Currently, inspections of rail shipments are conducted by railroads, the FRA, and states through the FRA’s existing State Rail Safety Participation Program (SRSPP). The SRSPP was established in 1970 to supplement federal inspection efforts and allow states to have a continuing role in rail safety regulation following the Federal preemption of independent state regulation. SSRP inspectors perform oversight to monitor rail carrier compliance with inspection regulations but they are not generally responsible for regulatory inspections (Maheras 2020). As of 2019, 31 states and the District of Columbia participated in the FRA SRSPP. The states and the FRA work under a cooperative agreement that allows state inspectors to become FRA-certified and perform inspections in one or more of five rail safety inspection disciplines. The disciplines that would be applicable to DOE shipments of SNF and HLW are Motive Power & Equipment and Hazardous Material safety. The SRSPP allows states to oversee rail operations within their states under the guidance of the FRA. There is no role for Tribes with regard to FRA inspections, as Tribal governments currently cannot participate in the SRSPP. It remains an open question as to whether Tribes would have any authority to inspect rail shipments of SNF or HLW; this issue is a topic of discussion between the FRA and the NTSF Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (Maheras 2020). The FRA has an ongoing recruiting effort for state programs. In addition, DOE staff have done proactive outreach through the Association of State Rail Safety Managers to solicit interest in the development of a reciprocal rail inspection program. Because NRC package inspections would also occur at NRC-licensee points of origin, there is ongoing coordination with the NRC related to inspection protocols. The R/R AHWG devoted much of its attention in 2017 and 2018 to work on route selection (see Route Selection ). The AHWG renewed its attention towards the rail inspection protocol in late 2018. Acknowledging that a great deal of work had been done on this topic in the past, DOE asserted that topics to be discussed should include specific checklists for specific railcars, the data gathered from monitoring the S-2043 rail car, and the railroad operating environment, which is distinct from the environment in which truck operations take place (R/R AHWG 2019a). Development of a reciprocal rail inspection programwas also a discussion topic at the Transportation Core Group meeting held in August 2019 (Maheras 2019b). DOE stated the purpose for developing such a program and referenced past efforts to do so. The need to understand who currently conducts inspections and what is covered was noted. While rail carriers, states, and the FRA all conduct inspections of rail shipments in the U.S., the reports from these inspections are typically viewed as confidential or proprietary for the railroads; therefore, they are not shared. In addition, the inspections
carried out by state and federal rail safety inspectors under the SRSPP are not railroad safety inspections. These inspections are intended to monitor railroad compliance with safety requirements by inspecting a sample of shipments. Because AAR S-2043 is not an FRA regulatory requirement, deficiencies under S-2043 would not currently be captured on FRA’s F 6180.96 inspection form. The AAR has a comprehensive inspection requirement contained in Appendix A of S-2043 that includes inspections before and after the railcar has been loaded (Maheras 2020). DOE presented a draft “Proposed Reciprocal Rail Safety Inspection Outline” to members of the R/R AHWG during a meeting in June 2019. One year later, DOE shared with members its “Draft Railcar Safety Inspection Protocol” (Inspection Protocol) for comment. As contemplated in DOE’s proposed outline, the draft Inspection Protocol begins with a statement of purpose for a reciprocal rail inspection protocol and a summary of past efforts to develop reciprocal rail inspection documents, as well as a discussion of how such documents relate to the FRA Safety Compliance Oversight Plan (SCOP). Consistent with its proposed outline, DOE’s draft Inspection Protocol provides an overview of the DOE, DOT, and FRA requirements that apply to rail shipments of hazardous materials, including inspection requirements (ibid.). In developing its draft protocol, DOE relied on a simplified concept of operations for shipments of SNF, which anticipates a rail consist with locomotives, buffer railcars, cask-carrying railcars, and a rail escort vehicle. The concept of operations includes shipments conducted under a direct rail scenario, a rail scenario with a heavy haul truck transload, and a rail scenario with a barge transload (Maheras 2020). DOE’s proposed outline envisioned that there would be specific inspection checklists for locomotives, cask-carrying Atlas railcars, buffer cars, and the rail escort vehicle (Maheras 2019a). The draft Inspection Protocol includes inspection checklists for the Atlas railcar and buffer cars. The rail escort vehicle inspection checklists have not yet been developed but will eventually be incorporated into the draft protocol. The draft Inspection Protocol does not include a specific checklist for locomotives but describes the items that would be included in the locomotive inspection. DOE’s draft Railcar Safety Inspection Protocol incorporates the elements of DOT’s existing regulatory hazmat inspection. The draft Protocol further proposes that DOE shipments of SNF would be subjected to extra-regulatory hazmat inspection items that are based on the CVSA Level VI inspections (ibid.). The proposed outline contemplated two distinct types of inspections: a comprehensive inspection to be conducted at the commencement of the rail shipment and a shorter inspection that would take place at scheduled stops such as crew changes, refueling, or at 1500-mile intervals (Maheras 2019a). According to the draft protocol, inspections would be performed at the point of origin, transload location or port; the draft protocol does not call for en route inspections (Maheras 2020). Furthermore, “(a) protocol for conducting further train inspections or for stopping a train would need to include considerations of both safety and security.…
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