A railroad company investigates the human side of safety
“When you’ve fixed everything you can fix with procedures, training and standards, and injuries still occur, then where else do you look?”
That’s Peter Bamford speaking. Bamford was director of corporate safety for Canadian National (CN) Rail when a double fatality in March, 1999, at one of the company’s subsidiaries led to an extensive program aimed at the human side of safety.
CN Rail, which operates almost 18,000 route miles in Canada and the U.S. and has 21,600 employees, is committed to maintaining its physical plant and facilities. It has installed 350 wayside inspection systems, for instance. CN Rail also spends upwards of $50 million dollars each year on employee training, much of it safety related. Each shift is required to begin with a job briefing, for example. These kinds of safety investments contributed to CN Rail’s ranking as the safest Class 1 railroad.