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This rulemaking will amend FRA’s PTC regulations- Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 236, subpart I- to accomplish two objectives: (1) Improve FRA’s oversight of the performance of PTC technology by clarifying and expanding certain reporting requirements, and (2) provide a clear framework under which railroads may safely operate without PTC technology, subject to operating restrictions and other requirements, in certain necessary situations.

FRA has found that its existing PTC regulations do not provide sufficient flexibility to railroads to continue operating following initialization failures or in cases where a PTC system needs to be temporarily disabled during repair, maintenance, infrastructure upgrades, or capital projects. Previously, FRA’s regulations provided railroads with flexibility that expired on December 31, 2022, and this rulemaking will reintroduce a certain flexibility regarding initialization failures, establish additional parameters and operating restrictions under which railroads may continue to operate safely, and codify an existing process for FRA’s approval of temporary PTC system outages related to repair, maintenance, infrastructure upgrades, and capital projects.

In addition, this rulemaking will create a new exception to permit non-revenue passenger trains to operate to yards or maintenance facilities, without being governed by PTC technology, under certain conditions.