The Buckingham Branch Railroad is proud to announce that on Tuesday, May 15^th 2018, Buckingham Branch Railroad reached a SAFETY milestone: One Year without an FRA-reportable injury!  70 employees accomplished 150,000 man-hours, driven by a shared dedication to keep each other safe.  Spirited commitment to the BBRR Safety Culture by each and every employee made this happen.  Congratulations, team!

3 Pillars of Our Safety Success:

1. Teach Sound Rules: Our Safety Culture is built on a foundation of carefully evaluated and interpreted Operational and Safety Rules. We continuously look for ways to improve the Rules while vigorously and persistently conducting Rules Training. Rules are pointless if they’re not clear and we don’t clearly understand them. Fervent training is critical. Keeping our training fresh and engaging is a constant challenge. We meet this challenge by involving as many people as possible in this process. We stress the importance of each employee taking active ownership of their training.

2. Enforce the Rules: BBRR has a robust Operational Rules Testing Program which serves to promote, encourage, and teach safe acts. In addition to our O-Testing Program, we enforce the rules, as a team, in the field, watching out for each other, keeping ourselves and our coworkers safe. Recognition for good, safe work goes a long way, and we thank our employees for their attention to Safety. We empower any and all of our employees to stop a job if they feel it is unsafe for any reason. Bill Mitchem, Superintendent of Transportation, says the reason we reached the One-Year milestone can be defined with one word, “Empowerment.”

3. Make Safety #1: Safety has to be our top priority simply because we care about our fellow employees, our customers, and the public. Each employee knows his or her individual success and our success as a company is inseparably interwoven with Safety, and none of us wants to fail, so it just makes sense to take the Safe route, every time. Setting new Safety Goals and working as a team to achieve them is tremendously important. We’ve reached the One-Year Milestone, now we have to look to the future. Chief Engineer, Gary Smith says, “Aim for the goal and redefine the goal to keep it fresh.” Our next Safety Goal will be to finish 2018 injury-free.

We are inspired by the commitment to Safety exhibited by so many of our fellow Shortline railroads with 272 of them earning the Jake With Distinction Award in 2017.  We will work to join them in 2018.  CEO, Mark Bryant puts it this way, “The BB reached this important goal by making Safety our top priority, dedicating the necessary resources to it, and keeping the importance of working safely in front of our people day after day after day.”