FRA Challenges CSXT to Instill Safety Culture

FRA collects fines from CSXT, challenges Class I to instill safety culture

CSX Transportation has paid the price for violating more than 100 federal safety regulations — to the tune of $349,265 in civil penalties. But the Class I will pay a stiffer price, both monetarily and operationally, if it doesn't make a long-term commitment to instilling a safety culture and boosting safety performance, said Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Boardman in a statement released yesterday.

Read the rest at Progressive Railroading.com

M. Ward can probably pay that with his Christmas bonus...whats $300 grand to CSX?

CSX - and I'll try to be objective here - confuses true safety with blind-obedience to their policies, some commonsense, many silly.

They'll take a man out of service in a heartbeat if there's any snow on the ground and he's not wearing approved, studded overshoes...for one example. Gotta be studded; the grit of a few years ago or (God forbid!) regular boots are not accceptable.

Yet, an engineer was fired (reinstated after two months of fighting it) after stopping a job because the conductor on it was new, unfamiliar with the task and demonstrably unsafe/lost/in need of training or a pilot.

I see this ALL the time. The guy I'm teamed with right now in the yard, cannot understand car counts or read switches...erratic car counts lead to hard, hard ties; a man who lines switches against the train right in front of him...you figure it out.

Yet, they monitor radio conversation to be sure the proper bit of silliness ("Duh, switches are LINED and EVERYONE is in the CLEAR.") ordered by management, is said (it must be like, "Simon Says" or "Mother, May I").

True safety, as in insuring qualified personnel; as in addressing physical-plant issues; as in re-examining structures such as two-channel dispatching...is not what CSX is about.

Great, just what I want to hear, more lectures from CSX about safety. They already drill it in so hard that everyone is numb from hearing it.

I'm positive fines have been imposed on the UP, BNSF and NS in the past year, I'd be interested to see how much they were, and how they stack up to CSX. Not that I'm in any way defending CSX here, but this article really singles CSX out as the only safety violator. The article is also rather ambiguous, it doesn't give any clue as to what exactly CSX is doing wrong.

Quote from the article...

In January 2007, the FRA conducted "safety oversight" inspections across CSXT's network after the Class I suffered a series of serious train accidents and incidents between November 2006 and January 2007. Inspectors identified about 200 safety regulation violations.

200 safety violations, over the course of 1 month could be anything from something simple like not wearing your safety glasses while trying to polish them, to being forced to violate the hours of service, to rear ending another train.

As a conductor with CSX I think that I'm entitled to know who exactly, and for what, they are blaming here. It sounds from the article that it is violations on the part of management, in that CSX is the one being fined for the violations, and not specific T&E personal. As I understand it, serious violations on our part (conductors and engineers) can and will result in personal fines, not fines to the railroad.

There were 3 0r 4 discussions on this back in Feb. '07 (some heated), if I remember correctly there was radio procedure, signal maintainance issues, 1 incident of conductor not checking points after lining switch. There was also extensive track inspections across the system which found CSX maintainance policy substandard to Federal guide lines. M.Ward promised to raise maintainance standards to match federal guide lines. Go back acouple pages Feb - March 2007.

Here's your safety culture. At Buffalo, Ny, Eastbd train passes signal at qc 431, a Westbd goes into emergency , and the NF Dsp. is giving an EC-1 on channel 1 to an E Bd up near CP 423. Roadforeman calls the E bd and chastizes the crew for not calling the signal. Quess we better call signals no matter what energency traffic is on the radio.

roadster wrote:Here's your safety culture. At Buffalo, Ny, Eastbd train passes signal at qc 431, a Westbd goes into emergency , and the NF Dsp. is giving an EC-1 on channel 1 to an E Bd up near CP 423. Roadforeman calls the E bd and chastizes the crew for not calling the signal. Quess we better call signals no matter what energency traffic is on the radio.

Just wondering what happened to the rule that stated that you were to
listen first and make sure the radio was not being used for emergency
transmissions before using it.
I'll bet I know just who that Road Foreman is, he was there when I
worked between Selkirk and Buffalo. My last trip he stated with his BS
and I told him where to go, it was my last eastbound trip and what the
hell could he do to me at that point. He never said a good word to me,
one of the few "foul balls" in my last ten years with Conrail.
Noel Weaver

Noel Weaver wrote:
Just wondering what happened to the rule that stated that you were to
listen first and make sure the radio was not being used for emergency
transmissions before using it.

That's in the dumper now. There's SO MUCH MEANINGLESS chatter on the radio now that it's IMPOSSIBLE not to walk over other transmissions.

In Willard Yard often the only time to safely yard a train is with a cellular phone.

Noel Weaver wrote:I'll bet I know just who that Road Foreman is, he was there when I
worked between Selkirk and Buffalo. My last trip he stated with his BS
and I told him where to go, it was my last eastbound trip and what the
hell could he do to me at that point. He never said a good word to me,
one of the few "foul balls" in my last ten years with Conrail.
Noel Weaver

No, it's not those guys - RH or JO; they've retired. But the new guys have been charged by CSX to enforce signal-calling rules and other "ritual" radio communications - and CSX puts a premium on catching rank-and-file "out."

conrail_engineer wrote:

Noel Weaver wrote:
Just wondering what happened to the rule that stated that you were to
listen first and make sure the radio was not being used for emergency
transmissions before using it.

That's in the dumper now. There's SO MUCH MEANINGLESS chatter on the radio now that it's IMPOSSIBLE not to walk over other transmissions.

In Willard Yard often the only time to safely yard a train is with a cellular phone.

Noel Weaver wrote:I'll bet I know just who that Road Foreman is, he was there when I
worked between Selkirk and Buffalo. My last trip he stated with his BS
and I told him where to go, it was my last eastbound trip and what the
hell could he do to me at that point. He never said a good word to me,
one of the few "foul balls" in my last ten years with Conrail.
Noel Weaver

No, it's not those guys - RH or JO; they've retired. But the new guys have been charged by CSX to enforce signal-calling rules and other "ritual" radio communications - and CSX puts a premium on catching rank-and-file "out."

RH was OK.
Noel Weaver

Yeah, Noel, it's a whole new crop of weedweasels up here now. All out to prove how good they are and thanking their relatives for getting them their jobs. Nepatism is alive and very well at CSX.

roadster wrote:Yeah, Noel, it's a whole new crop of weedweasels up here now. All out to prove how good they are and thanking their relatives for getting them their jobs. Nepatism is alive and very well at CSX.

Actually in my Conrail days the Road Foremen were very decent to me.
A number of them actually helped me in big ways to increase my
collection too. The only bad one was a "foul ball" in Buffalo.
They were reasonable with and respected me and I was reasonable and
respected them too.
Noel Weaver

roadster wrote:Here's your safety culture. At Buffalo, Ny, Eastbd train passes signal at qc 431, a Westbd goes into emergency , and the NF Dsp. is giving an EC-1 on channel 1 to an E Bd up near CP 423. Roadforeman calls the E bd and chastizes the crew for not calling the signal. Quess we better call signals no matter what energency traffic is on the radio.

It completely blows my mind that a dispatcher would do that. That is just asking to be fired. It also suprises me that the crew didn't give a gentle nudge and say something like, "we'll meet you on channel XY"

I believe you folks who are T & E on CSX need to go to the FRA with a
complaint or maybe more than one complaint regarding the use of the
radio and the radio situation in general. They will listen to you and I would
think that they would react accordingly. The unions probably should
address this problem too.
Noel Weaver

Noel Weaver wrote:I believe you folks who are T & E on CSX need to go to the FRA with a
complaint or maybe more than one complaint regarding the use of the
radio and the radio situation in general. They will listen to you and I would
think that they would react accordingly. The unions probably should
address this problem too.
Noel Weaver

Noel, it's been sent to the FRA repeatedly by Buffalo, Cleveland, DeWitt and Watertown LCs and others. The FCC as well - since the "calling signals" appears to violate the FCC rule of "non-specific transmissions" that are not aimed at a particular person or base station.

I know of at least three long, well-written letters to FRA officials. So far the attitude is, it's their (CSX's) railroad and it's their right to run it as they see fit.

At least until there's a major accident directly tied to their radio-usage policies.