One of the first things one notices when looking at old photographs of railroaders at work is their lack of any personal protection equipment…i.e. no safety vest, glasses, hardhat etc. Are these now required by law or do the railroads require them on their own initiative? Also, when did this change occur?
Required now by law, it started as a safety initiative and it’s been an evolutionary process - largely from the 1930’s until today.
I am still amused to no end by kids that think my glasses with sideshields are some kind of fashion statement.
They do look kinda cool… glasses are definitely a good idea. I’m surprised they’re not required by law in other industries. Several years ago a driver I knew was doing his daily vehicle inspection on his truck…he was a wood chip hauler. He opened the engine compartment while the engine was running and looked in to inspect. A wood chip flew into his eye and into his brain…he was dead before he hit the ground. I still see people in shops walking around without eye protection… I even wear eye protection when I’m mowing the grass…have had a few things like pebbles fly back at me over the years…PPE should be mandatory for all transportation workers and people who work in shops or around machinery.
Safety Glasses, Boots with a defined heel, ear plugs and gloves have been mandatory by the railroads for a long time now. Railroads take safety seriously mainly because they are self insured and subject to litigation. If employees injured on the job only received workman’s compensation then it would probably be a much different attitude.
The bright yellow vests are a new requirement by the FRA and must be worn by crews whenever they leave the cab of a locomotive.
Tim
Locomotive Engineer
FRA did not dictate the color (yet)…it was suggested by an advisory committee that yellow be adopted per FHWA practice and a study by Volpe Center. Wear the wrong color on the wrong railroad and find yourself being thrown off the property. Yellow is still in the minority in terms of common use and on a bright day is the wrong color to be wearing. NS has changed over and UP is following suit, albeit with some stipulations.
Some days it pays to be a pumkin on steroids and other days it’s bananarama time.
Maybe the answer is a vest that you can turn inside out…yellow on one side…orange on the other.
My fire department vest and my railroad vest are virtually identical (and flourescent yellow) - mostly because many of us bought our own vests.
I should probably wear safety glasses more than I do. And hearing protection. I do wear safety shoes. And during the summer I’m usually wearing sunglasses, which may not be safety, but will keep low-speed projectiles (like bugs) out of my eyes.
Wish the railroads would follow the lead of the fire service and put headsets in the cabs (I know, $$$). With the headsets in our pumper I get hearing protection, but can still hear ambient noises and can talk to my partner in the truck without screaming. Even better, they’re hooked up to the radio, so I can hear and talk on the radio, too.
I too work for a fire department and we are required to wear safety vests when operating at an incident on a roadway; which leads to a follow-up question: in the fire service our traffic safety vests are required to be 4-point tear-away (velcro at the shoulders and down the sides under the armpits) so that the vest will release if it is snagged by, say, the mirror of a passing vehicle so that the wearer is not dragged down the road…do railroaders’ vest have the same feature or is it required?
…and correction on my last: FD vests are 5-point tear-away; forgot about the velcro closure down the front. [;)]
Tree: If only the disagreeable minority of folks would take care of the equipment . Used to have a decal in our trucks that stated:" Take care of the equipment. If it doesn’t work, neither can you."
Our FD-issued vests are the same. A tear-away vest would certainly make sense on the railroad (and may be the case once an incident occurs, per usual).
I recently saw an article about an incident on a railroad involving overalls with a hammer loop (common on carpenters pants). Seems the loop got caught in a cut lever and a trainman was dragged several car lengths before the loop finally let go. He suffered only minor injuries, although I’m sure a change of underwear was appropriate.
Yes, vests authorized for railroad use are tear-away.
Not quite. The BNSF,CSX, NS and CN all exclusively use tear away vests. However, the Canadian Pacific and WSOR use vests that are not. I have to say I much prefer the CP vests over the tearaways, because they are sturdy enough to hold a radio in the convenient radio pocket and wont drag down the whole day. On the CP their engineers actually get tear away vests ironically enough.
I like my full RCO vest. It’s tear-away, but uses big strips of velcro so it doesn’t tear when you brush up against something. But it will tear if caught.
The other vests have a nasty habit of tearing apart when they get soaked with water. I got myself a class-3 hi-viz police-type raincoat for light rain. Also some green class-3 T-shirts (all compliant with the rules) to try to minimize how much I have to wear SuperVest.
I see all these safety vsts and wonder how far will it go and how much good does it really do.
A few years back I was hauling UPS during the Chistmas rush and was at one of thier hubs picking up a trailer. I have seen the guys that work the yard with the safety vest on. I think how far will this go when I see the guy walking the yard with the vest and a strob light on his back. What next?
I personally hate the vests. They’re hot, they get snagged on everything and are just uncomfortable to wear. Yes times have changed, look at photos from 30 years ago, you might see someone wearing safety glasses.
I like the green stuff for flagging traffic. And in yards they can be nice to see your switchman/foreman easily.
Ironically, the first firefighter injured in a roadway incident after the federal law mandating vests be worn when working in roadways became effective - was wearing a vest…
I worked M.O.W. 30 years ago, the only thing they wear now that I didn’t is the reflective vest. Steel toe shoes, heavy gloves, hard hats, safty glasses were all requried. One year we even had a vist from OSHA compleat with dust and noise measureing devices. When they left in addtion to my regular safty equipment i had to wear goggles , a resperator and ear muffs. Oh joy!
Tim
I think it’s a 'feel-good" thing. If your man is out where you can see him, he can’t get run over. If he is between cars then he could be wearing a neon sign, you still won’t see him. If there is a man on the ground then the engineer should not move unless asked to to by that man. So if every one is following the rules, the man on the ground would have to call a movement on himself, would he not? Years ago I saw the Exxon crew in Baton Rouge. They wore bright striped coveralls and looked right out of Ringling Brothers. It occurred to me that if you got rid of the radios, ( quite possible with their operation) and used hand signals there would be no way you could be between cars and call a movement on yourself. But when you put everyone in snot green and he still calls a movement on himself then you can say “We did our part”.
Sort of like in my line of work. You must wear fall protection if 6 feet above the ground. You will be sent on top of a machine were there is NOTHING to tie off to but they will say " I know there is nothing to tie off to but put a harness on and go up there. Then if you do fall they can say “well we told him to to tie off, he had a harness on but he did not do it. He failed to follow instructions, even though he had the harness on.”
If you look at those old pictures however they are wearing PPE. It’s just not the obvious , for show stuff of today. It would be hard to find a pic of one without gloves. Can you find one without a hat or cap? Long before hardhats the railroads knew that even a cloth cap gave some protection from head bumps and falling objects. They may not have had steel toes but they weren’t wearing tennis shoes either. See many short sleeves? I don’t know that tinnitus was known then.