Already a subscriber? Make sure to log into your account before viewing this content. You can access your account by hitting the “login” button on the top right corner. Still unable to see the content after signing in? Make sure your card on file is up-to-date.

A federal appeals court has dismissed a challenge from six railroad companies and two industry trade associations, who attempted to scrap the regulation mandating at least two crew members on most freight trains.

Getting into it: On August 11, the 11th Circuit Court ruled 2-1 against Union Pacific, BNSF (owned by Berkshire Hathaway), the Association of American Railroads, the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, and other petitioners. Judge Robin Rosenbaum, appointed by Obama, dismissed all their arguments, stating that the Federal Railroad Administration’s crew-size mandate was within its regulatory powers and did not violate any rules. The railroads had argued that the mandate exceeded the agency’s authority and that it ignored the potential labor costs, making the rule unfair and irrational.

The majority found the rule lands well inside the FRA’s authority to regulate rail safety. It also turned down the argument that the agency needed hard statistical proof that one-person operations are less safe before acting, noting that such a standard would force a safety regulator to wait for crashes before preventing them.

Judge Elizabeth Branch, appointed by Trump, disagreed. In her view, the agency’s studies failed to justify requiring minimum crew numbers and excluding those labor expenses was a major fault in the cost evaluation, enough to block the regulation.

This followed years of conflict regarding a regulation that became effective in June 2024 under FRA Administrator Amit Bose of the Biden administration, who reinstated minimum crew requirements after his predecessor had sought to eliminate them. The rule gained additional support after the February 2023 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, where vinyl chloride and other hazardous chemicals leaked from railcars, caught fire, and prompted the evacuation of 2,000 local residents.