Page 3 - September 2020 Track N Times

Feature Story

The Unassuming But Important 5-Step

By Christopher Dykhoff, Manager Ballast and Grade

Track N’ Times (and formerly Field News) has routinely highlighted the many
programs on the IN-GAUGED panel. Most recently we’ve seen features on
Know Before You Go and all the effort that has gone into Don’t Lose Your
Digits, our hand safety program. I would like to make the case this month that
the unsung hero of the IN-GAUGED panel is the 5-Step process. In particular,
the hazard and risk assessment that is the core outcome when we perform a 5
-Step.

Because, really, why do we need any of the safety programs? Well, we live in a
dangerous world and we do a potentially dangerous job. The world and our
society generally has done a pretty good job of identifying, assessing, and miti-
gating the day-to-day risks out there. Drinking water is safe, traffic is pretty
safe, most of us are able to live in safe neighborhoods. Human brains are natu-
rally risk-averse, but a case could be made that thanks to all the safeguards
around us, a person could pretty easily and absentmindedly make their way to
a ripe old age without a lot of work paying attention to danger.

Not so with the railroad, or with many industries. Our job re-
quires a vigilance for hazards, part of the mindset that goes with
our toolset and skillset embodied in our safety programs. Rec-
ognizing hazards has helped us build the IN-GAGED panel. We
recognize the substantial risk of track authority violations and
thus Know Before You Go. Likewise with Electrical Safety. Tragic
loss of life and limb is possible from uncontrolled energy, and
so we emphasize the importance of LOTO. We have historically
experienced frequent harm to eyes and hands – Eye-Care and
Don’t Lose Your Digits. Vehicles present an outsized risk for dam-
age and loss, so we’ve implemented Vehicle Incident Prevention
and Nauto to go with it. And when we find a hazard not previ-
ously accounted for, we attempt to recognize it with Close Call
Reporting.
That just leaves the unassuming 5-Step to cover EVERYTHING
ELSE. The core of the 5-Step is the hazard mitigation process.
We Review The Task in Step 1 to help us have a good visual-
ization of what is about to take place. Steps 2-4 is where things
really pay off. When we are able to effectively Spot The Haz-
ards, Assess The Risk, and Control The Hazards, we can
be confident that we are about to Do It Safely. This isn’t an
easy process, however, and it does take time and practice. Be-
Continued

PAGE 1 SEPTEMBER 2020