Over the last couple of years, we have implored members everywhere to provide us with details needed to curtail the railroads’ dangerous practices of deferring trouble tickets until normal business hours to save money on overtime.  Such reckless policies jeopardize the traveling public, as well as our fellow Union members in other departments.  Both the CP/KC and BNSF have been guilty of this.

Many of you have persistently sent us the details necessary for us to lodge complaints with the FRA when safety sensitive matters were involved.  We thank you for your diligence and encourage you to keep it up as we are seeing progress because of the effort put into this issue.

In recent months, we have had numerous cases where both the CP/KC and BNSF have been cited by the FRA, primarily for pending safety sensitive trouble tickets, but also for HOS violations by exempt officers and other matters.

As just one example of the progress made, consider the issue of crossing gate tip lights.  For years, it was not deemed a safety sensitive issue for which the RR must dispatch an employee without undue delay. Yet, Maintainers know such malfunctions are often a sign of a larger problem.  Sometimes it’s a ground or short in the overall lighting circuit.  Other times it could be the gate tip light knocked off and dangling which gets entangled in the wind guard, holding the gate upright. 

Based on data provided by the membership, we made our case to the FRA in a meeting in 2021. After our meeting (and investigating the 35 or so reports from our members) FRA took the position that pended gate light tickets were a violation of 234 Subpart E. FRA subsequently notified the railroads that they would be enforcing this going forward.  From that point, we only had 1 report of a pended gate light ticket.  After being fined for that occurrence, we have not had a single report of such an occurrence on the BNSF.  This is a clear sign that the hard work of our members to ensure the public’s safety at grade crossings is paying off.  

Citations have also been handed out by the FRA to the CP/KC when they have used exempt officials to perform our work without complying with the HOS law.  Needless to say, we have heard of no additional violations of that sort on the CP/KC.  Again, this is all evidence that your hard work is paying off.  But, as with most things railroad related, the Carriers have created a devious workaround to try to continue the practice but while evading our scrutiny. Be on the lookout for scenarios where a ticket begins at midnight, for example, but instead of being placed in “pended” status, it is simply shown as “working.”  Meanwhile, in an effort to save a few bucks (but ignore safety) they do not contact you to respond until you are on your conference call the next morning.  This is no different than pending a safety sensitive ticket, just in a slightly more discreet manner.  Please continue to report all pended (and delayed handling) of tickets to the General Committee using the interface found on this website.