I actually get where RCD is coming from with that comment, he's not saying it's ok to do stuff when the FRA isn't around... he's saying doing something un-OK is even less OK when the FRA is around.

Or when that un-OK thing is all over the news.

And I've won spelling bees and I don't care how people spell.

Something like that happened to me at a non-RR museum once. I was on an airplane in a museum, taking measurements and photos, will a scaffolding provided by the museum, with several of their people around me. Everything was on the up and up and we were being very safe indeed.
A crusty old museum staffer many apparently didn’t like much went out of his mind when he saw me from the opposite side, thinking I saw standing on top of an engine cowling from his perspective. He started screaming at me from the other side of the bird, dropping a lot of curse words (plenty of kids around at the time). I thought he was going to have a stroke. I just kept on doing what I was doing as I knew I was right (and the director of the museum was watching me from less than 10 feet away) but I did gesture for him to walk around to where I was. That drove him out of his mind and started screaming bloody murder. One of the other staff went over to him and told him to pipe down.
I heard later on he was roasted badly at the next museum meeting for not bothering to come around to the other side, where he’d have seen I was operating well within safety guidelines, with half the staff standing around. That, and cursing a blue steak in front of a bunch of kids. He was made to look quite the fool and he apparently quit right after the meeting as he lacked the ability to take criticism or be able to laugh at himself.

in 1967 i hired out with the CNW. Passed my rules and signals and went to work. Two or three jobs after I started I joined a crew of old heads. They took me out to East end of Five in Proviso and kicked a transfer caboose at me and had me board it and set the brake. Repeated it a bunch of times. They taught me how to get on and off safely. How to set a brake. How to look both ways. How to use my eyes and ears. And a lot more. I'm still grateful to those guys for the safety lessons. Saved my life a dozen times.
These were all old steam era guys and they really cared about safety. I still get the shivers around trains. Healthy shivers.
My last job was south skate in the hump yard. The guy who replaced me the night after I quit lost his left arm and his left leg boarding a gondola loaded with scrap. Got knocked off by a piece of scrap because he wasn't looking up when he climbed the ladder for the brake. Went under the wheels. He was able to call on his radio or he would have bled out right there.
There's simply nothing more important than safety. Nothing.

Amen, brother.
In the Army, I had to do three death notifications, every one to young (not aware they were yet) widows, all pregnant. It's one of those scenes that the movies get 100% correct. Each name is burned into my brain forever.
Only one of them was killed by something the solider had no control over. The other two just weren't keeping their head on a swivel. One broke basic safety protocalls and his best friend (who really didn't do anything wrong, the other guy walked well inside the driver's field of vision and paid dearly for it) will have to live with killing him, for the rest of his life.
So many lives altered, ended or ruined forever, just because people don't sometimes stop and look around when they should.

Indeed. I worked for the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in high school and college and grew up around general aviation. When I went to work for the railroad, the first thing the old hands taught me was how to properly board both standing and moving. They also demonstrated the dangers of the blind spots with various pieces of equipment. They also drilled home the fact that ultimately, every person is responsible for their own safety. The key element that they emphasized was being fully aware of what is going on around you at all times. That meant listening to all sound signals and watching what was going on around you.

The same was true with aviation. I never go out on the ramp without looking to see what is going on. Look and listen for props turning. Even if it seems that nothing is going on, look at the navigation lights as you approach each aircraft. If they're on, that airplane is probably preparing for engine start. Be aware of the danger zones around each aircraft and do not go in those areas unless the pilot is aware of your presence.

I remember one day that a passenger came within a second of losing a hand. We had arrived at the end of the line and the steam locomotive had uncoupled and was about to move down to the turntable. I was walking along the platform and observed the passenger reach under the rear tender truck to retrieve a coin that he had placed on the rail. I ran towards him, shouting at him to get his hand out of there. He pulled his hand out just before the locomotive moved off. He was standing there with his wife and child as I plainly informed him of how close he came to being an amputee.

I also remember one night where a volunteer and I ended up flagging a crossing on the Norfolk Southern main line. We had been working at the Grand Junction yard preparing a train for excursion service. We finished up and got in the company hi-rail to go to dinner at the local Cracker Barrel. We were going down Jersey Pike towards the Hamilton Place mall and were stopped by a NS freight at the crossing. After the train had passed, we observed that the crossing gates only went up partially and hung up with the lights flashing. I commented to the volunteer that it looked like there was a problem and pulled off at the crossing. I raised the gates manually, shutting off the crossing and told him we'd wait and see what happened when the next train passed. It came and the crossing activated and then failed to shut off once the train had passed. At that point, I told the volunteer that the signal was malfunctioning and borrowed his cell phone to call the NS tower operator and report the defect. Upon contacting the dispatcher, I was informed that the nearest signal maintainer was about an hour away and it was agreed upon by myself and the dispatcher that we would flag the crossing until the maintainer arrived, as we had all of the necessary safety equipment.

The following day, I mentioned this to Robert M. Soule (our president and a former NS Signal Superintendent). His reaction was that we absolutely took the correct action, preventing a tragedy from having occurred. Others told the volunteer that we shouldn't have done that. I asked him to think of what could have happened. If we had left the crossing as it was and learned the next day that someone had died there due to the malfunction, would you be able to live with yourself? A professional railroader is just that, a professional railroader. When you see danger, you stop and do your duty to protect your fellow railroader (regardless of who he/she works for) and the public. When I told the NS dispatcher what was going on, I could hear the change in his tone and put myself in his shoes. I've got several trains ready to leave the terminal, it's Friday night, my only available signal maintainer is seventy miles away and I am now being told that signals protecting the busiest grade crossing on my district are malfunctioning and that dozens of motor vehicles are passing the gates.

I also point out that this made a believer out of the volunteer in hand signals. He had thought of them as being outdated and irrelevant but saw just how relevant they were that night, as we didn't have a radio with us. The trains approached the crossing prepared to stop until we flagged the crossing and I gave a proceed signal with the flashlight.

A crew must always be on the lookout for safety. If something doesn't feel right, stop what you're doing and address your concern(s). Safety is everyone's responsibility.

A few stories:

A conductor I know was working an interchange movement in a yard; cut-and-dried drop the cars we have, run around to the other side of the yard, grab the new train, pump up the air and roll. It was late, well after dark on a cold January night. This guy had only been a qualified conductor for about three months. The crew had dropped the inbound train and tied on to the outbound. Pump up the air, check that the EOT is blinking, make a set to do the terminal air test; simple enough. Except that this night, while the conductor was hanging the EOT, a switch job started running down the track on one side of the train. This yard was built over 100 years ago and uses 13 foot centers for track spacing (which is not enough with modern cars and modern conductors); so the conductor made the wise choice to walk down the other side of the train for the air test. Unfortunately for him, before he had walked half the train, another switch job started running down the track on that side. Conductor did the right thing: he called the engineer on the radio, said I am not comfortable with this; called for and received three-step protection, and got between two cars to wait out the trains moving around him.

Another story, this one about the need to be willing to question actions of others, even those who are in a position over you. I was riding along with a crew, we were stopped at a diamond waiting to take the wye onto a different railroad's tracks. Dispatcher gave us permission to line the switches while we waited for a train to clear up further up the track. I went with the conductor to line the switches. While walking back, the conductor noticed me walking in a way he felt was unsafe; and called me out on it. Was it really that unsafe? No, nothing was moving, even if I tripped and fell I would just get a few bruises. Did he earn some brownie points with me and (later) his Safety/Compliance boss? Quite a few, because he spoke up about a perceived unsafe condition and demonstrated that he understands that safety is everyone's responsibility.

Now, a story about being alert
At a museum which shall go nameless, I was in the yard when a string of MOW equipment (speeders and the like) was moving through to the yard throat. This museum keeps their yard switches unlocked. Having noticed earlier that the switch to the track was lined against them, it was a simple matter to call out and ask if they would like me to line the switch. After I lined it, someone with me (a non-railroader) asked how I knew without looking that the switch was lined against them. Simple: I make a habit of noting the position of switches if I'm walking in a yard so that I'm better prepared to react to a train appearing, plus it keeps my head up and scanning.

Another alertness story: I was cutting brush, under red flag and derail protection, with the track locked out by the off-site dispatcher. I had been told that me and my crew would have to clear up and call the dispatcher to come and remove the derail when we were done OR if the railroad that has trackage rights shows up without calling (told they wouldn't be there for 3 hours at least). An hour and a half after we started, a fellow crew member spotted the headlights of a trackage rights train. If we hadn't been paying attention, they would have been sitting there for a good hour because they didn't have the right contact for our dispatcher and we were over a mile away from the flag.

Being alert is the key to safety. Our operating rules required us to observe the condition of each switch that affected our equipment movements. Each crewman in the cab was to call out the switch when it first came into view and again before passing through it. The switch was either right or wrong for our movement. In my time on the railroad, I do not recall anyone running through a switch when the proper procedure was observed.

One unique feature we had to deal with was the old Whiteside Tunnel through Missionary Ridge. One concern we always had was what should be done if a steam powered train were to stall out in the tunnel-whether passengers should shelter in place or be moved to cars with sealed windows or removed from the train. One Sunday morning, the Operating Department took a train out early in the morning and we actually stopped the train in the tunnel to see what would happen. We had everyone (no passengers on the train) get off and walk around in the tunnel carefully and actually uncoupled the cars and moved the locomotive out. We quickly identified some changes to our established procedure that needed to be made and came up with what we felt was a much improved procedure.

We determined that the sealed window cars will keep smoke out very well and that in most cases, it is preferable to have the passengers shelter on the train if the locomotive can be moved out of the tunnel. Simply closing the windows on the open air cars will cut the amount of smoke entering the cars to permit moving passengers into the sealed window coach without letting too much smoke into it. We also determined that in such an event, the fireman should remain with the cars after uncoupling the locomotive. That is to assist the Conductor in setting hand brakes and moving passengers. We also discovered that when recoupling the locomotive to the train, visibility is essentially non-existent. Engineers know that the locomotive should be backed in at very slow speed and that they cannot expect to be able to see any hand signals. We also discovered that the cut out valves on the car air brakes were difficult to locate in dark, smoky conditions. Those valves were later repainted with high visibility fluorescent paint to aid trainmen in locating them.

Now, in the case that the locomotive derails in the tunnel or cannot be removed, the practice will be for the enginemen to immediately dump the fire and assist the trainmen in evacuating passengers if necessary. We also have protocol in place to get aid from the local fire department-something that had not previously been considered.

Those are great stories, but that's the stuff we already do.

What's the next evolution of safety? How do we refine what we do, so these states of safety occur more often? What are we missing?

One thing that really annoys me is "Safety is job one" or "Safety before all else". That contradicts the fact that we operate trains at all! Really, the safest course is to park our trains in a siding and turn them into static displays. Educate the public via stories, trinkets in display cases, videos and the like. Why do we need to run trains? Why do they still fly B-24's? Doing so is LESS SAFE than not doing so. So clearly, safety is NOT job one. And this camel's nose gets in the tent, and since we've already cut the Big Corner by operating at all, what's cutting a few more corners?

See, it doesn't work. You can't call safety "a thing we do", as if it can be compared and prioritized to other things we do.

I am comfortable, however, saying that safety is the manner by which we do the things we do. It is integral to everything we do. We don't "do an air test, then depart the train", we do an air test TO depart the train.

Safety is the foundation on which our house is built.

I think you are overlooking the point here, Robert. The point of saying safety first (something I firmly believe in; I don't care who you are, if you're on the railroad at the same time as me, I'm going to do my best to prevent my actions from harming you and to make sure that you are safe as well) is not to mean that safety is the absolute top priority, but instead, we are trying to instill the culture of safety, the culture that it is everyone's responsibility to see to it that, when the train is tied up for the night, everyone can go home safely.

We may not be able to 100% police the actions of foamers (see attachment), or everybody who walks on to a railroad's right-of-way; but that doesn't mean we can't do our best to keep people safe. I don't want to see anyone end up pinned by a railcar because they were riding where they shouldn't have been. I don't want to have to tell the family of a coworker or volunteer that their loved one is not coming home. Being unsafe on the railroad is not an option.

Re: foamers; I took this photo of unsafe foaming. Rest of the crew couldn't stop laughing when I showed it to them after we tied up.

Since Brother de la Barre has seen fit to further aggrandize that moron's behaviour - Has anyone been able to identify the railroad?
GME
(With no apology to the moderator for what would normally be quite properly described as an ad hominem attack except that in this case it is not as the term is intended as a statement of fact based on the available evidence!)

(Edited to remove a transposition.)

From Trains Newswire, cited as "fair use" only as a snippet of data:

Methinks we need to revisit that "horrifingly catchy" rail safety campaign from Melbourne Metro: http://www.dumbwaystodie.com

Over on Gizmodo, somebody went frame by frame through the video-revealing that the conductor placed his foot between the individuals head and a projecting handrail. Apparently the footage was shot on the platform of a station somewhere on the VIA rail system.

Not all is as it appears. Kid got lucky.

+ points for situational awareness

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

Forgive me if I offer the following in support of the "Peru" claim:

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/peru-per ... 764286.jpg

http://www.thedieselshop.us/Peru.HTML

Note the frame double-stripe, the presence of a platform at the end, the striped pilot, the ditch lights, yellow handrail posts, etc. My working theory is that this is one of those locos running long-hood first.

I find myself in complete agreement with Brother Mitchell on the Melbourne Metro campaign being applicable here.

In my mail this morning was this link:
http://wtnh.com/2014/04/18/video-close-call-sen-blumenthal-metro-north-presser/
Apparently the Gentleman from Connecticut did not learn from the experience of the young man visiting Peru.

GME