Commitment to Public Safety
At Union Pacific, our commitment to safety is evident in everything that we do. We partner with local community teams to collaborate, educate and innovate. Again, our goal is – and will always be – to eliminate accidents entirely. Through media outreach, education programs, strategic partnerships and our own highly trained police force, we aim to do just that.
Eliminating Rail Crossing Accidents
We work with communities to identify and remove unnecessary crossings and to improve safety at the points where the roads and the rails meet. We operate more crossings than any other railroad and in 2011 collaborated with state and local governments to reduce crossing accidents by 9 percent.
With feedback from Union Pacific, government officials determine where signals should be placed and when crossing improvements and safety upgrades are needed. We then implement the infrastructure improvements and work with local law enforcement personnel to help ensure that people obey crossing signals.
Crossing Accident Rate
Accidents per million train miles.
UP Cares
Webb County Commissioner Jerry Garza (left) and Webb
County judge Danny Valdez unveil a miniature billboard
in Laredo, Texas.
Through our public safety initiative, Union Pacific Crossing Accident Reduction Education and Safety (UP CARES), we work with members of the communities we serve in a concerted effort to change unsafe behavior. More than 8,000 UP CARES outreach and training events reached more than 700,000 people in 2011. Our proactive outreach efforts resulted in delivering our safety message to 55 percent more people in 2011, compared to 2010. UP CARES activities include:
- Grade crossing enforcement with local, county and state law enforcement agencies.
- Safety trains that provide a firsthand look at what locomotive engineers see when they operate trains through a community.
- Communication blitzes that include community education events and media outreach.
In addition, Union Pacific helped found and now collaborates with Operation Lifesaver, an independent nonprofit safety education and outreach organization with the mission of ending collisions, deaths and injuries at rail crossings.
Campaign Reminds South Texas Truckers to Stop for Trains
Union Pacific launched an outdoor billboard campaign aimed at getting South Texas truck drivers to safely use railroad crossings. Reaching an estimated 1.3 million drivers between San Antonio and Laredo, the bilingual campaign pairs a visual of an 18-wheeler stopped or stuck on railroad tracks with simple phrases, such as, "Always expect a train."
"Union Pacific is raising the rail safety message to remind professional truck drivers of their responsibility to cross the tracks safely," said Danny Valdez, Webb County judge. “The billboards will also reach the general public, which will make our community even safer."
In addition to the billboards, our San Antonio Service Unit public safety team regularly meets with trucking companies to educate management and drivers, organizes safety blitzes at key crossings and conducts UP CARES efforts with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Innovative Safety Technology
We continue to incorporate new safety technologies into our operations. Although our derailment reportable rate decreased 32 percent from 2001 to 2011, derailments increased in 2011 over the previous year. As we anticipate continued growth, we remain focused and committed to improving processes and investing in new technologies that will improve safety for our employees and the communities we serve.
Technologies include:
- Distributed Power Units. The process of placing locomotives in the middle and/or end of trains instead of the front to reduce the physical forces, making trains less prone to derailments and facilitating more even braking, reducing wheel and track wear.
- Ultrasonic Wheel-Defect Detection. A system that scans every wheel in our coal-car fleet every 60 to 90 days in an effort to eliminate derailments caused by broken wheels. Not a single coal car has derailed due to a cracked wheel since implementing this system two years ago.
- Wayside Detectors. 40 million data points are analyzed daily from data collected at more than 4,700 special detectors deployed across our network helping to more accurately identify and repair potential failures in rail equipment components.
- Motorist Safety Reporting. A first-of-its-kind system that allows train crews to report close calls with motorists and pedestrians, pinpointing high-risk locations and making data accessible to both Union Pacific and outside agencies to support development of safety plans.
