FRA Oversight On Insular Railroads

Admin/mod - not sure if this is the correct forum for this thread, my apology if it isn't.
This past Saturday, my wife and I had a tour of the Mt Washington Cog Railway shop facility. During our guided tour by the chief mechanic, he informed us that they had to hire an independent engineering firm to look at every inch of track, supporting structure, rolling stock and equipment. They composed a book of facts, info and the likes about a foot thick. The reason for the book, is incase the FRA starts to oversee the operation, currently held by the NHDOT. He said the FRA is suppose to be taking over any railroad with a bridge or trestle 10 ft or more in length, insular or not. The lack of FRA inspectors, seems to be the stalling factor. Not entirely sure why but, something to do with a railroad bridge failing not under FRA supervision. Anyone care to elaborate? This is what the folks at the railway are being told at the state level.

In order to affect this kind of a change there would have to be enough cause to issue an emergency order that would allow the FRA to temporarly take jurisdictioanl control while a new rule was written. There would have to be a "warning order" in order to give people time to comply with the new regulation. Does anyone know of clarks being told they would be going under FRA control? That would be a good indicator as to the validity of this. It would not be a good thing for a lot of places.

steamer69 wrote:In order to affect this kind of a change there would have to be enough cause to issue an emergency order that would allow the FRA to temporarly take jurisdictioanl control while a new rule was written. There would have to be a "warning order" in order to give people time to comply with the new regulation. Does anyone know of clarks being told they would be going under FRA control? That would be a good indicator as to the validity of this. It would not be a good thing for a lot of places.

Not sure what you mean by "clarks" going under FRA control. If you mean railroad CLERKS, they have under been under FRA forever, especially those who dealt with train operations. They have to take the rules exams just like the trainmen. Many such jobs have been abolished and the old Train Order system has given way to Track Warrant and dispatcher control. I may be misunderstanding what you mean by "clarks" where it partains to US operations.

GF

Clark's is a family name famous in the New England area. The family owns two railroads in NH. The Plymouth and Lincoln Railroad (more commonly refered to as the Hobo Railroad & the Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad respectively) and White Mountain Central (part of Clark's Trading Post). White Mountain Central is an insular railroad about 3 miles long with a covered bridge about 100 feet long. They have a few former logging steam engines that they operate. Steamer69 is concerned beause as of right now they do not fall under FRA regulations.

There is a new regulation from the FRA coming into effect very shortly in regards to bridges. I am not sure as to just who is effected by it, I know the VTR is since our B+B guys are going through a very extensive cataloging of all bridges and formalizing our maintenance procedures for them. I will ask the local FRA bridge inspector if I see him if this also applies to non-freight or interchange roads as well.