Overview
Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Administrator David Fink described an industry whose core safety measures are improving, while emphasizing that highway-rail grade crossings, trespassing, blocked crossings, bridge oversight, and project delivery still require sustained attention. Drawing on five decades in railroading—including his time leading Pan Am Railways—he argued that FRA should combine strong field oversight with practical collaboration, better data sharing, modern technology, and research focused on problems that can materially reduce risk.
Fink also discussed FRA's role in grants, passenger rail, environmental review, and the proposed Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern merger. His central message was that the agency wants to be a safety partner that enables responsible modernization instead of allowing outdated processes to slow useful investment.
Introduction and industry perspective
The event introduction highlighted Fink's prior service as president of Pan Am Railways, including work on safety, reliability, technological modernization, and positive train control. Fink described himself as a fifth-generation railroader and noted that he began as a Conrail trackman 50 years earlier. He used visits to Altoona and the Union Pacific Big Boy locomotive to reflect on railroading's role in building the country and connecting generations.
He also placed the industry at what he considers a potentially consequential moment. Alongside milestones such as the golden spike, dieselization, and the Staggers Rail Act, he identified the possibility of a transcontinental Class I combination as a development with historic significance. He stressed, however, that FRA must remain neutral on the proposed Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern merger and focus on its assigned safety responsibilities.
Safety performance: meaningful progress with persistent risks
Fink said the overall safety trend is moving in the right direction, but he cautioned against complacency. He cited the following figures and trends:
- The freight-rail train accident rate declined 14% year over year, based on Association of American Railroads calculations.
- Derailments, equipment-related accidents, and track-caused accidents each reached their lowest rate in industry history.
- Human-factor accidents declined nearly 20% year over year, a change he associated in part with automation, advanced monitoring, and data-informed operating practices.
- Class I railroads recorded their lowest employee injury rate in 2025.
- There were 976 derailments in 2025, including 544 on yard track, for a rate of 1.06 derailments per million train-miles.
- He contrasted those figures with 2,273 highway-rail incidents, resulting in 287 fatalities and 760 injuries.
The contrast reinforced his concern that grade-crossing collisions and trespassing remain among the leading causes of rail-related deaths. In his view, continued gains will depend not only on reducing mainline derailments, but also on addressing the points where trains, road users, and communities interact.
Field oversight and bridge safety
Fink called FRA's field inspectors—and state inspectors participating through the State Safety Participation Program—the front line of federal rail-safety oversight. Their work covers track and structures, motive power and equipment, signals and train control, operating practices, hazardous materials, and grade-crossing safety. One of his priorities is maintaining enough inspectors in the field to provide effective oversight while allowing the network to operate smoothly.
Bridge safety is receiving particular attention. FRA is moving from a primarily inspection-focused approach toward a broader system of oversight and audits. The agency has introduced bridge training that covers timber, steel, concrete, and substructures, and Fink said nearly all field personnel had completed virtual instructor-led bridge familiarization training. FRA also intends to use partnerships with state agencies to extend the reach of this work and improve network reliability.
Safety culture and industry partnership
Fink pointed to several collaborative programs, including the Confidential Close Call Reporting System, the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee, the Switching Operations Fatality Analysis Working Group, the Fatality Analysis of Maintenance-of-Way Employees and Signalmen Committee, and state safety partnerships. He said FRA was working to reconstitute the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee and expected that work to advance in the near future.
He encouraged short lines to use the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association's Short Line Safety Institute. Recalling the period after the Lac-Mégantic disaster, he described how railroads operating in Maine worked with the short-line association to strengthen safety culture. Pan Am later participated in the institute's assessment process twice. Fink said the first assessment exposed significant distrust between labor and management—even reluctance among employees to provide an email address—and gave managers a clearer understanding of where they needed to improve. A later assessment showed some progress, though less than he had hoped. He presented the institute as a valuable, publicly funded tool for candid organizational learning.
Automation, data, and risk reduction
Fink said FRA is advancing the use of automated track inspection and real-time data analytics by Class I railroads. He also reaffirmed support for system-safety and risk-reduction programs, along with safety-culture assessments.
For rail shippers, he emphasized that good data sharing can improve the relationship between customers and carriers. He cited tank-car data-sharing efforts, including a GATX/UTLX initiative, as an example of the kind of transparency that can help the parties identify problems and work from a common operating picture.
Grants, environmental review, and project execution
FRA's work is divided broadly between safety oversight and rail development. On the development side, Fink highlighted the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements program and the Railroad Crossing Elimination program as important sources of funding for safety and infrastructure projects.
He argued that funding alone is not enough if environmental reviews and interagency coordination delay projects for years. FRA is working with Texas and Florida on assigning certain National Environmental Policy Act responsibilities to the states. Fink also discussed the importance of federal preemption for legitimate rail development while acknowledging that it can be overextended.
Another recurring obstacle is poor communication between state departments of transportation and railroads. Fink said he has been working with the Federal Highway Administration and state stakeholders on practical ways to secure track time and access for work on highway bridges over rail lines. He acknowledged that these coordination problems cannot simply be resolved by issuing an order; they require sustained communication among agencies, railroads, contractors, and local partners.
Fink also noted an internal FRA reorganization intended to improve service and project delivery across both safety and rail-development functions, while responding to workforce-development challenges within the agency and the broader industry.
Passenger rail and major stations
Although much of the audience's focus was freight, Fink said passenger rail remains an important part of FRA's mission. He referenced the introduction of Amtrak's next-generation Acela equipment and previewed the Airo trainsets planned first for the Pacific Northwest and later for broader deployment. He expects the newer equipment to improve reliability and capacity.
He also identified the transformation of New York Penn Station and the revitalization of Washington Union Station as major Department of Transportation rail priorities that had made meaningful progress.
FRA's role in the proposed Class I merger
Fink reiterated that FRA is neutral on the proposed Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern merger. The Surface Transportation Board will evaluate the broader transaction, while FRA's responsibility is to examine the railroads' Safety Integration Plan and determine how they propose to combine operations safely. He added that the Department of Transportation had loaned approximately six attorneys to support the STB's work.
Blocked crossings and regulatory modernization
Blocked grade crossings are a high-priority community issue for the administration. Fink recalled that Secretary Sean Duffy raised both East Palestine and blocked crossings during his job interview and made clear that the industry needed to improve before Congress imposed its own solution. Fink said FRA and DOT are evaluating new tools that can provide better information about crossing conditions and are investing in research and demonstrations aimed at reducing the effect of long trains on communities.
At the same time, Fink argued that FRA regulations must evolve with current railroad practice and technology. He said the agency had issued 57 deregulatory actions the previous June to update, rescind, or amend requirements it considered outdated or unnecessarily burdensome. Examples included proposed changes involving signal-employee and dispatcher certification. His stated goal is a regulatory framework that preserves safety as the highest value while giving private companies room to invest and modernize.
Research focused on high-impact problems
Fink wants FRA research to concentrate resources on a smaller number of difficult, high-value problems. His leading example was rail neutral temperature: accurately measuring and managing the stress-free temperature of continuous welded rail so railroads can better prevent heat-related track buckles, commonly called sun kinks. FRA has begun a major effort at the Transportation Technology Center in Pueblo, Colorado, drawing on scientists and engineers from FRA, the Volpe Center, DOT, and industry. Fink said the industry has been trying to solve this measurement and management challenge for more than 20 years.
He identified grade-crossing signal technology as another candidate for concentrated research. Advances such as lidar could help detect hazards sooner and provide more useful information to road users. His proposed model is to convene signal suppliers, define a shared safety problem, and fund collaborative research while protecting legitimate proprietary information.
Main takeaway
Fink's remarks combined optimism about historically strong safety performance with a practical agenda for the remaining risks. He called for adequate field oversight, stronger safety culture, better bridge governance, faster infrastructure delivery, improved railroad–state coordination, useful data sharing, and focused research. Across each area, he presented FRA's desired role as both regulator and partner: firm on safety outcomes, but flexible enough to accommodate technologies and operating practices that can make the network safer and more efficient.