The Federal Railroad Administration filed ten deregulatory final rules in a single minute on Friday morning, and the regulator found that not one of them was significant

Not one of them is significant. That is the finding the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs recorded against every one of the ten final rules the Federal Railroad Administration sent to public inspection at a quarter to nine on Friday morning, and it is the reason none of the ten carries a figure for what it saves.

The set touches seven parts of title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations: parts 214, 215, 222, 225, 229, 232 and 238. Each rule was proposed on 1 July 2025. Each closed its comment period on 2 September 2025. Each was filed in the same minute on Friday and each takes effect 30 days after the batch publishes on Monday, which is 30 September.

The largest number in the set

Part of the brake rule adopts a waiver that has been running under test committee supervision. It extends the periodic brake system inspection interval for electronic air brake systems built by New York Air Brake and Wabtec from 1,472 days to 3,680 days. That is a multiple of exactly 2.5, and it moves the outer limit from a little over four years to a little over ten.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen argued that there was insufficient data and labour input behind the extension. FRA answered that BLET, the Transportation Trades Department and other labour organisations sat on the test committees, that manufacturers observed and participated in the inspections, and that the commenters offered a generic list of potential defects without a single instance of a significant brake defect found on equipment running at the longer intervals.

The rest of it

Freight cars more than 50 years old, or carrying any component listed in appendix A to part 215, no longer need special approval to enter or stay in service. A notice to the agency replaces the petition. FRA priced the new notice at 30 notifications a year across 754 railroads, 45 burden hours in total, $4,010.85.

The record retention period for most accident reporting forms drops to three years. SMART-TD asked for five to be kept on illness, injury and human factor records. Two forms are retired outright.

Locomotive wheel sets on newer AC traction locomotives with individual truck or single axle control may now vary in diameter by 1 1/2 inches rather than 1 1/4. BLET said it had seen manufacturer documentation recommending under one inch.

A stopped train close to a crossing may enter it on one horn blast. A railroad decides for itself whether to sound a horn at a passenger station, and if it does, the minimum sound level rules do not apply to that blast. Instructor-led three-dimensional computer simulation may satisfy the hands-on portion of periodic brake refresher training, which BLET, SMART-TD and TTD all opposed on the ground that railroading is a physical craft.

The one that raises a penalty

Buried in the accident reporting amendments is a change that runs the other way. Section 225.12(h)(2) has carried a fixed $5,000 fine since 1990 for knowingly and wilfully filing a false employee supplemental statement. Congress took that number out of the underlying statute in 1994 and substituted a fine under title 18. FRA is now conforming the regulation to the statute.

BLET opposed it, arguing that title 18 sets no maximum fine at all and that the change raises the exposure of employees without justification. FRA rebutted one half of that: the maximum period of imprisonment stays at two years, and BLET was wrong to read title 18 as lifting it to five. On the fine, the agency did not dispute that the ceiling goes.

Who objected

Nine of the ten drew opposition from at least one rail labour organisation. The tenth, on roadway workplace safety, drew general support from the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division and TTD, who asked for third-party verification of alternative bridge worker safety systems and did not get it.

Every rule in the set is designated a deregulatory action under Executive Order 14192, which each of the ten defines on its own page as an action finalised with total costs less than zero. Every rule in the set was found not significant under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866, which is the finding that keeps a rule off the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs review track and out of a quantified cost analysis.

So the ten arrive with no price on them. The only dollar figures anywhere in the 152 pages are the $100,000,000 unfunded mandates threshold, printed once in each rule and cleared by all of them, two paperwork burden tables, and the fine that is going up.