Federal law now protects passenger train crews from assault, mirroring aircraft protections.
H.R. 8894 — Passenger Rail Crew Protection Act · Filed by Laura Gillen (D-NY) · 6 cosponsors · Introduced May 19, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill makes it a federal crime to assault or intimidate a passenger train crew member (engineers, conductors, station staff, safety personnel) while aboard a train, on a platform, or in a rail station. Penalties range from 6 months imprisonment for simple assault up to 20 years for assault with intent to commit murder, mirroring the federal protections already in place for aircraft crew members.
Why we flagged it
The bill straightforwardly criminalizes assault on passenger rail workers at the federal level, paralleling existing federal protections for aircraft crew. It is a worker-safety and public-safety statute with no hidden mechanisms or narrow beneficiaries.
What the text implies
- Federal prosecution authority may reduce state-level variation in how rail assault is handled, creating uniform national standards for crew protection.
- The definition of 'crew member' extends to station employees (ticketing, baggage, boarding), broadening federal protection beyond on-train personnel.
- Penalties scale with intent and injury severity, creating graduated deterrence that may reduce mid-level assaults more effectively than flat penalties.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Passengers and crew members benefit from a safer rail environment with clear federal penalties for assault and intimidation. The law protects workers performing essential safety functions and creates a deterrent against violence that could endanger everyone aboard.
Named in the bill
Amtrak (intercity rail passenger transportation), Commuter rail agencies, Passenger train crew members, Title 49 United States Code (rail transportation law), Title 18 United States Code (federal criminal law), Section 1992 (aircraft crew protection statute)
Where it stands
6 cosponsors: 3 Democrats, 3 Republicans.
- May 19, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- May 19, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary and House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and in addition to the Committee on the…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $470,905 in lobbying spend. A filing names 38 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Laura Gillen, the sponsor, reported $1,002,749 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Int'l Ass'n of Sheet Metal Air Rail & Transp Workers Transp Div — $470,905 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,679 characters) on Jun 2, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Federal law now protects passenger train crews from assault, mirroring aircraft protections.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr8894 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.