RailIncident

Terms of Use and Data Accuracy Policy

Effective: 2026-10-09

Purpose and Independence

RailIncident provides maps, reports, summaries, and related information derived from Federal Railroad Administration records for general informational, educational, and research purposes.

RailIncident is an independent website based in California, United States. It is not operated by, affiliated with, or endorsed by the Federal Railroad Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation, or any railroad represented in the data.

RailIncident presents FRA source records through documented data-processing rules, maps, counts, and summaries. We do not provide causal analysis, interpretation of incident significance, or assessments of safety, risk, fault, or responsibility. We make substantial efforts to present the available data faithfully and transparently, without introducing editorial bias of any kind. These efforts do not guarantee that the source data or our processing is free from errors or omissions.

Federal Railroad Administration Data API Attribution

This product uses the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the FRA.

The Federal Railroad Administration may be identified as the source of FRA API content. RailIncident does not use the FRA name to imply endorsement, certification, sponsorship, or affiliation.

RailIncident distinguishes FRA source records from information that RailIncident has processed, combined, normalized, calculated, summarized, or otherwise derived. Derived material is identified as data processed by RailIncident from FRA reports and is not represented as unmodified FRA content or as an FRA determination.

FRA Data Processed by RailIncident

We process FRA source records using documented rules to identify incidents, link contributing reports, and apply consistent counting conventions. Processing may incorrectly combine separate incidents, fail to combine reports about the same incident, associate records with the wrong location or entity, or otherwise produce inaccurate results. This is not an official FRA certification or independent verification of every fact.

Accuracy, Completeness, and Discrepancies

We strive to preserve source provenance and disclose known discrepancies. Errors, omissions, inconsistencies, outdated information, and defects may exist in source records or in importing, processing, calculation, mapping, and presentation. Some problems may remain undetected. The absence of a discrepancy notice does not guarantee that a record is accurate, complete, current, or free from conflicting information. Notices are not an exhaustive audit.

Dates, Locations, and Totals

Dates and locations reflect available source information and our processing rules. Locations may be approximate or derived from source identifiers. Totals depend on eligibility, reporting requirements, coverage, and filters. Historical requirements and monetary thresholds have changed, and source records may be revised. Maps, colors, rankings, and counts do not establish safety, danger, fault, or future risk. An absence of displayed incidents does not establish an absence of incidents or hazards.

Independent Verification

Independently verify material facts against original records or authoritative sources before consequential decisions. This site is not designed for emergency response, navigation, railroad operations, crossing-safety decisions, or activities requiring authoritative, current, or precise information. It does not provide engineering, legal, operational, or safety advice. These statements do not transfer responsibility for our own unlawful conduct to users.

Warranty Disclaimer

RailIncident makes reasonable efforts to process FRA records and disclose known discrepancies. The data is provided “as is” and “as available.” To the extent permitted by applicable law, we disclaim express or implied warranties, including merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. We do not guarantee accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or freedom from errors. Use of and reliance on this information is at your own risk; independently verify material facts before making consequential decisions. This disclaimer is intended to apply only to the extent permitted by applicable law. It does not exclude any rights, remedies, or liabilities that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Limitation of Liability

To the extent permitted by applicable law, RailIncident and its operators and contributors disclaim liability for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages arising from access to, use of, or inability to use the website or its information, including lost profits, business opportunities, or data. Nothing in this policy excludes or limits responsibility for fraud, willful injury, willful misconduct, gross negligence, violations of law, or liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. Nonwaivable rights and remedies under California, federal, or other applicable law are preserved.

Licenses and Attribution

OpenStreetMap

Basemap data is © OpenStreetMap contributors and is available under the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0. Use or redistribution of OpenStreetMap data must comply with that license, including its applicable attribution and share-alike requirements. The FRA incident records displayed over the basemap are separately sourced; this acknowledgment does not designate those records as OpenStreetMap data.

Use of the OpenStreetMap public tile service is subject to its Tile Usage Policy. This section supplements the attribution displayed on the map. Use of OpenStreetMap does not imply endorsement of RailIncident.

MapLibre GL JS

Map rendering uses MapLibre GL JS, licensed under the BSD 3-Clause license. Copyright (c) 2023, MapLibre contributors. All rights reserved. The license permits use and redistribution subject to its notice-retention and other conditions; the software is provided with the warranty disclaimer and limitation of liability reproduced below. MapLibre and its contributors do not endorse this site.

The complete notices for the installed version, including bundled third-party notices, are reproduced below. These third-party licenses govern their respective data and software; these Data Terms do not replace or restrict rights granted by them.

Read the full MapLibre license and bundled notices
Copyright (c) 2023, MapLibre contributors

All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
      this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
      this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
      and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
    * Neither the name of MapLibre GL JS nor the names of its contributors
      may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
      without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR
CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.


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Contains code from mapbox-gl-js v1.13 and earlier

Version v1.13 of mapbox-gl-js and earlier are licensed under a BSD-3-Clause license

Copyright (c) 2020, Mapbox
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
  this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
  this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
  and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* Neither the name of Mapbox GL JS nor the names of its contributors
  may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
  without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR
CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE,
EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.


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Contains code from glfx.js

Copyright (C) 2011 by Evan Wallace

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.

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Contains a portion of d3-color https://github.com/d3/d3-color

Copyright 2010-2016 Mike Bostock
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
  list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
  this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
  and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

* Neither the name of the author nor the names of contributors may be used to
  endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior
  written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR
ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON
ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

External Sources and Advertising

External links are provided for reference. We do not control external websites or guarantee their content or availability. Advertising and links do not constitute endorsement. Nothing here excuses misleading representations or replaces required advertising disclosures.

Corrections and Questions

Report suspected errors to info@railincident.com. Include the relevant URL, incident or crossing identifier, and supporting source information. We may investigate and revise records or processing rules. A request does not guarantee an outcome or response time, except where law requires otherwise.

Updates and Preserved Rights

Changes apply prospectively from the published effective date and do not retroactively impose contractual obligations. Additional notice or agreement will be provided where required. If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions apply only as legally permitted. Personal-information and advertising practices are addressed in our Privacy Policy.