approval until Jan. 1, 2020.”

The ASLRRA Safety and Training Committee has created a Contractor Submission Outline and
Periodic Oversite Program. The program will assist contractors with the periodic oversight requirements
of Part 243.

ASLRRA members can access this information by logging in to the Compliance Templates section on ASLRRA’s Safety & Compliance web page and looking under Part 243 Templates (Contractor Submission Outline).

Please contact ASLRRA Vice President of Safety and Compliance JR Gelnar with any questions.

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