The Northeast Operating Rules Advisory Committee (NORAC) is a body of railroads that establish a set of operating rules for railroads in North America. The NORAC rulebook is used by full and associate member railroads, located mostly in the Northeast United States.

Members

Full members

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

(AMTK) *

Conrail Shared Assets Operations Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CSAO) is the commonly used name for modern-day Conrail (reporting mark CRCX), an American railroad company. It operates three networks, the North Jersey, South Jersey/Philadelphia, and Detroit Shared Assets Are ...

(CR) *

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of track, it is the lead ...

(CSXT) * Keolis Commuter Services: Boston (KCS) *

New Jersey Transit Rail Operations NJ Transit Rail Operations is the rail division of NJ Transit. It operates commuter rail service in New Jersey, with most service centered on transportation to and from New York City, Hoboken, and Newark. NJ Transit also operates rail servic ...

(NJTR) * New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway Corp. (NYSW) *

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

(NS) *

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority SEPTA, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly four million people throughou ...

(SEPTA)

Associate members

* Adirondack Scenic Railroad (ADIX) * Adrian and Blissfield Railroad (ABDF) * Bay Colony Railroad (BCLR) *

Buckingham Branch Railroad Buckingham Branch Railroad is a Class III short-line railroad operating over 275 miles (443 km) of historic and strategic trackage in Central Virginia. Sharing overhead traffic with CSX and Amtrak, the company's headquarters are in Dill ...

(BB) * Cape Cod Central Railroad * Cape May Seashore Lines (CMSL) *

Central New England Railroad The Central New England Railroad is a railroad in and near Hartford, Connecticut. It began operations in 1995 on former Conrail trackage. Central New England Railroad operates two different lines in Connecticut: the Armory Branch and the Griffin ...

(CNZR) * Central Railroad Company of Indiana (CIND) * Central Railroad Company of Indianapolis (CERA) *Chesapeake and Delaware LLC * Connecticut Southern Railroad (CSO) *C&S Railroad Corporation *East Jersey Railroad & Terminal Co. (EJR) * Finger Lakes Railway (FGLK) * Flats Industrial Railroad (FIR) * Fore River Transportation Corporation (FRVT) * Genesee Valley Transportation (GVT) * Housatonic Railroad Company (HRRC) * Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad (IHB) * Luzerne and Susquehanna Railway (LS) * Maine Eastern Railroad (MERR) *

Massachusetts Central Railroad The Massachusetts Central Railroad is a short line railroad in western Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1975 to provide railroad transportation services on portions of the Boston & Maine Wheelwright Branch in and around their ...

(MCER) * Massachusetts Coastal Railroad (MC) * Milford-Bennington Railroad (MBRX) * Morristown and Erie Railway (ME) *Mountain Division Railway Corporation *Narragansett Bay Railroad Company *

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

* Naugatuck Railroad Company (NAUG) * New Hope and Ivyland Railroad (NHRR) * New York and Greenwood Lake Railway (NYGL) * New York New Jersey Rail, LLC (NYNJ) * North Shore Railroad (NSHR) *

Northern Central Railway The Northern Central Railway (NCRY) was a Class I Railroad in the United States connecting Baltimore, Maryland, with Sunbury, Pennsylvania, along the Susquehanna River. Completed in 1858, the line came under the control of the Pennsylvania R ...

(NCRY) *Owego & Hartford Railway, Inc. (OHRY) * Pennsylvania Northeastern Railroad (PNE) * Plymouth & Lincoln Railroad *Port Jersey Railroad (PJR) *Raritan Central Railway (RCRY) * Seaview Transportation Company (SVTX) * Seminole Gulf Railway (SGLR) * SMS Rail Service (SLRS) * Somerset Railroad (SOM) * Southern New Jersey Rail Group (NJ Transit RiverLINE) *

Southern Railroad of New Jersey The Southern Railroad of New Jersey is a small short-line railroad company based in Winslow Township, New Jersey. The railroad operates freight service in two areas in Southern New Jersey. In the Winslow area, trains operate out of Winslow Junc ...

(SRNJ) * Springfield Terminal Railway Company, d/b/a Pan Am Railways (ST) * Valley Railroad (VALE) *

West Chester Railroad The West Chester Railroad is a privately owned and operated Heritage railway, tourist railroad that runs between Market Street in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, Chester County, and the village of Glen Mills, Pennsy ...

(WCRL) * Winamac Southern Railway (WSRY) * Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad

Overview

The NORAC rules are intended to enhance

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

safety Safety is the state of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings The word 'safety' entered the English language in the 1 ...

. The rules cover employee responsibilities, signaling equipment, procedures for safe train movement, dealing with accidents and other topics that directly and indirectly affect railroad safety. These rules govern operation on main lines, defined as those with some form of block control system. The 10th edition of the NORAC operating rules went into effect on November 6, 2011. The 11th edition of the NORAC operating rules went into effect on February 1, 2018. The 12th edition of the NORAC Operating Rules went into effect on January 1, 2024.

History

In January 1985, six railroads (

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

, Metro-North,

New Jersey Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit or NJTransit and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey and portions of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. It ...

, and Delaware & Hudson) met in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...

with the goal to create a common operating rulebook. In May 1985, a second meeting was held, with eight railroads present, five of the original six (Metro-North withdrew) plus Providence and Worcester,

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , or LIRR, is a Rail transport, railroad in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County on Long Islan ...

, and Boston & Maine. The first rulebook was released in January 1987. It contained rules for three types of train control: automatic block (ABS), manual block (MBS), and voice (VCS). The MBS and VCS systems were both governed by NORAC's Form D, which is a train order transmitted directly to the train. In 1993 the fourth edition combined the MBS and VCS rules into a single "Form D Control System" (DCS).

References

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External links

NORAC: Northeast Operating Rules Advisory CommitteeU S Department of Transportation - Compliance with Railroad Operating Rules and Corporate Culture Influences, October 1999
Railway signaling in the United States Rail transportation in North America