Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

19. Department of Transportation · Notable

Finalize FRA's rulemaking modernizing brake inspection requirements

Partially done

636 19. Department of Transportation · abridged

“FRA is refusing to take final action on a rulemaking proceeding that would modernize brake inspection requirements by taking advantage of the ability to track brake inspections on rolling stock electronically instead of by using paper air brake slips, which would enable extending the interval between brake inspections for trains and eliminating restrictions on the ability to place/remove blocks of cars in trains.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    FRA took final action, effective 2026-09-30. The rule delivers the interval extension the Quote asks for - the air flow method indicator calibration interval goes from 92 to 184 days and the periodic brake system inspection interval for New York Air Brake and Wabtec electronic air brake systems from 1,472 to 3,680 days - over the objections of BLET, SMART-TD, TTD and the Carmen. It does not deliver the other two elements: the requirement to record air flow method calibration on Form FRA F 6180-49A, the paper blue card, is expressly retained in 49 CFR 232.205(c)(1)(iv), and the rule says nothing about restrictions on placing or removing blocks of cars in trains.

  2. Attempted

    FRA proposed to amend the brake system maintenance and inspection standards in 49 CFR parts 229, 232 and 238, codifying long-standing waivers so railroads need not keep reapplying for them, under the IIJA waiver review mandate and EO 14219's deregulatory initiative. A proposal; nothing in force.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Read the operative text at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-31/html/2026-17784.htm . The blue card finding is FRA’s own: it describes “the current, and continuing, presence of an AFM indicator calibration recording requirement for Form FRA F 6180-49A (the blue card) in Sec. 232.205(c)(1)(iv)”. A word search of the rule for “block” returns nothing.
  • partial and not done under the delivery test: one of the three things the Quote names was delivered. This is the only FRA item in the batch to reach partial.
  • Checked 2026-09-03 against FRA’s automated-track-inspection waiver decision of 2025-12-05 (Docket FRA-2025-0059, read in full — see #1751). It bears on this ask not at all: the decision is confined to visual track inspection under 49 CFR § 213.233 and never mentions brake inspection or 49 CFR part 232. It is worth one line as context, because it shows FRA’s general posture toward substituting technology for physical inspection, but it is not evidence about the brake rulemaking and is deliberately not attached.
Action
issue
Object
FRA brake inspection rulemaking
ID
1752