Under the watch of then–President Donald Trump in May 2019, the Department of Transportation withdrew a proposed regulation that would have required all freight trains in the United States to operate with two-person crews.
That rule, which the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) had been contemplating since the waning days of the Obama administration, was backed by labor unions as a way to protect railroading jobs from automation that allows trains to operate safely with only a single person in control. After three years of investigating the issue, the FRA reported that accident data did not show two-person crews to be any safer than one-person crews. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) agreed, telling the FRA that "There is insufficient data to demonstrate that accidents are avoided by having a second qualified person in the cab."
