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RAILROAD SAFETY
THE CHALLENGE: MERGE TWO CORPORATE
CULTURES
SAFETY is a daily challenge
for the rail industry and professional railroaders. Film crews, unfamiliar with
the railroad workplace, will face an even greater challenge.
THE PRODUCTION
Productions are highly creative endeavors, quickly organized and speedily completed.
Detailed work plans change in response to collective
creative genius, and filming schedules thusly are often revised. The unfamiliar
workplace combined with everyone's attraction to trains combine to produce the subtle,
but ever-lurking danger. Danger can result in injuries; production interruptions;
loss of carrier goodwill; cancellations; and/or permanent loss of production access.
THE RAILROAD
Railroad companies, on the other hand, must focus on operating
the same way, day after day. Abrupt schedule changes are avoided. They are a production
company's near polar opposite.
Due to inherent risks, railroad work must be thoughtfully and carefully performed.
Extensive safety rules and federal regulations cover every task. New railroad employees
undergo comprehensive safety training. And there are daily safety rule and procedure
reviews for all employees.
Accordingly, railroad company safety rules are very proactive.
Rule books contain broad admonitions such as:
When in doubt, the
safe course must be taken.
No task is so urgent and no work so important that time cannot
be taken to perform the task or work safely.
Railroads are unable to repeal basic laws of
physics such as gravity and inertia which come into play in all accidents.
These two physical laws work in concert with railroad equipment weight and mass
to create events with high probabilities of major injury, death, and/or serious
property damage.
Safety concerns are a major reason the railroad industry
is generally not anxious to cooperate with productions. Railroad managers and company
lawyers know there is a recipe for trouble in a production's frequently revised
work plans; crews unfamiliar with or unimpressed by potential rail hazards; and
a double-time pace particularly near the end of the day. These production work practices
are diametrically opposed to railroad work practices. (They also regard productions
as an unnecessary diversion that can disrupt train operations and customer goodwill
long after the departure of the production crew.)
RTMS has the production industry's ONLY PERFECT SAFETY RECORD, with more
than 100,000 accident/injury free man-hours worked by production crew members on
railroad locations and sets. The record results in part from the robust railroad-style
safety programs RTMS installs on all projects. RTMS safety programs allow productions
to follow all Railroad Company safety rules and applicable Federal Regulations while
concurrently attaining scenes with high on-screen production values.
Every RTMS RAILSMART project has developed key
personnel from both industries who understood the cultural differences; agreed to
compromises; and then stepped out smartly to attain a common goal. Rail Transportation
Management Specialists is very proud of the firm's successes in bringing the rail
and production industries harmoniously together. Creating this spirit of teamwork,
understanding, and cooperation is perhaps our crowning achievement.
The images captured on film are credits
to skilled railroaders and creative production professionals.
We look forward to serving your production,
creatively and safely.
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