From the NS website:
Railroads Set Another Employee Safety Record in 2005
News release courtesy of Association of American Railroads
WASHINGTON, May 16, 2006 — Employees at the nation’s railroads reported their lowest employee casualty rate in history during 2005, Edward R. Hamberger, president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads, said today at a luncheon ceremony honoring railroads with the best employee safety records last year.
Twelve railroads received gold, silver or bronze E.H. Harriman Memorial Safety Awards in four separate categories at the awards luncheon.
Hamberger told the audience that the railroad industry employee casualty rate has dropped almost 70 percent over the past 15 years.
He called last year’s achievement “remarkable,” made more so by the record volumes of freight railroad handled and the thousands of new employees hired. He said the ability to reduce employee casualties in light of those two circumstances “is a tribute to railroad industry training programs and the dedication of our 225,000 employees.”
The railroad industry has one of the most comprehensive and thorough training programs of any industry in the U.S. Many of those training programs are conducted in cooperation with local community colleges and offer classroom work as well as hands-on training. Major railroads also maintain their own high-tech training centers which include practice tracks where students work with locomotives and freight cars, and locomotive simulators that prepare students for conditions they will face while operating trains. Other specialized training is provided for track and signal maintenance workers as well as mechanics who repair locomotives and freight cars.
Norfolk Southern Corporation took top honors for the seventeenth consecutive year in Group A, comprised of line-haul railroads whose employees worked 15 million employee-hours or more during the award year. In this category