Assistance program
Railroad Safety Technology Grants
$310.9 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Federal Railroad Administration, Transportation, Department of
- Assistance
- Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 20.321
- What it does
- To facilitate the deployment of train control technologies, train control component technologies, processor-based technologies, electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, rail integrity inspection systems, rail integrity warning systems, switch position indicators and monitors, remote control power switch technologies, track integrity circuit technologies, and other new or novel railroad safety technology.
- Who benefits
- Passenger and freight railroad carriers; Railroad suppliers; and State and local governments for projects that have a public benefit of improved safety and network efficiency. To be eligible for assistance, the above entities subject to 49 U.S.C. 20157(a) must have submitted a revised Positive Train Control Implementation Plan (PTCIP) to FRA as required by 49 U.S.C. 20157(a). FRA considers the development and submission of a revised PTCIP under 49 U.S.C. 20157(a) to meet the eligibility requirement related to submitting a plan required under 49 U.S.C. 20156(e)(2) containing an analysis of the impact, feasibility, costs and benefits of implementing PTC system technology. FRA believes that any submission connected to sec. 20156(e)(2), which has yet to be incorporated into a Federal regulation, would merely be duplicative of what a railroad analyzed when it developed and submitted a revised PTCIP. Thus, FRA considers the submission of a revised PTCIP to meet the eligibility requirements in 49 U.S.C. 20158(b)(3) for purposes of this NOFO. If an applicant is not required to comply with either sec. 20157(a) or sec. 20156(e)(2), the applicant must demonstrate that to FRA's satisfaction in its NOFO application Individuals are not eligible for these awards
- Who applies
- Not Applicable
- Authorized by
- Section 105 of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 as modified by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, Division L, Title I (Public Law 114-113 (December 18, 2015)
- Program site
- https://railroads.dot.gov ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments