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Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Department of Transportation (DOT).
Notice of availability and request for comments.
This document provides the public with notice that, on August 6, 2026, the Belt Railway Company of Chicago (BRC) submitted a request for amendment (RFA) to its FRA-certified positive train control safety plan (PTCSP) to perform necessary maintenance and optimization of its operational technology network during September and October 2026. To complete this maintenance, BRC is requesting four planned windows during which work will be performed on the network infrastructure, and during which unplanned positive train control (PTC) system outages may occur. As this RFA involves a request for FRA's approval of proposed material modifications to an FRA-certified PTC system, FRA is publishing this notice and inviting public comment on BRC's RFA to its PTCSP.
FRA will consider comments received by September 1, 2026. FRA may consider comments received after that date to the extent practicable and without delaying implementation of valuable or necessary modifications to a PTC system.
Comments: Comments may be submitted by going to https://www.regulations.gov and following the online instructions for submitting comments.
Instructions: All submissions must include the agency name and the applicable docket number. The relevant PTC docket number for this host railroad is Docket No. FRA-2010-0062. For convenience, all active PTC dockets are hyperlinked on FRA's website at https://railroads.dot.gov/research-development/program-areas/train-control/ptc/railroads-ptc-dockets. All comments received will be posted without change to https://www.regulations.gov; this includes any personal information.
Gabe Neal, Staff Director, Signal, Train Control, and Crossings Division, telephone: 816-516-7168, email: Gabe.Neal@dot.gov.
In general, title 49 United States Code (U.S.C.) section 20157(h) requires FRA to certify that a host railroad's PTC system complies with title 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 236, subpart I, before the technology may be operated in revenue service. Before making certain changes to an FRA-certified PTC system or the associated FRA-approved PTC Safety Plan (PTCSP), a host railroad must submit, and obtain FRA's approval of, an RFA to its PTC system or PTCSP under 49 CFR 236.1021.
Under 49 CFR 236.1021(e), FRA's regulations provide that FRA will publish a notice in the Federal Register and invite public comment in accordance with 49 CFR part 211, if an RFA includes a request for approval of a material modification of a signal or train control system. Accordingly, this notice informs the public that, on August 6, 2026, BRC submitted an RFA to its PTCSP for its Interoperable Electronic Train Management System (I-ETMS), which notifies FRA of four planned windows during which work will be performed on BRC's network infrastructure and seeks approval for temporary outages of I-ETMS during these planned windows. BRC does not plan to disable I-ETMS and will take measures to avoid any outages, but transient network behavior and unforeseen impacts arising from maintenance activities could result in brief losses of communication between BRC's I-ETMS Back Office Subsystem and I-ETMS Onboard Subsystem. That RFA is available in Docket No. FRA-2010-0062.
Interested parties are invited to comment on BRC's RFA by submitting written comments or data. During FRA's review of BRC's RFA, FRA will consider any comments or data submitted within ( printed page 52110) the timeline specified in this notice and, to the extent practicable, without delaying implementation of valuable or necessary modifications to a PTC system. See49 CFR 236.1021; see also49 CFR 236.1011(e). Under 49 CFR 236.1021, FRA maintains the authority to approve, approve with conditions, or deny a railroad's RFA at FRA's sole discretion.
In accordance with 49 CFR 211.3, FRA solicits comments from the public to inform its decisions. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to https://www.regulations.gov, as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at https://www.transportation.gov/privacy. See https://www.regulations.gov/privacy-notice for the privacy notice of regulations.gov. To facilitate comment tracking, we encourage commenters to provide their name, or the name of their organization; however, submission of names is optional. If you wish to provide comments containing proprietary or confidential information, please contact FRA for alternate submission instructions.
Issued in Washington, DC.
Carolyn R. Hayward-Williams,
Director, Office of Railroad Systems and Technology.
[FR Doc. 2026-16430 Filed 8-11-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-06-P
1 comment has been received at Regulations.gov.
Agencies review all submissions and may choose to redact, or withhold, certain submissions (or portions thereof). Submitted comments may not be available to be read until the agency has approved them.