Throughout the K&T 14 discussions, I asked several questions about what long term changes, if any, would come about, and how the problem was going to be handled. There are several reasons for this. I do teach workshops for the railroad industry on Federal regulations, so I am always interested in how problems like this are handled. I also work with companies, lawyers, etc., on preventing problems and dealing with them after they take place.

For more than a decade, I have also taught university and industry classes on risk management and how to deal with mistakes, accidents, and legal issues. If what I have been teaching is correct (and many companies and others in the field think it is), the material I have seen in response to the K&T 14 problem is a textbook case of how bad it can get.

At no cost, here is a shortened version of the comments about a project that I have people do to learn how to respond to such a crisis. They might be helpful to some of you in the future, and might keep me from exploding over some of the dumb things I saw in the coverage and responses.

===========

This project is designed to show how no part of a firm stands alone in an organization, or in an industry as a whole. Accidents in any task can lead to investigations in other areas. It is pretty obvious that everyone would like to avoid problems like this, so your first planning should be here. However, it cannot end with this alone. Everyone makes mistakes or is impacted by their environment. Therefore, knowing how to deal with the public, news media, social media, and elsewhere is important.

This leads to three major topics.

[1] Prevent the situation in the first place.

[2] Respond to the situation.

[3] Respond after the situation for future prevention and planning.

It is pretty obvious that preventing the situation is the way to go. Therefore, the procedures that you use are important. There are many factors that should be included, things like inspections, employee training and monitoring, employee selection, etc. There are also the issues related to legal and industry standards. Document - Document - Document! Many of these efforts will later help protect a firm should an accident or legal situation happen. No documents? You might as well open the checkbook and write a blank check.

How you respond to a problem is also important. Do you have a reporting procedure that gets the proper employees notified? Do you have a means of alerting customers, government bodies, employees, and others? You can use your own employees or contractors, but still the question is who will respond to the problem and be there to conduct an investigation, and take care of any immediate bills and tasks. How do you get things corrected as soon as possible, if you are allowed to, or turn the tasks over to another party?

After the problem, then there are often the hardest tasks as you now have to fight rumors, accusations, lawsuits, the news, the facts, and many other issues. You generally should have a press release, and often a press conference. Remember, you are generally guilty until proven less guilty, so you lose if you don’t respond, and you might lose less if you do respond (or make it worse if you appear arrogant or uncaring). You also need to monitor various social media forums. All it takes is one bad post to be forwarded by thousands of people to destroy the truth, or for you not to respond to the facts and appear to be covering up actions which could endanger others. Also note that your competitors have no interest in helping you, and they can easily forward the reports to your clients that they want. However, there are laws that can prevent you from releasing or correcting information, so you need to control who can release information and what they do release, and know exactly what the law allows.

On the press conference and/or press release, understand that you lose if you don’t have one because it will be assumed that you are afraid to talk because you are guilty. If you have a press conference and/or press release, the most that you can logically hope for is to break even or gain a bit of ground. At any press conference, there will be press and people there who are there just to tear you apart. However, there are often your “fans” who may make matters even worse by putting out bad information, doing a bad job of explaining the situation, etc. One idiot supporter or manager can be worse than dozens of honest enemies.

You also must deal with people who don’t understand even the basics of what your industry does. Don’t call them stupid, unqualified to comment, or harass them - you lose their support permanently and again look like you don’t care about the public, but only yourself. Instead, educate them, explain industry terms, what the law is, what happened in the situation, etc. Citing Federal or State laws can be helpful, but again be clear and not fuzzy, and realize if you make a mistake you have made the matter worse as there are probably folks out there who are more of an expert than you.

Give facts, don’t assume. You want someone likeable to do the talking for your company. A neutral person who is friendly and does not present a negative feeling is an option. One of the greatest examples was the NASA press conference after one of the shuttles exploded. They brought in several astronauts who told stories about those involved and explained why they did it. This shut down most of the attacks. However, there are too many cases to count where a company owner or CEO led the response (because they are the boss, dammit), and did it so bad that the company’s reputation was ruined.

Also control the information coming out of your firm and make it consistent and true. No lies, no conflicting information. This requires being honest with your own employees and sharing the information so the official channels agree with the rumors. Stick with the subject at hand. Don't confuse things by bring up other tasks, projects, etc. It looks like a cover-up and actually invites the public to find problems elsewhere in your company or with your products/work. You start it - you generally lose.

Don’t use company codes (institutional rhetoric) or clichés. Never threaten - threats of lawsuits for talking about an issue means you are guilty as hell! Having lawyers as part of the response, or citing your lawyer, means you are guilty as hell squared! Try to be likeable, show intelligent and good will, and an interest in those harmed. Moral character helps, but many people show they don’t have it so get those folks away from the problem and the public.

Realize that different industries are allowed different latitudes in different locations. The more dangerous your industry, the less people will accept problems. The more essential, or the more local, typically there is more latitude. Know where you fit so you can expect the responses of the public. Yes, the public and your competitors do have a say and a concern in what your firm does, so live with it and respond properly to it. If you feel they don’t, get away from this situation or find another job.

So....do you understand the risks and impacts of what you have done, or could do?
Good luck!

Barton Jennings

A bit OT, but as far as I can tell the certification standards for new build boilers is different (and more rigorous) than boiler repairs, even if in a rebuild almost all of the main components of a boiler end up being new parts. For example, a new build boiler needs to be constructed in an ASME-certified shop, but repairs do not. Am I correct, and if so, why is that?

Yes, I would like to know, helps in the hunt. I know in the building trade, a remodel for example only requires a single standing wall to qualify as a remodel vs a new construction. Remodel often is old rules. Same in vehicles modify vs new construction. Say you keep the firebox, smoke box, steam domes if a little weld up fill in the rust out, other bits and pieces and what not, at what point can you say repair vs replacement ? Is this like cutting out the data tag on a tank and then welding it into a new panel ? Seen that before.

We gave a look over on the "sugar cane train" locos for sale in Hawaii. Both had then modern boilers installed for the tourist conversion and from what I saw not exactly locomotive quality, looked like minimum standard modern hot water heater's . I read the boiler reports on them and saw the quality of the installation. They are complete in my humble opinion, Mickey Mouse setups. Delivered to California they wanted about $375,000 on our site. Then needed full rebuild and boiler work, frozen cylinders and all new piping. Nope.

.