In June and July, Norfolk Southern conducted two multi-day Safety Leadership Summits for more than 100 field facing and non-field facing employees. The Keystone Division “significantly improved performance in safety, service, and productivity into 2024.”
The Safety Leadership Summits, held at NS headquarters in Atlanta and at Moorman Yard in Bellevue, Ohio, are “part of our year-round efforts to advance our safety culture,” NS said. “Both helped leaders to cultivate skills, insights and relationships necessary to build effective leadership, a critical component in advancing our goal to be the gold standard of safety for the rail industry. The summits reinforced how trust and performance are vital in positively differentiating NS among our competitors. Leaders developed their skills through real-time hands-on application of new safety-related learnings. They collaborated with colleagues from throughout NS while improving their safety plans and protocols. Labor leader panels were also held during each session. During these moderated discussions, union representatives joined NS leadership for discussions about safety, service, and productivity.”
“At NS, everything starts with safety,” noted Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer John Orr. “At Safety Summits, as with all our education and engagements, we reinforce that safety is the value through which every decision must be filtered, regardless of the railroader’s position or title. We are committed to investing in our people and reinforcing clearly defined ballast-to-boardroom expectations to stop whenever there is a need for additional understanding or direction.”
The next Safety Leadership Summit will be held in November. Teams from the inaugural summits will present updates on “safety challenges” they identified and their progress on advancing improvements in safety performance.
Keystone Division Performance
Norfolk Southern’s Keystone Division, which includes Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and portions of Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia, saw across-the-board performance gains in safety, service and productivitythis year. NS attributed the improvements to “an increased focus on all key performance indicators, along with an even sharper focus on performance by crew members.” Around 2,300 c work in the Keystone Division. Major yards and terminals are in Jersey City, N.J.; Binghamton and Buffalo, N.Y.; and Allentown, Conway and Enola, Pa.
Since January, origin performance stands at 81%, based on the on-time departure of scheduled trains from their originating terminal. AAR dwell time average is 21.0 hours, which is “at goal,” while average train speed is 24.11 MPH. Connection performance, which measures arrivals and departures of “the right car on the right train on the right date,” is 89%.
In safety, four of the Keystone Divisions 23 local districts have maintained longstanding injury-free records, including Lake Erie District (11 years), Buffalo Line District (10 years), Mingo Junction (4 years), and Crestline District (over 1,000 days). Another 13 have more than 500 days of injury free service.
“Our strong focus on process rigor is producing consistent gains in performance,” said Don Craine, Division Superintendent. “Every craft colleague and front-line supervisor across the Keystone Division is contributing toward these goals. Our Transportation, Mechanical, Engineering and Dispatch teams are working tirelessly together to gain cohesion and accomplish each department’s goals.”
