OKLAHOMA CITY – Legislation that would establish a minimum crew size for major railways was endorsed by a House of Representatives committee.
House Bill 1048 by state Rep. Dell Kerbs, R-Shawnee, would mandate that railroads operating in Oklahoma, “excluding short lines,” must maintain at least two crewmembers in the control compartment of the lead locomotive of the train.
“We want to protect our citizens and crewmembers,” Kerbs said. Commercial airplanes have two pilots for “additional redundancy,” and trains should, too, he said. Oklahoma should be “proactive rather than reactive.”
HB 1048 received a do-pass recommendation from the House Committee on Transportation and was referred to the full House for a floor vote. The proposed law would apply to Class I railroads such as the Kansas City Southern, Union Pacific, and Burlington Northern & Santa Fe.
It would not affect Class III short line railroads such as the 61-mile Wichita, Tillman & Jackson between Wichita Falls and Altus, the Stillwater Central, Farmrail, Grainbelt Corp., the 17-mile Blackwell Northern Gateway Railroad, the 10-mile Tulsa Sapulpa Union Railroad, the 70-mile Arkansas-Oklahoma Railroad, nor the 40-mile Texas, Oklahoma & Eastern Railroad.
A measure similar to HB 1048 was filed in the House in 2016 by former state Rep. James Lockhart, who lives in LeFlore County. That bill would have required any “common carrier” railroad transporting freight or passengers in this state to have no fewer than two crewmembers.
“I am glad to see this legislation. Requiring two crew- members per train protects good paying jobs for hardworking Oklahomans,” Lockhart said.
“There is also a public safety aspect,” he noted. “So many trains haul combustible material, it is imperative that we have two crewmembers on each train to prevent accidents that could pose serious threats to the general public, especially in urban and suburban areas that trains pass through.”
In a related matter, a federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s decision to drop a proposal to require freight trains to have at least two crewmembers.
The February 23 ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif., will likely make it harder for the railroad industry to reduce the number of crewmembers in most trains from two to just one, the Associated Press reported. It opens the door for states to require two-man crews on freight trains that haul crude oil, ethanol and other hazardous commodities, AP said.
The appellate court ruled that the Federal Railroad Administration acted arbitrarily when it dropped the safety measure President Barack Obama’s administration drafted in response to explosions of crude oil trains in the United States and Canada. The FRA said in 2019 that safety data didn’t support requiring two-man crews on all freight trains.
The 2016 proposal followed oil train derailments that included a runaway oil train in 2013 that derailed, exploded and killed 47 people while leveling much of the town of Lac Megantic, Canada. Other derailments of trains carrying oil and ethanol have occurred in North Dakota, Oregon, Montana, Illinois, Virginia and other states.