For railroad employees working switching assignments, riding the point during a shove can put the worker directly in the path of close clearances, collisions, derailments, slack action, and crossing traffic. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) now says that exposure should end.
In a report adopted September 17, 2026, the NTSB recommended that the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) prohibit railroads from allowing employees to provide point protection by riding equipment during shoving movements. The agency also directly called on Class I railroads to prohibit the practice. The recommendations followed 16 NTSB investigations between October 2020 and December 2025 in which 14 railroad workers were killed, and two were seriously injured while riding equipment during shoving movements.
The significance goes beyond telling workers to be more careful. The NTSB is calling for railroads to identify hazards before the movement begins, evaluate safer ways to provide point protection, and include those hazards in the job briefing.
What Is the NTSB Recommending?
The NTSB issued several recommendations to change how shoving movements are protected.
It is asking the FRA to prohibit employees from providing point protection while riding railroad equipment. The NTSB also wants railroads to conduct and document site-specific hazard analyses and use that information during pre-job briefings. Class I railroads received parallel recommendations to make those changes directly, while the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association was asked to warn its members about the hazards identified in the report.
A site-specific analysis would look at factors including track, walkway, and roadway conditions; visibility; switches and derails; close clearances; employee safety; and whether technology or another method could provide point protection without requiring an employee to be on moving equipment.
That is an important change in emphasis. Instead of relying primarily on the worker at the point to decide whether riding is safe under the conditions they encounter, the NTSB wants the railroad to evaluate those conditions in advance and determine the safest method of protecting the shove.
Why Does the NTSB Want Workers Off Moving Equipment?
The NTSB identified several recurring ways workers have been killed or seriously injured while riding during shoving movements.
Close clearances can put a worker between the car they are riding and equipment, structures, loading docks, or other obstructions. Falls can occur because of slack action, unstable riding positions, or unexpected movement. At grade crossings, the employee riding the leading car can be directly exposed to highway vehicles. And when a shove results in a collision or derailment, a worker riding the exterior of a car has little protection from being thrown, pinned, or crushed.
The numbers cited by the NTSB are especially significant. Of 20 conductor fatalities reported to the FRA between January 2020 and July 2025, the NTSB said 14, or 70 percent, involved conductors riding trains during shoving movements. The report also cited Switching Operations Fatality Analysis data showing that 27 of 34 switching fatalities analyzed from 2011 through 2021 involved a shoving movement.
These hazards overlap directly with the types of switching, falling, struck-by, crush, and caught-between injuries addressed in railroad injuries and worksite hazards guidance.
The NTSB Is Also Questioning the Reliance on Worker Judgment
One of the most important parts of the report is its criticism of how the current system places safety decisions on individual employees.
The NTSB concluded that railroad industry rules rely heavily on employees to determine whether riding equipment is safe, necessary, or permissible. That becomes difficult when the hazard is not obvious from the worker’s position.
The report specifically identified temporary close clearances, unfamiliar yards, unusual railcar safety appliances, approaching traffic at skewed grade crossings, misaligned switches, crossovers, and derails as conditions that may expose workers to hazards they cannot adequately identify or control while riding.
The NTSB also reported that, in many of the investigations it reviewed, employees rode equipment without supervisory objection even when safer methods of point protection were available. Those alternatives can include employees positioned on the ground, walking alongside the movement, utility vehicles, shove lights, additional employees, and camera-assisted technology.
That distinction matters. There is a major difference between a railroad having a written rule that tells an employee to determine whether riding is safe and the railroad actually identifying hazards, providing a safer work method, and ensuring that the safer method is used.
This Is a Recommendation, Not Yet a New Federal Ban
Railroad workers should understand what the NTSB action does and does not change.
The NTSB recommendation does not itself amend federal railroad regulations. In its September 2026 report, the NTSB explained that current 49 CFR § 218.99 allows employees to ride equipment while providing point protection during shoving movements. The NTSB is now asking the FRA to change that regulatory framework and prohibit the practice.
The FRA had already issued safety warnings addressing the dangers. Its 2023 safety bulletins addressed fatalities involving riding equipment, unstable riding positions, and close clearances. More recently, FRA Safety Advisory 2025-02 focused on point protection and “track is clear” determinations at certain highway-rail grade crossings.
The new NTSB recommendation goes substantially further. It is not asking railroads simply to improve riding procedures. It is asking them to eliminate the use of riding equipment for point protection.
Until applicable regulations or railroad rules change, employees should continue to follow current operating rules, safety requirements, and lawful workplace procedures. The NTSB recommendation should not be treated as permission to disregard an existing rule or instruction.
What Could This Mean After a Shoving-Movement Injury?
When a railroad worker is injured while riding equipment during a shove, the fact that the employee was riding does not answer the larger question of why that work method was being used.
Under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), a covered railroad can be liable when railroad negligence contributes in whole or in part to an employee’s injury. Whether negligence exists depends on the particular facts.
For a worker injured while providing point protection, an investigation may need to examine questions such as whether riding was required, expected, permitted, or simply customary at that location; whether supervisors knew employees regularly rode the movement; whether safer alternatives were available; whether close clearances or other hazards had been identified; what was covered in the job briefing; whether switches and derails were properly addressed; whether the worker had adequate visibility; what training had been provided; and whether previous complaints, injuries, or near misses had identified the same hazard.
The NTSB recommendation does not automatically establish negligence in an individual FELA case. But the agency’s findings can make the railroad’s work methods, hazard assessments, supervision, job briefings, training, and available alternatives important areas of investigation.
For a broader explanation of how those issues fit into a claim: How negligence and evidence work under FELA.
What If the Railroad Says the Worker Chose to Ride?
That defense deserves close examination, particularly in light of the NTSB’s findings.
A railroad may argue after an injury that the employee decided to ride, positioned themselves improperly, failed to identify a clearance problem, or otherwise violated a safety rule. But the investigation should not stop with the employee’s decision.
The NTSB specifically criticized an approach that depends heavily on the individual worker to determine whether the movement is safe while potentially lacking information about temporary close clearances, unusual equipment, switch alignment, crossing traffic, or other hazards. It also documented situations in which employees rode with no supervisory objection despite the availability of safer alternatives.
Under FELA, an allegation that the worker contributed to an injury does not automatically eliminate a claim. FELA uses comparative negligence principles, so the railroad’s conduct and the employee’s conduct must be evaluated in context. The actual work practice, training, supervision, enforcement of rules, and availability of safer methods can all matter.
Learn how a FELA case is investigated and developed.
Evidence Can Matter After an Injury During a Shove
A serious shoving-movement injury can quickly trigger a railroad investigation. Conditions in the yard can also change almost immediately.
Workers and families should preserve information they lawfully have and identify evidence that may need to be preserved, including the location and track involved, railcar identification, the planned route of the movement, switch and derail positions, visible close-clearance markings, the job briefing, radio communications, surveillance or yard camera footage, photographs, witness names, supervisor instructions, and information about how point protection was normally performed at that location.
The presence of vehicles, cameras, shove lights, additional crew members, safe walking routes, or other potential alternatives may also become relevant.
Our guidance on what to do after a railroad injury explains additional steps workers can take to protect their health and preserve accurate information after a serious injury.
Injured During a Shoving Movement?
The NTSB’s latest recommendations reflect a serious concern about exposing railroad workers to hazards while riding equipment during shoving movements. If you were seriously injured while riding railroad equipment, or if your family lost a railroad worker during switching operations, the circumstances warrant a careful investigation of the work method, job briefing, yard conditions, supervision, railroad rules, and any safer alternatives that may have been available.
McEldrew Purtell represents railroad workers and families in FELA matters. You can contact our railroad injury team for a free and confidential consultation to discuss what happened and whether railroad negligence may have contributed to the injury or death.