How FMW helped a large industrial facility reduce rail incidents, lower their severity, and build a program that actually lasted

A serious rail incident usually gets everybody’s attention. The harder question is whether the facility fixes that one event or takes a closer look at the operation that allowed it to happen.

That was the situation at a large industrial facility after a derailment caused equipment damage and could have resulted in a serious injury. The facility already had rail rules, training materials, and a safety program. What it did not have was enough consistency between employees, shifts, and supervisors – or a clear way to turn safety concerns into assigned, measurable work.

FMW Solutions spent two weeks on site evaluating the entire rail operation, from employee practices and supervision to track, locomotives, and other equipment. The assessment became the basis for a long-term improvement plan supported by training, recurring reviews, and management follow-through. Within six months, rail incidents declined by 25 percent. Over the next four years, the facility reduced incidents by approximately 60 percent from its original baseline while also lowering their severity.

This case study looks at what our Rail Safety Consultant Team found, what changed, and why the program continued to work after the initial assessment was finished.

THE FACILITY

The client operated a large industrial facility with roughly 1,100 employees working across production, maintenance, shipping, safety, and other departments. About 28 employees were directly involved in the rail operation, including switching, moving and spotting cars, securing equipment, inspections, and coordinating rail activity with the rest of the plant.
The rail group was only a small part of the total workforce, but rail touched a lot of different parts of the operation. Trains and railcars moved through production areas, near maintenance crews, contractors, loading operations, road vehicles, and other heavy equipment. That meant a problem in the rail operation could affect people well outside the rail department.

WHY FMW WAS CALLED

FMW was contacted after a serious rail incident involving a derailment, equipment damage, and the potential for a much worse outcome, including personal injury.

The incident was serious enough to get management’s attention, but it was not really the only problem. Once the facility started looking closer, there was a pattern of human-factor incidents and near misses. These included communication failures, switches not handled or confirmed properly, poor protection during shove moves, equipment securement issues, coupling damage, employees working too close to moving equipment, and minor injuries.

A rail safety program already existed before FMW arrived. The problem was that much of it was vague. There were rules, training materials, and general expectations, but not always clear direction on who was responsible, what had to be completed, when it had to be completed, or how management would know whether anything had actually improved.

In some areas, employees understood the general idea but not always the exact expectation. Supervisors may have believed a rule was being followed, while employees on different shifts were doing the same job in different ways. Some procedures also did not line up well with what was actually happening in the field.

The incidents looked different on paper, but many of them came back to the same basic problems:

• Different practices between employees, crews, and shifts
• Rules and procedures that did not always match actual field conditions
• Gaps in training and qualification
• Limited rail-specific supervision
• Production pressure competing with safe rail practices
• Track and equipment conditions making human mistakes worse
• Inconsistent job briefings and radio communication
• Incident investigations that dealt with the event but not always the pattern behind it
• Safety goals without clear owners, deadlines, or deliverables

Management understood that fixing the most recent incident was not going to solve the larger problem. They needed someone to look at the entire rail operation and tell them where they really stood.

MANAGEMENT COMMITTMENT CAME FIRST

FMW can inspect the operation, identify risks, explain the rules, provide training, and lay out a plan. But none of that works if management is not willing to follow through.

We have seen facilities start down this road, then become uncomfortable with what the assessment shows. Recommendations get softened. Responsibilities become less clear. Deadlines get pushed back. Difficult changes are avoided because they interfere with production or upset people who have been doing the work the same way for years. Then, when the numbers do not improve, everybody is disappointed. That wasn’t what happened in this instance.

The client’s management team accepted that some findings would be difficult. They assigned responsibility, supported the corrective actions, and stayed involved after the report was issued. They did not treat the assessment like a one-time exercise or something that could simply be filed away. That commitment was one of the main reasons the program worked.

THE TWO-WEEK, ON SITE EVALUATION

FMW performed a comprehensive two-week on-site rail safety evaluation. The work covered multiple shifts and the main areas of the facility’s rail operation.

The assessment looked at three broad areas:

• Employee behavior and operating practices
• Track and infrastructure
• Locomotives and rail equipment

FMW observed switching movements, job briefings, radio communication, coupling and uncoupling, equipment securement, switch handling, shove protection, mounting and dismounting, loading-area coordination, and how rail employees worked around production employees and contractors.

Track, switches, derails, crossings, locomotives, and other rail equipment were also inspected. FMW reviewed training materials, operating rules, job aids, qualification records, inspection records, incident history, and the existing rail safety program.

Employees, supervisors, safety staff, maintenance personnel, and members of management were interviewed. The goal was to understand both how work was supposed to be done and how it was actually being done. Those are not always the same thing.
The findings were compared against applicable laws and regulations, accepted railroad industry practices, and operating standards that made sense for a large industrial rail operation.

The Assessment Rubric

FMW used its Rail Safety Assessment Rubric to evaluate more than 30 separate areas of the rail program. The assessment covered training materials, operating rules, job aids, employee compliance, management expectations, radio practices, job briefings, PPE, safe walking and working around tracks, riding equipment, switch handling, securement, shove protection, coupling, braking, equipment handling, safe speed, warning devices, crossing safety, close clearances, track occupancy, and protection of employees working around rail equipment.

Each area received a rating from 1 through 4:

4 — Exemplary
3 — Good
2 — Fair
1 — Unacceptable

A key here was that FMW used the lowest applicable rating. For example, if an employee performed a securement task correctly six times but failed to complete it correctly the seventh time, that was not considered exemplary performance. The fact that the employee did it right most of the time did not erase the one time the task was missed.

When it comes to safety, “usually” is not the same as “always.”

That approach made the scoring more conservative, but also more useful. A good observation could not hide a recurring weakness. It also showed management the difference between a practice that was truly established and one that depended on the employee, shift, supervisor, or circumstances that day.

Each numerical rating included a short explanation of what was observed, why it mattered, what requirement or industry practice applied, and what FMW recommended. The report was technical enough to be useful, but simple enough for management to understand without having to spend hours translating railroad language.

Senior managers could quickly see the overall condition of the operation. Department managers and supervisors could then go deeper into the areas they were responsible for.

WRITING A RAIL SAFETY IMPROVEMENT PLAN

Once the assessment was complete, FMW developed a phased Rail Safety Improvement Plan. The plan included immediate, short-term, and long-term goals. Each major action had a responsible party, a clear deliverable, and an expected completion period.

That was a major change from the program that existed previously. The facility already had safety concepts and general expectations, but now those ideas were turned into specific actions that could be assigned, tracked, and completed. Immediate actions focused on the highest-risk track and equipment conditions, critical switching practices, communication failures, and behaviors that could lead to another serious incident.

Short-term improvements included updates to operating procedures, training materials, qualification requirements, job briefings, securement practices, radio communication, switch handling, point protection, and coordination between rail and production departments.

FMW also provided focused training to the facility’s 28 rail employees.

The training covered:

• Industrial switching and car handling
• Rules compliance
• Job briefings and crew communication
• Equipment securement
• Switch and derail handling
• Shove-movement protection
• Coupling and uncoupling
• Mounting and dismounting
• Red-zone and employee-protection procedures
• Incident reporting and investigation
• Supervisor observation and rail safety leadership

The long-term part of the plan included annual on-site reviews, periodic remote checkups, recurring training, management reviews, and incident trend analysis.

Because the safety program is not something that is finished once and then left alone, FMW has remained involved after the initial assessment. Questions have come up. Conditions changed. Employees have come and gone. Production needs changed. No environment is perfectly static, and the plan is a living document.

SAFETY PLAN RESULTS

Corrective actions were assigned, supervisors were expected to follow up, employees received recurring training, and the Rail Safety Consultant Team at FMW Solutions continued to review the program and help management deal with issues before they became larger problems.

Within the first six months:

• Total recorded rail incidents declined by 25%
• Average incident severity improved by two levels on the facility’s five-level incident Severity Index
• The four-level FMW assessment score and the five-level incident severity score are two different measures.
• The FMW assessment measured the strength of the rail safety program, employee behavior, supervision, equipment, and operating conditions. The client’s Severity Index measured how serious actual incidents were when they occurred.

Looking at both gave management a better picture. Incident totals were going down, and the events that still happened were generally becoming less serious.

During the following 48 months:

• Total rail incidents declined by an average of 15% year over year
• The rolling incident severity average remained within the two lowest levels of the five-level Severity Index
• Recurring training helped reduce drift in procedures and practices
• Routine reviews helped identify problems before they resulted in larger incidents
• Practices became more consistent between shifts and supervisors
• Rail safety became part of the normal management process instead of a response to the last derailment or injury
• By the end of the four years, the facility was experiencing approximately 60% fewer rail incidents than the original pre-engagement baseline.
• The incidents that did occur were also, on average, much less severe. A true change in culture had emerged!

WHY IT WORKED

A rail safety program already existed, but it lacked structure and institutional support. FMW helped turn general safety concepts into clear expectations, assigned responsibilities, measurable deliverables, and a realistic schedule. From there, the client’s management team was able to follow through and supported the work.

The results did not come from the report alone. They came from the assessment, corrective action plan, training, recurring reviews, management involvement, and employees being expected to perform the work the same safe way every time.

Our team brought the rail knowledge, outside perspective, training, and continued guidance. The client brought the commitment to challenge the existing culture, make changes, and stay with the program.

This composite case study is based on FMW’s experience supporting heavy industrial rail operations. Certain operational details and performance figures have been generalized to protect client confidentiality.

IS YOUR RAIL OPERATION SHOWING WARNING SIGNS?

A serious incident should not be the first time a facility takes a hard look at its rail operation. Recurring derailments, equipment damage, employee injuries, inconsistent operating practices, weak training records, and uncertainty about the rules are usually signs of a larger problem.

The biggest change at this facility was not a new rule, a single training class, or a report sitting on a shelf. It was putting a workable structure around the rail operation: clear expectations, assigned responsibilities, recurring training, management follow-through, and a way to measure whether conditions were actually improving.

FMW helps rail-served facilities evaluate employee practices, supervision, training, track, equipment, regulatory requirements, and the overall management of their rail operations. But the assessment is only the starting point. Real improvement happens when management acts on the findings and supports the work long enough for safer practices to become normal practices.

About the Author

Kevin Sweat is FMW Solutions’ Director of Safety & Compliance and has more than 20 years of railroad operations, safety, training, and regulatory compliance experience.

A certified locomotive engineer and conductor, Kevin previously served for more than six years as an FRA Operating Practices Inspector for the Florida Department of Transportation. His experience includes Class I, passenger, short-line, tourist, and industrial rail operations, along with safety assessments, compliance audits, accident investigations, and employee training.