In the US the Brandt vehicles are limited to MW activity as they are not considered locomotives by the FRA. They don't have the various features and so are operated by MW personnel, not certified locomotive engineers. There was a lot of debate about this in the Rail Safety Advisory Committee. For example, even if this is not a locomotive, couldn't it reposition a revenue car in order to reach its MW equipment? No.

In Canada, they can be used more freely and are certainly excellent for certain services. For example a crew can provide switching service to a customer at the end of a low speed branch and then jump on the highway to go to another customer rather spend hours moving along the rails to the next job.