The Sam Carbis Solutions Group Safety Blog

  4 Factors to Consider about Your Current Loading Rack The ability to safely load and unload materials is a must in truck and railcar environments. Unsafe conditions can lead to costly injuries that negatively impact the bottom line. Medical and workers’ compensation expenditures for fall-related injuries cost U.S. employers approximately $70 billion annually.  An up-to-date loading rack system can help keep workers safer and operations running smoothly. 4 Factors for Updating Your Loading Rack When is the right time to update your loading rack? Loading racks don’t have a “shelf life,” so you have to consider a variety of factors when deciding if it’s time to replace your current system. Factors to consider include: How old is the loading rack? Have your loading patterns, equipment, or access requirements changed? Are employees properly trained on safety procedures? Do they have access to documentation? Are workers aware of what the equipment was originally designed to ...

  Keep Operations Rolling and Employees Safer The key to successfully installing fall protection safety equipment is accurate measurement of the center line. As simple as this may sound, it is where companies often get into trouble and end up with equipment that doesn’t fit the application requirements. Three Steps to Get the Right Measurements 1. Establish the Center Line . Your design standard can be anything it needs to be, but establishing the center line is critical . These measurements are the basis of the drawings we send back to you for sign-off. When you measure, always begin from the center of the vehicle to the face of what you are mounting the access gangway on (see Figure 1). Ideally, you would position a vehicle in the loading area so that the measurement is spot on. If you are unable to position a vehicle in your facility due to the current restrictions, then you should measure where the truck(s) should line up, possibly marked by a stripe on the floor. For ra...

Transloading between trucks and rail cars helps you lower transportation costs through affordable rail shipping, even if your origin site or destination is not along a rail line. However, the process of tank rail car loading  and unloading can be dangerous. For example, workers may become lightheaded and faint if they inhale fumes from petroleum fuels. The manual labor involved in loading and unloading also presents a danger. Without proper equipment to improve the ergonomics of a task, workers may receive repetitive strain injuries. Then, there’s the matter of the tank cars themselves. Workers may fall from a height if they climb on top and trip. Unsecured cars may also move unexpectedly and strike workers on the tracks. While safety risks like these can’t be eliminated entirely, you can mitigate them. Learn more about how to protect your workers during rail transloading. Follow Rail Transloading Safety Procedures The Federal Railroad Administration has certain rules  in pl...

When transporting bulk goods by rail, it’s important to have a safe, efficient way to load and unload your rail cars. Although this is a routine activity for many companies, it presents significant safety hazards, including the potential of injury or death after a fall. Having the proper fall prevention equipment is important, but proper rail car spotting and orientation also have a direct impact on rail safety. Even with all of the right equipment, your operators and employees are still at risk of a fall if your rail cars aren’t spotted correctly. Keys To Effective Rail Car Spotting Rail car spotting is one of the hardest practices to instill in your team, but it’s one of the most important steps in fall prevention. Best practices for safe and effective rail car spotting depend on whether your cars are coupled or uncoupled. Some factors to take into consideration when spotting a rail car include: Easy access to the rail car without having to climb over a railing Proper spott...

Providing a safer work site for your employees is essential to reducing the risk of accidents, increasing throughput and maximizing your business’s bottom line. Failing to take proper rail safety precautions may lead to serious consequences including deaths, injuries, OSHA fines and other legal ramifications. Rail hopper cars are used to transport dry bulk commodities, such as flour, sand, plastic pellets, sugar and grains. The hatches on top come in a variety of configurations, leading to spotting challenges that make it difficult to protect your workers. Additionally, chutes and other loading equipment may create obstacles that prevent safe access. Many injuries and fatalities  have occurred after workers fell from the top of rail hopper cars. Adequate fall prevention strategies may have prevented many of these accidents. Here are three tips for preventing accidents on rail hopper cars: 1. Install Rail Safety Solutions Installing rail safety solutions is an important step in re...

Providing a safe work site is critical for protecting your employees against accidents that may cause serious injuries. For rail sites in particular, fall prevention measures – such as safe access platforms – are viable safety solutions that may reduce the risk of preventable accidents, such as falls. However, you may not have the time to install a traditional access system. If you find that you need more flexibility, a portable platform might be beneficial for your work site. Portable platforms are suitable for rail car loading and unloading when installing permanent equipment simply isn’t feasible. Learn more about how to determine whether portable platforms are right for your rail site. How Portable Platforms Are Used Portable platforms designed specifically for rail cars are lightweight, low-cost safety solutions suitable for fall prevention during loading and unloading. Typically, a portable platform has wheels that make transporting the equipment more efficient. Many different ...

Implementing the right rail safety solution is critical to protecting your workers from serious accidents that may cause injuries or fatalities. While these consequences are reason enough to improve workplace safety, failing to take proper rail safety precautions may also negatively impact your bottom line, lead to legal ramifications or result in fines from OSHA. Fall prevention equipment is beneficial for companies that need a way to safely access rail cars. With a wide variety of rail car types and hatch configurations, your safety equipment must be designed to accommodate your facility and processes. There’s no one-size-fits-all rail safety solution, which is why it’s so important to work with a trusted vendor  that can help you develop a custom solution for your site. Here are four crucial design considerations for your rail safety solution: 1. Your Current Safety Concerns Before you begin working with a vendor, it’s important to understand the conditions at your work site a...

Finding ways to reduce the risk of injury at your work site is a constant struggle, and there are many factors to take into consideration when implementing fall prevention strategies. Rail safety solutions play an important role in preventing injuries at your site, but to be effective they must be combined with safety procedures and training for your employees. Before implementing new fall prevention strategies, it’s important to understand common hazards associated with rail sites. Here are four common rail safety challenges and how to prevent them: 1. Safely Accessing The Top Of The Rail Car To prevent injuries, workers need safe access to the top of the rail car. Fall prevention equipment, such as rail safety cages, is often the best way to accomplish this. A lack of rail safety equipment makes working conditions dangerous and may lead to falls, injury and death. 2. Inability To Perform Tasks Safely This usually boils down to two factors: training and the right safety equipme...

Rail sites present a number of safety challenges, from spotting and orientation to safe loading and unloading of rail cars. Implementing fall prevention strategies is critical in mitigating the risk of injury at your site. In 2015, there were 16,710 cases of workplace casualties (deaths and nonfatal injuries and illnesses) at rail sites, according to the Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis . Adequate fall prevention strategies may have prevented many of these injuries and fatalities. Additionally, failing to take proper rail safety precautions may lead to legal ramifications. Some examples include an employee suing post-injury, your company not meeting delivery deadlines for a client or OSHA compliance issues not being met. Here are four fall prevention strategies to help you maintain a safer working environment for your employees: 1. Install Safety Equipment Installing rail safety equipment is an important step in reducing the risk of injury at your site...