The role physical activity plays in heat-related illness, this year’s “Dirty Dozen,” and a giant coffee chain finds that it has to protect its workers from dangerous objects left behind by drug users. These were among the occupational safety and health stories featured this week on ISHN.com.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) are hoping that a $5.6 million public safety awareness campaign will make Americans take railroad crossing safety more seriously. The numbers suggest that that is not currently the case. Every four hours in America, a person or vehicle is struck by a train at a rail crossing.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has issued five safety recommendations Thursday following completion of its investigation of the Aug. 27, 2016, chlorine release from a ruptured rail tank car near New Martinsville, West Virginia. There were eight injuries reported in connection with the accident in which 178,400 pounds of liquefied compressed chlorine was released in the course of two and a half hours after a DOT-105 rail tank car sustained a 42-inch long crack in its tank shell shortly after being loaded at the Axiall Corporation Natrium plant.

Just before a deadly train collision in Granite Canyon, Wyoming, the crew of one of the trains involved radioed the company dispatch center to tell them that due to problems with the train’s airbrake system, they’d accelerated to 50 mph and were unable to stop. The engineer and conductor of that UP freight train would both die a short time later, when their train collided with the rear of a stationary UP freight train.

A broken rail, inadequate track maintenance and inspection, and inadequate federal oversight led to the March 10, 2017, derailment of a Union Pacific Railroad ethanol train near Graettinger, Iowa, according to a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report released Tuesday.

As those of you who read my posts on the Lac Megantic disaster where 47 people were incinerated by a “bomb train” that derailed in the middle of town, brakes on trains are complicated and often fallible safety devices. This is how they work: A brake pipe runs the length of the train which supplies air to reservoirs mounted on each of the cars.

Human errors lead to a fatal 2017 train accident in South Dakota that killed two BNSF roadway workers, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), but the agency ultimately lays the blame on the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), for its inconsistent enforcement of federal regulations.

OSHA is seeking comments to a proposed rule regarding railroad construction equipment provisions in the Cranes and Derricks in Construction standard. The agency says the proposed rule, which was published yesterday, would maintain safety and health protections for workers, and address employers’ compliance burdens.

Last month, without any warning or explanation, Vanessa Sutherland announced her resignation as Chair of the Chemical Safety Board. Earlier this week we learned why. More money and more love.

OSHA is inviting public participation in an upcoming stakeholder meeting on whistleblower practices and experiences related to the railroad and trucking industries. The two industries combined accounted for the largest number of whistleblower complaints filed with OSHA in 2017.