Title 49

SECTION 240.129

240.129 Criteria for monitoring operational performance of certified engineers.

§ 240.129 Criteria for monitoring operational performance of certified engineers.

(a) Each railroad shall adopt and comply with a program which complies with the requirements of this section. When any person, including, but not limited to, each railroad, railroad officer, supervisor, and employee, violates any requirement of a program which complies with the requirements of this section, that person shall be considered to have violated the requirements of this section.

(b) Each railroad shall have a program to monitor the operational performance of those it has determined as qualified as a locomotive engineer in any class of service. The program shall include procedures to address the testing of certified engineers who are not given both an operational monitoring observation and an unannounced compliance test in a calendar year pursuant to paragraph (h) of this section. At a minimum, such procedures shall include the following:

(1) A requirement that an operational monitoring observation and an unannounced compliance test must be conducted within 30 days of a return to service as a locomotive engineer; and

(2) The railroad must retain a written record indicating the date that the engineer stopped performing service that requires certification pursuant to this part, the date that the engineer returned to performing service that requires certification pursuant to this part, and the dates that the operational monitoring observation and the unannounced compliance test were performed.

(1) Be designed to determine that the person possesses and routinely employs the skills to safely operate locomotives and/or trains, including the proper application of the railroad's rules and practices for the safe operation of locomotives and trains;

(2) Be designed so that each engineer shall be monitored each calendar year by a Designated Supervisor of Locomotive Engineers, who does not need to be qualified on the physical characteristics of the territory over which the operational monitoring observation will be conducted;

(3) Be designed so that the locomotive engineer is either accompanied by the designated supervisor for a reasonable length of time or has his or her train handling activities electronically recorded by a train operations event recorder;

(d) The operational monitoring observation procedures may be designed so that the locomotive engineer being monitored either:

(i) Is at the controls of the type of train normally operated on that railroad or segment of railroad and which this person might be permitted or required by the railroad to operate in the normal course of events after certification or

(ii) Is at the controls of a Type I or Type II simulator programmed to replicate the responsive behavior of the type of train normally operated on that railroad or segment of railroad and which this person might be permitted or required by the railroad to operate in the normal course of events after certification.

(e) The unannounced compliance test program shall:

(1) Be designed so that, except for as provided in paragraph (h) of this section, each locomotive engineer shall be given at least one unannounced compliance test each calendar year;

(2) Designed to test:

(i) Engineer compliance with provisions of the railroad's operating rules that require response to signals that display less than a “clear” aspect, if the railroad operates with a signal system that must comply with part 236 of this chapter;

(ii) Engineer compliance with provisions of the railroad's operating rules, timetable or other mandatory directives that require affirmative response by the locomotive engineer to less favorable conditions than that which existed prior to initiation of the test; or

(iii) Engineer compliance with provisions of the railroad's operating rules, timetable or other mandatory directives violation of which by engineers were cited by the railroad as the cause of train accidents or train incidents in accident reports filed in compliance with part 225 of this chapter in the preceding calendar year;

(3) Designed so that the administration of these tests is effectively distributed throughout whatever portion of a 24-hour day that the railroad conducts its operations; and

(4) Designed so that individual tests are administered without prior notice to the engineer being tested.

(f) Each railroad's program shall indicate the types of actions the railroad will take in the event that it finds deficiencies with a locomotive engineer's performance during an operational monitoring observation or unannounced compliance test administered in accordance with the procedures required under § 240.303.

(g) Each railroad's program shall describe the scoring system used by the railroad during an operational monitoring observation or unannounced compliance test administered in accordance with the procedures required under § 240.303.

(h) A certified engineer who is not performing a service that requires certification pursuant to this part need not be given an unannounced compliance test or operational monitoring observation. However, when the certified engineer returns to a service that requires certification pursuant to this part, that certified engineer must be tested pursuant to this section and § 240.303 within 30 days of his or her return.

[56 FR 28254, June 19, 1991, as amended at 64 FR 60992, Nov. 8, 1999; 74 FR 68183, Dec. 23, 2009; 85 FR 81313, Dec. 15, 2020]