■ From the Field

THE IRON IN THE FIRE On the Railway Safety Act, the Politics That Delayed It, and the Field That Lives Without It

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee marks up the BUILD America 250 Act this week. The Railway Safety Act is the amendment. Trump has endorsed it. Vance has staked his legislative reputation on it. The AAR's CEO has spent the week on cable television arguing the railroad should be more like a truck. Twenty-four organizations have signed a letter against inclusion; a million dollars in ad money has been deployed to kill it. This piece reads the bill itself — every section, every subsection — and measures it against what the field actually does at 2 AM when a trending bearing crosses three successive detectors and the threshold has not yet flagged it. Pro-field. Not pro-industry. Not pro-union. The distinction matters.