All of the great information mentioned is valuable and should be included or discussed in some form when developing your overall emergency management plan and your train specific PTEP Plan. Employees/Volunteers should have a basic level of initial and recurrence training and understanding of these plans. A "mock" emergency drill done every year or so, involving your local first responders is a good chance to review what works and what doesn't and develops positive community relations.

“He who fails to plan is planning to fail.” -Winston Churchill

Mike Ramsey

I'm relatively surprised that nobody has mentioned CERT training yet. https://www.ready.gov/cert

Two points as reminders....

First aid kits are great, but in my 40 years of experience, they tend to get depleted regularly and seldom are ever "refilled". Second, batteries in AED devices can run down. Regular inspections for a full compliment of contents in the first aid kits, and fresh working/charged AED batteries should be mandatory in your organizations. The ramifications of being caught short, in either case, might not be pretty.

GFP

Good point. One of the daily duties on the RR I volunteer at is to confirm ours is charged at the start of each running day. That's easy as it's a simple red/green indicator on top and it's easy to get to.

Good move! Glancing up at the smoke detector or their control panel is good, too.

Catalpa is right about the first aid kits. It doesn’t hurt to open the kit before the first open day, work session etc. and see what needs replaced. Make a small investment in a fresh box of Band-Aids (you’re probably down to a handful of weird sizes anyway,) because the adhesive on them gets gummy if they go through too many heat-cold cycles.

I ditched the premade kits and built our own from scratch and put it in a repainted ammo can for more capacity and durability riding around on the train. It has items that the premade kits lack such as burn cream, eye wash, ibuprofen, tweezers, nail clippers etc. We thought about what kind of needs that we had in the past and what we needed, and the most common that needed treated were headaches, splinters and cinders in eyes.

Back in 2007, the West Chester Railroad created their first Meeting Point Locations For Emergency Services' document. It has just been updated and became Effective February 1, 2022. This has emergency response procedures and with the help of SEPTA, there are new maps with codified addresses for each meeting point that were reviewed by the Delaware County and Chester County emergency services so that all know the locations for emergencymeeting pounts along the route. The old maps had milepost points called out which were good for the railroad, but not emergency services to be dispatched. This is one of the required documents that all crew members must have withy them when working in addition to other required documents. The document is not long or hard to understand or use.
Fred Heilich
btrw