NRC on the move: NRC is moving ahead with safety programs and lobbying efforts

Railway Track and Structures, Annual, 2008

RT & S asked NRC Chairman Jon M. McGrath, President Ray Chambers, and Executive Director Chuck Baker about the recent history and what they believe is in the future for the NRC.

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RT & S: Jon, you are in your second year as chairman of the NRC. How do you feel about the progress the organization is making?

McGrath: I can proudly report that The National Railroad Construction & Maintenance Association is currently stronger than it has ever been. Former Chairmen Rick Ebersold, Larry Laurello and Scott Brace left the organization in great shape, and I have been doing my best to build on that foundation. Our core events such as the annual conference and Railroad Day on Capitol Hill get better each and every year. We continue to develop attractive new products and services such as our recent Annual Railroad Contracting Equipment Auction and our rollout of a series of new railroad safety and training DVDs. Also, the NRC continues to be active on Capitol Hill.

RT & S: In 2006, you told us that improving safety in the industry and achieving legislative success were your main goals for the NRC. How are those efforts coming along?

McGrath: Safety is the key to everything we do, and it will continue to be my Number One focus until the day I leave my position as chairman in January 2008.

Most of our contractors are already doing an excellent job on the safety front, and we are working to get the word out to the rest of the industry. When our railroad, transit and industrial track customers hire us, they should believe that safety is our Number One priority.

Internally, we have ramped up our focus on safety. We made a big effort to increase the visibility of the annual Safe Contractor of the Year awards contest, and we were rewarded with record participation. Companies spend a great deal of time and effort preparing for this conference, and they almost uniformly report that the process is valuable to them in improving their safety programs. The winners, which in 2007 were Coleman Industrial Construction, Sharp and Fellows and Mass Electric Construction/MEC Rail, are justifiably very proud of the accomplishment. The judges, as always, did an excellent job and should be thanked for their efforts. David Armstrong of Commercial Insurance Associates organized the contest and the judges were Jerry Gates of Genesse & Wyoming, Tom Streicher of ASLRRA, and RT & S' own Tom Judge.

We have expanded the usefulness of the safety section of the NRC Website at www.nrcma.org and I would encourage everyone interested in railroad contractor safety to check it out. We're also increasing our involvement with the FRA through both direct contact at the federal and regional levels and through enhanced participation in the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee.

Ernesto Scarpitti, who is corporate safety manager at Delta Railroad Construction and the chairman of our Safety Committee, deserves much of the credit for leading our efforts, especially through his active participation as a voting member of RSAC. Delta, which is one of the NRC's Founding Members and one of our most successful and admired contractors, is run by the Laurello family in Ashtabula, Ohio, and they should be commended for encouraging Ernesto to devote so much time and effort to his role with the NRC.

The NRC is improving those specific safety products available to our members, as well. We continue to offer, free to our members, an FRA-approved, ASLRRA-endorsed Roadway Worker Protection training program, available both online and via CD-ROM.

Safety Training DVDs are the NRC's newest product, and we have been receiving rave reviews on them. With proceeds from donated equipment from the previous three NRC equipment auctions, we engaged John Zuspan of Track Guy Consultants to lead our efforts to produce a new series of relevant, timely, and practical safety training DVDs for the railroad construction and maintenance industry. Others involved include Stanley Beaver, Lee Williams and Jeff Tippetts of Balfour Beatty Rail, Greg Susko, Phil Stout and Bill Stout of Atlas Railroad Construction, Rick Ebersold of Herzog Services, Larry Laurello and Ernesto Scarpitti of Delta Railroad Construction, Joe Spirito, Jack Wilt and Ed Kennedy of RailWorks Corp., Bill Frey of G.W. Peoples, Danny Brown of FCM Rail, Dave Minor of A & K Railroad Materials, and many others. The first two DVDs were Safety with Hand Tools and Safety with Power Tools, which were rolled out at the conference in January 2007.

The next two DVDs are Safety on Freight and Industrial Track and Safety around Railway Maintenance Equipment, which we expect to roll-out by the January 2008 conference in Palm Springs. We are very excited about this product and, as with the RWP CD-ROM, we are distributing it at no cost to our members.

Baker: We see an essentially limitless future for this Safety Training DVD series, and envision producing and releasing two new DVDs every year. Future DVDs planned include Safety on Transit Track, Safety in Signaled Territory, Safety on a Tie Gang, Safety on a Rail Gang and Safety Dos and Don'ts (Tricks of the Trade).