Defense Transportation: The Army Should Take Action to Better Ensure Adequate Rail Support to Combatant Commanders

According to Army officials and doctrine, rail is the most cost-effective and expeditious means of moving large quantities of materiel, such as tanks and ammunition, over long distances. During contingencies, approximately 67 percent of Army unit equipment moves by rail from its fort or base of origin to a shipping port.

House Report 116-120, which accompanied a bill for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, included a provision for GAO to review military rail capabilities—and their findings are now available.

Central to this review, GAO evaluated the extent to which the Army has taken action to 1) meet potential needs for rail operating crews and 2) inspect, repair, and monitor installations’ rail track. GAO found that the Army has taken some actions to provide rail operating crews, but has not determined requirements for the number of trained rail operating crews needed. In addition, while the Army has undertaken efforts to manage the condition of its rail track, challenges remain in conducting inspections, using waivers, and funding repairs.

GAO made three recommendations to the Army to determine the requirement for trained rail operating crews, quantify the risk of any shortfall of crews, and require and implement a quality assurance program to inform decision-making in providing oversight of rail track conditions:

1. The Secretary of the Army should ensure that Army Materiel Command determines the requirement for trained rail operating crews in the event of a mobilization and compares that requirement against its existing capability to meet deployment demands at key CONUS installations in support of large-scale combat operations.
2. The Secretary of the Army should ensure that the Army Materiel Command analyzes and quantifies the risk associated with the number of trained rail operating crews required and available to support a large-scale mobilization and takes action to mitigate any associated risk, as appropriate.
3. The Secretary of the Army should ensure that the Commander of the Army Materiel Command—the single manager for Army captive rail-fleet operations—requires a quality assurance program for the oversight of the condition of Army rail track, and implement such a program. The quality assurance program should at a minimum ensure the timely and complete inspection of rail track, the appropriate use of waivers for track use, the tracking and monitoring of repairs, the prioritization of rail improvement efforts, and periodic reporting of updated track conditions to decision-makers.

To read the full report go to: www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-411.pdf