The Federal Railroad Administration has issued a new final rule on freight car safety standards including limitations on cars or parts from China or another “country of concern.”
The rule, released Thursday and effective Jan. 21, 2025, fulfills a requirement of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The rule requires railcars to be manufactured or assembled in “a qualified facility by a qualified manufacturer.” In addition to limiting components from countries of concern or state-owned enterprises in such countries, it bars essential components or sensitive technology from such countries and enterprises. Penalties include prohibiting manufacturers from supplying freight cars for U.S. use.
“By enforcing stringent controls on where freight car technology and materials originate, this rule aims to minimize risks related to compromised security, ensuring that U.S. rail remains safe and reliable,” FRA Administrator Amit Bose said in a media release.
Under the rule originally proposed in 2023, railcar manufacturers would need to electronically certify to FRA that each freight car complies with the rule before it can operate on U.S. railroads. However, railcar manufacturers would not have a continuing obligation to certify their assets on a regular basis, nor would the rule apply to after-manufacture changes, or to cars already in service.
The Rail Security Alliance, a coalition of U.S. railcar manufacturers, suppliers and unions, praised the new rule. The group’s executive director, Erik Olson, said in a release that the rule “makes our freight rail interchange safer.” Olson also said the RSA looks forward to “working with the incoming Trump Administration to ensure this regulation remains intact to prevent Chinese incursion into the freight rail interchange.”
The RSA was formed in 2015 as Chinese firms, including state-owned CRRC Corp., the world’s largest builder of rolling stock, were looking to enter the American freight car market. CRRC had already supplied passenger equipment to a number of U.S. transit agencies. Vertex, a joint Chinese-American venture based in Wilmington, North Carolina, manufactured freight cars for the domestic market before closing in 2018.
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