E6-5055. Petition for Waiver of Compliance

In accordance with Part 211 of Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), notice is hereby given that the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) received a request for a waiver of compliance with certain requirements of its safety standards. The individual petition is described below, including the party seeking relief, the regulatory provisions involved, the nature of the relief being requested, and the petitioner's arguments in favor of relief.

Canadian National Railway Company

The Canadian National Railway Company (CN) on behalf of its wholly owned subsidiaries, Illinois Central Railroad Company, Wisconsin Central, Ltd, Grand Trunk and Western Railroad Company, Chicago Central & Pacific Railroad Company, Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific Railroad Company, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Company, and the Duluth Missabe & Iron Range Railroad Company (hereinafter “CN”) seeks a waiver of compliance with the Locomotive Safety Standards, 49 CFR, 229.27(a)(2), and 229.29 (a), as they pertain to the requirement to clean, repair, and test airbrake equipment associated with “Canac” remote control equipment installed on the locomotive. CN requests to change the time interval requirements for the additional Canac equipment from biennial (736 days) to every 4 years (1472 days).

The request, if granted, would allow the additional Canac equipment to receive attention at the same time as the 26 L type brake equipment previously wavered under the petition identified as docket number FRA-2005-21325. According to the petitioner, the four-year maintenance period for the remote control brake equipment is the manufacturer's recommendation, and the four-year interval has been adopted by Transport Canada, as required maintenance interval for 26 L type Canac remote control locomotives operating in Canada.

Interested parties are invited to participate in these proceedings by submitting written views, data, or comments. FRA does not anticipate scheduling a public hearing in connection with these proceedings since the facts do not appear to warrant a hearing. If any interested party desires an opportunity for oral comment, they should notify FRA, in writing, before the end of the comment period and specify the basis for their request.

All communications concerning these proceedings should identify the appropriate docket number (FRA-2006-24224) and must be submitted to the Docket Clerk, DOT Docket Management Facility, Room PL-401 (Plaza Level), 400 7th Street, SW., Washington, DC 20590. Communications received within 45 days of the date of this notice will be considered by FRA before final action is taken. Comments received after that date will be considered as far as practicable. All written communications concerning these proceedings are available for examination during regular business hours (9 a.m.-5 p.m.) at the above facility. All documents in the public docket are also available for inspection and copying on the Internet at the docket facility's Web site at http://dms.dot.gov.

Anyone is able to search the electronic form of all comments received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register published on April 11, 2000 (Volume 65, Number 70; Pages 19477-78). The Statement may also be found at http://dms.dot.gov.

Issued in Washington, DC on March 31, 2006.

Grady C. Cothen, Jr.,

Deputy Associate Administrator for Safety Standards and Program Development.