(The Canadian Pacific Railway issued the following safety letter to its customers on April 23.)
CALGARY — For the past five years, Canadian Pacific Railway has lead all North American Class 1 Railroads with the lowest train accident frequency and has demonstrated continuous improvement in the frequency of employee personal injuries. We are very proud of our safety achievements and would like toextend an invitation to all of our customers to join us in our safetyefforts.
Your business depends on efficient, safe, damage-free and on time handling of your product and we need your help to ensure the safety of all employees while performing switching and railroad maintenance activities on your property.
Canadian Pacific Railway places a strong emphasis on workplace safety and our ability to handle your lading and cars damage free. We ask each of our employees to unconditionally commit to workplace safety. It is the responsibility of all our partners to ensure that railway equipment is handled correctly, railway equipment has handbrakes applied, trackage is maintained to standard and the plant or siding property has no clearance or tripping hazards.
How Can You Help
Over the last 5 years, your contribution to reducing railway related incidents has not gone unnoticed. Canadian Pacific Railway has reduced its customer and third party incidents by operators contributed to 17% of our 2002 train accidents. We want to see this number decline. To help you in doing your part, we have developed a Customer Safety Handbook to serve as a guide to safe rail operations, with special focus on customer trackage.
The Customer Safety Handbook is available on our web page, at cpr.ca or can be ordered by calling our Community Connect Line at 1-800-766-7912.
Please ensure that this handbook is provided to your employees who handle rail equipment.
We trust you will find this handbook helpful in educating your employees on the hazards of rail operations and will raise your employee’s level of awareness of situations that may impact safety. There are five key areas where we need your assistance.
1. Track Maintenance: Routine inspection, scheduled repairs and maintenance of your track.
Spring Plan Focus
In the spring it is important to have a track maintenance contractor inspect your trackage and/or facility and schedule routine repairs and maintenance as well as highlight the need for any longer term capital type work. This planned proactive work reduces the potential for derailments and injuries as well as ensures our ability to provide you with timely service. We must also remain vigilant on the following:
· Keep flangeways of tracks which run through private or public roads free of debris at all times;
· Inspect sidings prior to service; and
· Keep all switches in the plant properly maintained.
2. Restricted Clearance Hazards
The number one cause of very serious injuries to CPR employees in customer facilities is restricted clearances. It is crucial that your facility is free of side and overhead clearance restrictions, or that such restrictions are protected by designated warning signs.
Before making any changes to your facility that may create rail clearance restrictions, please review with the local Railway Engineering Office.
3. Spillage/Wheel Contamination
Please ensure that your facility is free from product residue on in-plant tracks. Elimination of product spillage and build-up reduces the chance of railway equipment wheel contamination. Wheel contamination from consumer products like flour, canola oil, cornstarch and other similar types of substances can cause serious accidents and overspeed impacts at our hump operations. If railway equipment was rolled through a contaminated area, you must give the wheels an air pressure or water pressure cleaning.
4. Equipment Securement and Handling Requirements
Canadian Pacific Railway has provided training to our customers on proper movement of equipment and mandatory securement of equipment. Equipment securement and handling requirements are enclosed in our Customer Safety Handbook. Please review these requirements amongst your employees who are responsible for handling and securing railway equipment.
5. Housekeeping Conditions – Trackage
The number one cause of personal injuries to our employees that provide your service is slip, trip and fall injuries. It is crucial for you to ensure that your tracks and facility are free of walking hazards such as debris, material and spills.
Inspection/Audit Process
Canadian Pacific Railway will perform periodic audits of customer facilities checking for compliance to the following conditions:
· Track conditions
· Movement and securement of railway equipment
· Walking hazards
· Spillage/wheel contamination issues
Further information on this audit process is available in our Customer Safety Handbook. Audit results will be measured on a scale of:
“Green card” indicting full compliance
“Yellow card” indicating partial compliance
“Red card” indicating non-compliance
Recipe for Success
We believe the above partnership action plans will contribute to ensuring our safety success in 2003.
Thank you in advance for your focus on safety through teamwork.
Your Safety Partner
Canadian Pacific Railway
Neal Foot
Senior VP Operations
Brock Winter
VP Customer Service
Fred Green
Senior VP Marketing & Sales