The Federal Railroad Administration is asking for comments on the information collection behind freight-rail Risk Reduction Programs. The August 14 notice covers the program required of every Class I freight railroad and freight railroads that FRA identifies as having inadequate safety performance; Class II and III railroads may participate voluntarily. Comments on docket FRA-2026-1585 are due October 13.
This is a Paperwork Reduction Act review, not a proposal to remove the risk-reduction rule. Covered railroads still operate under written, FRA-approved plans that identify and analyze hazards, develop mitigation measures, include fatigue-risk management, undergo annual internal assessment and remain subject to FRA audit. A smaller paperwork estimate does not narrow those obligations.
FRA now estimates 426 annual responses and 31,192 burden hours, with an annual burden-hour dollar equivalent of about $2.81 million. FreightNews calculated that the hour estimate is 48.7% below the previously approved 60,860 hours. That percentage describes FRA's revised accounting assumptions, not a measured reduction in safety work across the rail network.
Several counting changes drive the revision. FRA reduced its estimate of freight railroads with inadequate safety performance from 15 to two, increased the estimate of voluntarily participating railroads from zero to 10, and said every Class I railroad already has a Risk Reduction Program plan in place. The agency does not expect a new Class I railroad during the collection's three-year period.
The largest-looking adjustment is also the easiest to misread. FRA cut the reported burden associated with managing safety outreach from 44,333 hours to 50 hours because the earlier figure included time railroad employees spent reading emails, watching educational videos and taking part in other outreach that the rulemaking economic analysis had already counted. The new figure is intended to capture the railroad's paperwork for managing communications, not to declare that employee outreach should consume only 50 hours nationwide.
The service implication is an inference: customers should not treat the lower burden estimate as evidence that network risk, fatigue exposure or disruption probability has fallen. Those outcomes depend on how railroads identify hazards, implement mitigations and manage operations. The notice changes the federal estimate of recordkeeping effort while inviting evidence on whether that estimate is accurate.
Railroad safety, labor and operations teams should use the comment period to test FRA's assumptions against the work they actually perform. Useful submissions can separate plan amendments, hazard analysis, employee consultation, fatigue-program updates, annual assessments and outreach administration, then document the people, time and systems each task requires. Shippers and intermodal partners should keep evaluating service through current terminal, train and lane evidence rather than a paperwork total.