OKLAHOMA CITY — Kansas, Iowa and Washington state are attempting to impose limits on the length of cargo trains that repeatedly block grade crossings.
In Kansas, Senate Bill 271 would limit trains to a maximum length of 8,500 feet, or approximately 1.6 miles, on any main line or branch line. Freight trains have grown to extraordinary lengths, sometimes extending two miles to as much as five miles.
The bill as amended would impose the length restriction through July 2027; the Legislature would be required to renew the policy if it were to continue.
Violation of the proposed statute would be punishable by a fine ranging from $500 to $25,000. However, the bill would permit a fine of $100,000 if the railroad were “found to have committed a grossly negligent violation or a pattern of repeated violations.”
SB 271 was filed in the Kansas Senate’s Committee on Federal and State Affairs. The bill passed the Senate on March 28, and the next day it was referred to the Transportation Committee in the House of Representatives.
The bill “hasn’t passed the House yet and probably won’t until next year,” Kansas Sen. Carolyn McGinn (R-Sedgwick) told Southwest Ledger recently.
McGinn debated in favor of SB 271. Blocked railroad crossings are more than an inconvenience, she said, because motionless trains also create safety hazards. Not everyone waits patiently for a train crossing to clear, she noted.
“In one situation,” she said, “it was 20 degrees out and some kids were trying to get home from school. They started crawling underneath boxcars to get home. Very dangerous situation.”
Citizens “have to have a voice” on the issue of train lengths, McGinn said. “Our time is important, too.” Kansas previously complained about three-mile-long trains “and now they’re as long as five miles,” she said.
Opponents of the Kansas bill include BNSF Railway Co. and the Kansas Railroad Association, which argued authority to regulate the industry is exclusively the jurisdiction of the federal Surface Transportation Board.
“The feds are supposed to address it, but they haven’t,” McGinn said. “So the states are. If enough states start making statements like ours, then Congress will have to listen to us.”
Iowa legislators, too, are considering a bill to limit freight trains to 8,500 feet in length.
Two unions that represent freight train workers – the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen – support the Iowa bill.
“Bigger trains have bigger problems,” said Chris Smith, the state director for SMART-TD. “Our main concern with that is public safety: blocked crossings, delays for fire, EMS, police departments, etc.” He also said Iowa’s railroad infrastructure cannot support longer trains.
More than 1,465 blocked crossings were reported in Iowa last year, Smith said. Of those, 502 were reported blocked for at least an hour, 13 were blocked for at least 12 hours, and 16 were obstructed for more than a day.
In Washington state, a bill introduced in the Legislature would limit the length of trains in “The Evergreen State” to a maximum 7,500 feet, a little over 1.4 miles.
House Bill 1839 also provides that rail carriers in Washington can seek permission from the state’s Utilities and Transportation Commission to run trains up to 10,000 feet in length, nearly 1.9 miles, on specified routes.
However, carriers would have to add at least one additional crew member to all trains between 7,500 and 10,000 feet. Washington’s UTC can require additional crewmembers if it determines doing so is in the interest of reducing risk, such as on key trains.
A U.S. Government Accountability Office report from 2019 found that freight trains are getting longer. The report looked at data from two Class I rail carriers which showed that their average train length increased by about 25% since 2008. The average length of their trains in 2017 was between 1.2 and 1.4 miles.