FRA Issues Safety Bulletin on Shove Movements Following Trainee Switching Fatality

Following a fatality that occurred on June 26 involving a CSX conductor trainee (CT) at the Port of Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine Terminal, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has issued a Safety Bulletin to “increase awareness of riding moving equipment and ensure those who ride such equipment do so safely.”

Based on FRA’s preliminary investigation of the fatality, a conductor and a CT were riding the point on an empty intermodal well car during a shoving move of a train consisting of two locomotives and 43 intermodal well cars. The CT was using a portable radio with a speaker-microphone attached to his vest to communicate to the locomotive engineer. Preliminary findings, FRA says, suggest that, although the CT may have maintained three-point contact, “his posture and position on the car were not stable enough to withstand the forces when the train slowed down, and slack ran out.” The CT lost his balance and fell forward into the gauge of the rail and was subsequently struck by the rolling equipment, resulting in a fatality.

FRA says the purpose of this Safety Bulletin is to “ensure the railroad industry is aware of this recent accident” and to “encourage railroads to identify location-specific safety issues to cover during safety briefings and (re)train employees.”

FRA requests that railroads review the Safety Bulletin, which includes the following four steps, with employees:

• “Railroads should review their training programs to ensure the programs are adequate to prepare employees to safely and properly ride moving equipment, including the handling of unexpected or unusual forces experienced while riding equipment. Training programs should ensure that both employees that oversee trainees and trainees are familiar with their duties, have received proper instruction, and are continuously monitored for compliance and safety.
  

• “Employees should only ride equipment when necessary for job duties, and only after the process for doing so is discussed in a job briefing. Further, employees should only ride equipment after determining it is safe to do so.
  

• “Employees should always face the equipment and maintain at least three-point contact to brace for changes in speed and slack action, ensuring the positioning of their feet and hands achieves optimal stability when riding rolling equipment.
  

• Railroads should review with their employees Switching Operations Fatality Analysis (SOFA) Recommendation No. 5 – Mentor less experienced employees to perform services safely. The SOFA Working Group is a voluntary, non-regulatory, workplace-safety partnership formed to identify commonalities among fatalities that occur during switching operations. A SOFA Alert regarding this event and findings of the analyses of previous events are available here.