ARKANSAS-MISSOURI RAILROAD is a proactive shortline that excels in the areas of marketing, maintenance of way, locomotive engineering, Operation LifeSaver, communications, community relations, freight car fleet, customer service, and most importantly, in safety and security. In the past year alone, Arkansas Missouri Railroad has installed additional crossing signals and stop signs, developed better training procedures for its personnel, and installed on-board camera systems with which to document activities on the train. The local press has praised Arkansas Missouri Railroad's progress and achievements over the past few years, concluding that... "Arkansas-Missouri Railroad is on the Right Track."
SAFETY IS JOB 1
On a daily basis, Arkansas Missouri Railroad's primary goal is to reduce the occurrence of accidents by continually improving safety procedures and standards. Arkansas Missouri Railroad is one of the few shortlines in America to continuously go above and beyond most other railroads' actions when it comes to safety.
INTEGRA CAMERA AND VOICE RECORDER SYSTEM
Arkansas Missouri Railroad was the first railroad to install the Integra System, which is an on-board camera system that tapes continuously as a locomotive is traveling. The system visually documents upcoming railroad crossings. Train whistles, bells, crossing signals, radio traffic from the engineer, crew, and dispatcher are taped with a cockpit voice recorder. The Integra System can record activity up to one hundred yards ahead of the train's path and traffic on either side of an upcoming crossing.
Material that is collected from this technology will serve as evidence in the event of a crossing accident because it takes all of the guesswork out of who was at fault in a grade-crossing accident. Arkansas Missouri Railroad has installed the Integra System on most of its eighteen locomotives and will have the whole fleet completely installed with the camera system by 2002.
COMPLIANCE TESTING AND TRAINING
The Integra System can also be utilized for compliance testing, training, public awareness, safety classes, and as a mobile surveillance system in a train yard to capture vandals and thieves. Arkansas Missouri Railroad has also worked to improve the training of its employees by leasing a simulator for thirty days from ITT.
The simulator proved to be a very effective tool in training employees for the mountainous terrain that comprises Arkansas Missouri Railroad's system (Click here to see a full system map.) Twenty-five employees were able to train on the simulator and were able to average eight to ten hours of training time each. The mountainous terrain that was selected to train the employees on, had an 85% performance rate that was considered by ITT to be well above average. By the end of the month, fourteen employees scored from 90-96% and eight employees scored between 82-89%.
The accomplishments of the employees on the simulator proved to be a much better training tool for the work to be performed on Arkansas Missouri Railroad than past training procedures. During the month that Arkansas Missouri Railroad had the simulator leased, Arkansas Missouri Railroad invited local media and law enforcement officials to try their hand at the simulator in order to promote public awareness of the duties and safety precautions that a railroad engineer has to deal with on a daily basis. The media presented some very informative clips for the public to better understand the hazards that are created by impatient and careless motorists.
Below is a summary of the individual departments that encompass the Arkansas Missouri Railroad. Click the department to jump to a summary of recent developments.
SIGNAL DEPARTMENT
MARKETING
MAINTENANCE OF WAY
LOCOMOTIVES
SAFETY & SECURITY
OPERATION LIFESAVER
COMMUNITY RELATIONS
FREIGHT CAR FLEET
CUSTOMER SERVICE
TRAINING
