PROTECTING RAIL WORKERS
Rail workers keep the nation’s rail network running. They inspect and maintain track and highway–railroad grade crossings, operate trains, repair equipment, and perform countless tasks essential to safe rail transportation.
Rail workers also face risks every day. They operate near train and highway traffic. They build and repair track near heavy machinery in loud, complicated environments. They work with railcars that are an efficient mode of transportation because they are designed to roll easily (steel wheels on steel rail)—and can therefore move quietly and unexpectedly with little force applied. Railroad equipment is also large and heavy and can result in catastrophic injuries or fatalities when something goes wrong. The NTSB regularly investigates accidents in which workers are struck by or caught between trains, highway vehicles, roadway maintenance machines, and other moving equipment.
These tragedies are preventable. NTSB investigations continue to show that the risks railroad workers face can be overcome. The lessons learned from decades of accident investigations point to three solutions:
- Eliminate unnecessarily dangerous practices
- Expand use of safety technology on roadway maintenance machines
- Use job briefings to identify and plan for hazards
All of us—the railroads and other industry partners, regulators, and labor organizations—must continue to work together to prevent fatalities and injuries. We can make the rail system safer for everyone, including the workers who keep it moving.
ELIMINATE UNSAFE PRACTICES
The best way to protect railroad workers is to eliminate risks not necessary to their work. Our investigations have identified two industry practices that unnecessarily place railroad workers in harm’s way and account for a high percentage of worker fatalities: riding railcars during shoving movements, and relying on train approach warning to protect roadway workers.
Riding Railcars During Shoving Movements
Conductors protect shoving movements—reverse movements when an engineer in a locomotive usually cannot see the railcar leading the movement—by monitoring the path of the train and communicating with the engineer about hazards. Providing protection by riding the lead railcar (“riding point”) is a common practice throughout the rail industry, but it is unnecessary. Riding point exposes conductors to risks they do not encounter when providing protection from the ground:
- Close-clearance locations where conductors can be struck by objects near the tracks
- Highway-rail grade crossings where highway traffic can collide with lead railcars
- Falls from equipment that place conductors in the path of the train
The NTSB has also identified factors that increase the risks of riding point, like poor visibility, hard-to-use railcar safety appliances, and railroads’ failures to clearly identify hazardous areas.
Railroads can protect their employees from all these risks by using alternative means of protecting shoving movements:
- Station conductors on the ground
- Provide vehicles and safe walking conditions to facilitate conductors’ movement within railyards
- Adopt technology to enable conductors and engineers to monitor trains’ paths from safe positions
The NTSB has issued safety recommendations highlighting specific hazards of riding point, including close clearance locations, highway-railroad grade crossings without active warning devices, and railcar safety appliances that can lead to unstable riding positions.
Train Approach Warning
Train approach warning is a method of protecting roadway work groups by stationing one or more lookouts to watch for trains. When railroads use train approach warning, workers’ safety depends on the lookouts spotting approaching trains and communicating the danger to the rest of the group in time for them to reach a place of safety. This method can fail because of poor visibility, in multi-track environments where workers cannot see what track an approaching train is on, or when factors like loud equipment or train movements on other tracks prevent effective communication. Even when environmental conditions are favorable, train approach warning relies on the lookout to be fully engaged at all times which introduces a single point of failure that can result in tragic consequences.
There are safer alternatives to train approach warning. Federal regulations and railroad operating rules describe ways of protecting roadway workers by excluding all train traffic for a fixed period or giving work groups control of train speeds or passage through the work area. This prevents trains from entering established work zone limits without coordinating with an on-scene roadway worker-in-charge.
The NTSB has called on the FRA to prohibit use of train approach warning when it poses an unacceptable risk. We have also recommended that Amtrak and all Class I railroads eliminate use of train approach warning during planned maintenance and inspection activities in controlled track territory, where positive train control systems provide reliable ways of enforcing speed and work zone limits.
ADOPT SAFETY TECHNOLOGIES
Roadway workers often work near roadway maintenance machines (RMM): heavy equipment designed to operate on railroad tracks. The NTSB has investigated multiple fatal accidents in which RMMs have struck and fatally injured roadway workers. Several factors contributed to these accidents:
- Limited visibility from RMM operating cabs
- Background noise that keeps workers from hearing approaching RMMs
- Failure of alarms and horns designed to alert workers of approaching RMMs
All these factors can be addressed through current safety technologies. The NTSB has called on railroads to install protective technologies on RMMs, including backup cameras, automatic emergency braking, and systems to immobilize booms and other moving extensions when workers approach.
The rail industry can also expand or improve use of technologies that protect railroad workers and the public from hazards such as derailments and collisions.
IMPROVE JOB BRIEFINGS
Job briefings play a key role for train crews, roadway workers, and other railroad employees, identifying how work will be performed and what resources are needed.
But job briefings are also an opportunity to identify, discuss, and mitigate hazards. Each rail environment and task involves its own dangers, and changing conditions mean that the same job carries different risks on different days. Track grades, inclement weather, work happening in the same yard, and nearby train and highway traffic all produce unique hazards. Effective job briefings can mitigate these hazards by giving workers a chance to plan for:
- Equipment that could move unexpectedly
- Unsafe areas like close clearance locations
- Remote-controlled locomotive zones
- Train and highway traffic
- Unfamiliar or unusual tasks
- Changes in working conditions
Railroads can strengthen job briefings through training, safety and operating rules, and oversight programs that work together to produce a strong safety culture. By fostering a culture that prioritizes safety and giving workers clear guidance on how to spot, talk about, and mitigate hazards, railroads can take job briefings from “how the work gets done” to “how the work gets done safely.”
Regulators can play a role by strengthening requirements for railroad oversight programs to ensure compliance with rail worker protection rules. Additionally, when conducting field observations, regulators should participate in railroad job briefings and call attention to safety gaps when job briefings do not address site specific hazards and mitigations.
Open Recommendations that represent critical safety priorities
Rail worker safety covers all areas of rail service (freight, passenger, etc.), and includes measures to protect operations Many of our safety recommendations provide better protection for all rail workers.
To the Federal Railroad Administration:
R-25-007: Require all on-track roadway maintenance machines with booms or other movable extensions be equipped with a 360° people detection system that covers the length of the boom or extension in all directions and alerts operators when people are within an unsafe proximity.
R-25-006: Require all on-track roadway maintenance machines (RMMs) be equipped with collision avoidance systems that can detect people, objects, or other machines on the ground and automatically stop the RMM before a collision. (Superseded by Safety Recommendation R-23-22)
R-25-002: Issue guidance on the proper use of railcar safety appliances based on the results of the research described in R-25-1, and encourage railroads to review and revise their operating rules and training for riding equipment based on the federal guidance.
R-25-001: Conduct research on the effects of foot and hand placement on all railcar safety appliances, taking into consideration the effects that slack action and other railcar movements have on the human body’s center of gravity, to determine where railroad employees can place their feet and hands on these appliances to safely and securely ride equipment, and make the research publicly available.
R-23-019: Revise 49 Code of Federal Regulations 218.99(e)(4)(iv) to require ground protection when conducting shoving movements through highway-railroad grade crossings equipped only with flashing lights or passive warning devices.
R-21-003: Modify Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations Part 214 to prohibit the use of train approach warning in controlled track territory during planned maintenance and inspection activities.
R-20-006: Define when the risks associated with using train approach warning are unacceptable and revise Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations 214.329 to prohibit the use of train approach warning when the defined risks are unacceptable.
R-20-005: Revise your oversight inspection process to focus on roadway worker activities, especially when roadway workers are using train approach warning for protection.
R-17-018: Require railroads to install technology on hi-rail, backhoes, other independently operating pieces of maintenance-of-way equipment, and on the leading and trailing units of sets of maintenance-of-way equipment operated by maintenance workers to provide dispatchers and the dispatch system an independent source of information on the locations of this equipment to prevent unauthorized incursions by trains onto sections of track where maintenance activities are taking place in accordance with the Congressional mandate under the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
To Amtrack and Class 1 Railroads:
R-25-009: Require all on-track roadway maintenance machines (RMMs) with booms or other movable extensions, including leased or contracted RMMs, be equipped with a 360° people detection system that covers the length of the boom or extension in all directions and alerts operators when people are within an unsafe proximity.
R-25-008: Require all on-track roadway maintenance machines (RMMs), including leased or contracted RMMs, to be equipped with collision avoidance systems that can detect people, objects, and other machines on the ground and automatically stop the RMM before a collision.
R-25-003: Prohibit employees from riding railroad equipment with their feet on railcar safety appliances that restrict foot placement.
R-21-005: Eliminate the use of train approach warning protection in controlled track territory during planned maintenance and inspection activities.
