Federal government to markedly increase number of inspectors trained to spot rail bridge concerns

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U.S. NEWS
Federal government to markedly increase number of inspectors trained to spot rail bridge concerns


Several train cars are immersed in the Yellowstone River after a bridge collapse near Columbus, Mont., June 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

{Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/bridge-over-yellowstone-river-collapses-sending-freight-train-into-waters-below-/7151533.html}

BY JOSH FUNK
Updated 5:57 PM EDT, September 3, 2025

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Transportation Department is going to train 163 track inspectors to dramatically increase the number of people who know how to spot critical problems with railroad bridges, but the railroads themselves will still be responsible for inspecting their own bridges and the results will still be kept confidential.

Currently, there are only seven Federal Railroad Administration employees trained to assess bridges, although their primary responsibility is to review each railroad’s inspection plan to make sure they have a good plan in place and that won’t change. But this move will train significantly more people to spot structural problems on railroad bridges while they are out inspecting the tracks. Both federal and state track inspectors will be trained.

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Because there are so few bridge inspectors at the Federal Railroad Administration, roughly 10% of U.S. railroads have not had their bridge management programs audited even 15 years after the rule on Bridge Safety Standards went into effect. But that issue is primarily at smaller short-line railroads. The Federal Railroad Administration said that the biggest railroads that deliver more than 90% of the nation’s freight have all been audited on a regular basis.

But there have still been high-profile rail bridge collapses like the one in Montana two years ago that sent a train hauling petroleum products into the Yellowstone River, sending tar balls downstream that had to be cleaned up. An Oregon railroad bridge maintained by a short-line railroad also collapsed earlier this year underneath a train — three years after it caught fire.

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JOSH FUNK
Funk is an Associated Press reporter who covers transportation including aviation safety and airlines along with all the major freight railroads. Funk also covers Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, the impact of the ongoing bird flu outbreak, agriculture and other news out of the Midwest.
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[elleng]

1. The Transportation Department is going to train 163 track inspectors to dramatically increase the number of people

who know how to spot critical problems with railroad bridges. . .

Currently, there are only seven Federal Railroad Administration employees trained to assess bridges,.>