The Safest Railroad Is Not the One With the Most Rules

The rulebook does not see the track

Railroads need rules. They set a common floor for work that can kill people when a movement is misunderstood. But a rulebook cannot see a temporary close clearance, a truck crossing inside an industry, a blocked walkway, or equipment parked where the crew expected room to stand. Those conditions exist on the ground, whether the paperwork describes them or not.

The danger begins when an organization treats the existence of a rule as proof that the exposure is controlled. A signed briefing can record what was discussed. It cannot make an unsafe route safe. A compliance score can tell management whether a required step was observed. It cannot, by itself, tell the conductor whether there is a safe position from which to protect the next shove.

A current warning from the NTSB

On September 21, the National Transportation Safety Board issued recommendations following investigations of 16 accidents since October 2020 involving workers riding rail equipment during shoving movements. Fourteen workers died and two were seriously injured. The NTSB urged the Federal Railroad Administration and Class I railroads to prohibit riding equipment for point protection, require safer alternatives, and use documented, site specific hazard assessments and briefings. It asked the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association to inform its members of the risk.

These are recommendations, not a new federal prohibition. Current federal rules require a briefing on communication and point protection, a qualified person to determine that the track is clear and direct the movement, and no unrelated tasks while directing it. Those requirements matter. The NTSB's findings ask a harder operating question: why is a worker being placed on moving equipment to provide that protection when a safer method may be available?

“A rule can define the floor. The operating plan has to make the work safe on the ground.”

Brief the actual movement

A useful job briefing is specific enough to change the plan. Which track? Which end is leading? Where are the close clearances, crossings, derails, switches, and temporary obstructions? Where can the employee stand or travel with a clear view? What happens when that view is lost? Who stops the movement, and what must be checked before it starts again?

The answer will differ by location and conditions. A vehicle, a safe ground position, or a properly designed camera arrangement may reduce exposure in one place. Poor walking conditions or limited access may create a different problem somewhere else. The crew needs a method that works at that site, on that shift, with that equipment. A generic instruction to be careful gives them no control.

Management owns the conditions it creates

If a crew must choose between the scheduled switch and the only safe way to make it, that is an operating design failure. Leaders control staffing, work windows, walkways, lighting, clearance markings, equipment, training, and the pressure attached to a delay. They cannot delegate every one of those choices to the person standing beside the moving car.

The strongest safety response is to remove or reduce exposure before asking for individual vigilance. Walk the property with the people who switch it. Record the hazards they identify. Fix what can be fixed. Provide the tools needed for the remaining work. Give crews a clear stop point and support the decision to use it. When conditions change, update the plan before the next movement, not after an incident.

Judge the system where work happens

Ask a crew to show how it would protect a shove at a difficult customer location. Listen to what the written plan misses. Watch whether the actual method matches the briefing and whether supervisors make time to resolve a mismatch. That examination is more revealing than counting signatures or adding another paragraph to the rulebook.

The safest railroad still has rules and enforces them. It also tests whether those rules can be carried out safely in the place where the work happens. If the plan depends on a worker accepting an avoidable exposure to keep the switch moving, the work needs to change. The number of rules cannot answer that for us.