ASLRRA honors individuals for safety, railroads for business development
NEW ORLEANS — Texas North Western Railway monitor inspector Raul Guerrero has been honored as Basic safety Particular person of the Year, and Austin Milton, director of security and education at Indiana Rail Road, was named Protection Skilled of the Year by the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Affiliation.
Also at the ASLRRA Annual Meeting and Exhibition in New Orleans, 3 lines — Arkansas’ Kiamichi Railroad, and Pennsylvania’s Reading & Northern and Strasburg Rail Road — obtained the association’s 2023 Organization Development Awards.
ASLRRA President Chuck Baker mentioned Guerrero and Milton stay basic safety, the major precedence of shortlines, every day, “driving their fellow railroaders to carry out safely and securely, day in and working day out. Their behaviors affect and elevate safety society on their respective railroads and in their communities, resulting in exceptional basic safety efficiency on their railroads. We are delighted to honor their many years of services to the field.”
Guerrero is Texas North Western’s “most vocal worker about protection,” according to Chris Martin, the railroad’s supervisor of functioning tactics. An personnel with more than 14 yrs of railroad knowledge, Guerror has been a member of the Personnel Safety Committee, a voluntary team of employees from mum or dad organization TNW Corp. that encourages secure procedures at the company’s 3 Texas railways. In his major role, he is accountable for inspecting 165 miles of track and has helped keep the firm cost-free of keep track of-triggered derailments for a lot more than two a long time.
Peter Jesperson, Indiana Rail Road’s common supervisor, functions, says his company’s basic safety achievements “is due to the difficult perform and perseverance of Austin and his personal motivation to being safe and sound and producing absolutely sure all INRD workers have the awareness and instruments to work secure.” Milton joined the railroad in 2011 as an operator, grew to become supervisor, safety and functioning procedures in 2017, and was promoted to his existing placement in 2022. He has aided the Indiana Rail Street reach an FRA personal injury frequency index and educate accident fee of zero in 2022, instituted its “Keys for Driving Security Success” software, enhanced its basic safety resources and components, and developed perform practides to enhance basic safety compliance of just about every field section.
Business enterprise Improvement Awards
The three award winners had been honored for progressive plans to develop targeted visitors.
“The Business enterprise Advancement Award honors the hallmarks of brief line railroading – acquiring a keen understanding of buyer needs, relentlessly trying to get options to expand purchaser business, and executing resourceful consumer support alternatives to benefit their prospects and the communities they provide,” mentioned ASLRRA’s Baker.
The Kiamichi Railroad persuaded Tyson Food items to create a $65 million poultry feed mill on its line in McNab, Ark., providing a 145-acre internet site with area for further development, obtain to a few Class I railroads and a freeway. Though Tyson constructed the mill, the Kiamichi used $9 million upgrading adding key line switches and a side monitor at the, and upgrading the total 180-mile Tyson route. It also labored with Tyson and condition businesses to boost the freeway to the website. The ensuing organization saw the Kiamichi haul over 3,100 carloads, primary to the choosing of 4 new staff.
The Looking at & Northern (formally, the Looking at, Blue Mountain & Northern) was honored for the biggest industrial advancement challenge in its record, a transload facility in Tunkhannock Township, Pa. Even with an exceptionally wet autumn, the railroad concluded the required only 6 months to finish a venture that included bringing in practically 10,000 cubic yards of rock and grime and making two tracks with ability for 34 autos, alongside with areas for trucking, transloading, and places of work. The railroad taken care of 2,200 carloads of frac sand because obtaining its initial unit prepare in Could 2022, and expects to triple that determine in 2023.
The Strasburg was acknowledged for the opening before this yr of its new lawn in Paradise, Pa. [see “Strasburg Rail Road opens six-track freight yard,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 13, 2023]. When considerably far better recognized for its tourist procedure, Strasburg’s freight operations have developed from 10 to 500 cars a calendar year, and the new garden positions it for even further expansion.
