Management 2 - [Company Name]: Safety and Risk Management Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of safety and risk management, emphasizing the importance of proactive measures to mitigate potential hazards. It defines safety management systems and risk assessment procedures, highlighting their role in protecting personnel and ensuring organizational stability. The report explores the significance of safety and risk management, particularly within the context of train accidents, and uses the 2017 Washington Derailment as a case study to illustrate the consequences of safety breaches, including over-speeding and the absence of positive train control technology. The report examines the aftermath of the incident, the policy changes implemented, and the importance of continuous improvement in safety protocols. The report concludes that effective safety and risk management is essential for identifying and mitigating hazards, thereby protecting the workforce and preventing disasters, as evidenced by the detailed analysis of the 2017 Washington Derailment case.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT
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[Type the company name]
Safety and Risk Management
Report
Student
9/7/2019

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Executive summary
Safety means securing and protecting people from any mishappening, which can create
negative impact on them. In this assignment a brief description of safety and risk management
has been provided so that readers can get in-depth information about management. Through the
assignment it can be analyzed that hazards cannot be eliminated from the system, however its
impact can be reduced through preventive measures. In this report along with the importance
safety and risk assessment , focus has also been placed on “2017 Washington Derailment Case”
so that its major causes can also be analyzed.

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Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................................3
Safety Management...............................................................................................................................3
Risk Analysis and Management............................................................................................................3
Importance of Safety and Risk management.........................................................................................4
Train Accidents..................................................................................................................................4
2017 Washington Derailment Accident.................................................................................................4
Safety Measures Breached.....................................................................................................................5
Aftermath of the incident.......................................................................................................................6
Policy and development.........................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................9
Bibliography........................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Safety means saving the people working in a particular environment from risk or hazards,
which can and cannot be forecasted, before time. To tackle such hazards, organizations practice
safety, and risk management through risk can be identified and its degree so timely action and
the decision can take up to prevent such hazards. Despite management accidents and disasters do
occurs. Its prevalence can be observed through the medium of the "2017 Washington
Derailment" case study ( Lele, 2012). In this assignment, a brief discussion and information
about Safety and Risk management have been described following the case study.
Safety Management
Safety is a cohesive part Safety management system is a comprehensive management
technique prepared to the management and monitor the safety aspect of the workplace. It
comprises of various policy and plans and procedure which secure and safe the personnel from
hazards and unforeseen contingencies. The companies adopt SMS, which majorly operates in
aviation, petroleum, chemical and electrical. However, the safety culture in an organization
arises from responsibility and leadership which is placed over the leaders to understand its
concept. A leader promotes the safety culture in the company through regular inspection, by
understanding the concept of an accident. Through identifying the issue and efficient practices of
safety culture leaders conduct safety management (Miller, 2011).
Risk Analysis and Management
Risk management is a procedure of detecting, assessing and monitoring the hazards,
which can create an impact on the profitability of the company. However, risk can be positive as

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well as negative. All these factors depend upon the nature and kind of impact it can create on the
organizations ( Lele, 2012).
Importance of Safety and Risk management
Safety and risk management are correlated business terms, which are essential for the
safety and growth of the organization. Workers and stakeholders must be protected through risk
assessment. To conduct an effective risk management procedure, a precise and clear
understanding of the things must be there. It is considered desirable to understand the techniques
and safety principles before conducting the management procedure. However, it can be
understood that the effects of accidents can be minimized not prevented. Accidents, mean
collisions, derailment can lead to major accidents and even death of the present and injured
people. Such accidents can be avoided before time (Reportable and recordable, 2013).
Train Accidents
Accidents are divided into 3 major segments in which Train accidents are most common
and occurred horrifying incident which can lead to adverse events, as it can be caused due to
derailment, miscommunication, lack of situational awareness and ineffective rail tracks and
system of preventing the risk. Through a case study, a brief description and gravity of such
incidents can be understood (Liu, Liu, & Hong, Analysis of multiple tank car releases in train
accidents, 2017).
2017 Washington Derailment Accident
On the early morning of 18 December 2017, Amtrak Cascades a public train transport
501 wrecked and runoff its rail on the nearest point of DuPont, Washington, the United States

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which was designed to reduce the traffic so that issues of overcrowding over a particular area can
be avoided. It is one of the fastest routes for covering short distances. On that day Amtrak had a
first encounter with the route along with 86 passengers to Portland. During the journey, the
engine of the train wrecked, crashed and hit around 13 cars which further derailed while reaching
the bridge After running off the tracks, crashed into the semi-truck and tractor which were
moving forward in the direction of Olympia (CHAN, 2017). In the chaos and the adverse event,
numerous cars were destroyed, hurting many people. According to the National Transportation
Safety Board, the causes of the horrifying disaster were over-speeding of the train with an
average of 80 mph when it was taking a turn on the curvy track. The incident was so dangerous
and horrifying as the high speed the rail caused 3 times speeding around the curvy railway track
crashing the passenger car of the bridge leading to 13 trains pulled from the track. Due to such
over –speed more than 100 people were severely injured and 3 people lost their lives. Besides
over speeding, lack of positive train control technology in the operation has also contributed to
such disaster. Amtrak Cascades services: the engine operator, trail owner, sound transit and the
and the railway financial supporter all were found guilty in mishappening (Liu, Liu, & Hong,
Analysis of multiple tank car releases in train accidents, 2017).
Safety Measures Breached
According to the report published by the National Transportation Safety Board which
stated that inadequate and lack of efficient training to the train worker and other employees has
led to such calamity which claimed the lives of people and injured many people. On every level
of its operations, there was a loophole. During the investigation, Robert Sumwalt NTSB officer
indicated that it was a human error as he identified that the train engineer's carelessness and

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irresponsible attitude led to a crash ( Liu, Saat, & Barkan, Freight-train derailment rates for
railroad safety and risk analysis, 2019). Sound Transit also failed as is ineffective alertness to the
Loco Pilot regarding the curve was not be reach on time. Before its relaunch, millions of dollars
were spent on its functionality and operations, despite that they ignored the preventive measures
of reducing the speed. NTSB members and officers condemn the decision of Amtrak services
provider, to regulate and introduce the traveling services without installing Positive Train
Control otherwise incidents could have been prevented ( Sánchez-Borràs, Nash, Abrantes, &
López-Pit, 2010). Unsafe structure of the train along with less or no experience is a deadly
combination and terrible for the safety of the society (Tollefson, 2017). Many experts mentioned
and witnessed that the speed factor is one of the major factors in the adverse accident (Filtness &
Naweed, 2017). The damage has cost about $40.4 million. It was analyzed that the engineer was
well experienced and was working with the Amtrak from a certain period. Although the workers
faced difficulties and various challenges in operating and taking the curve on the short distance
route. A data recorder was collected as a piece of investigating evidence to understand the major
reason for the derailment (US Department of Transportation , 2019).
Aftermath of the incident
The Point Defiance Bypass near DuPont, Washington was built in 2017 to reduce the
congestion as well as the separation of freight and passenger traffic. It was designed for fast-
moving vehicles, however, on 18 December 2017, the major accident, which already talked
above happened (BLISS, 2017). The accident was so severe that the derailed Amtrak Cascades
crushed a large number of vehicles on Southbound I-5. Due to this accident, many people died
both on the train as well as outside it. After proper analysis of the accident by the expert, it was

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concluded that the main reason behind this accident was the over the speed of the train, it was
traveling 50 miles per hour (Chadwick, Zhou, & Rapik Saat, 2014).
At the time of the derailment, there were 5 train employees, one technician and around 80
passengers were there in the train. The casualties among those people three passengers, some
crewmembers as well as around 57 passengers were injured. Among them, around eight vehicles
on the road were severely damaged (Isabel Da Conceição & Ivone, 2018). The service of the
Amtrak train was suspended for some hours after the major accident and was resumed later on.
On 21 December of the same year, it was announced by WSDOT to, not to resume train on the
same route until Positive Train Control is implemented. The accident cost a loss of around $40
million in total. After the accident, the speed limit is set on that tract and clean-up was continued
for some days thereafter. The locomotive WDTX 1402, as well as all passengers, were written
off and another locomotive AMTK 181 remain undamaged (CHAN, 2017).
Policy and development
The accident caused by Amtrak was so server that its aftermath effects forced the
respective government to bring some changes in their traffic rules as well as rules in the railway
mechanism. After the accident, the respective government named Governor Jay Inslee called the
meeting and declared an emergency state in the city (Tollefson, 2017). The government also
activated the military for dealing with the casualties of the accident. After some hours, according
to Donald Trump, president of America, speech the government promised to make some changes
in their traffic rules and infrastructure plans (NTSB, 2019).
According to the report of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the report is
presented after proper investigation. It is all about the newly issued safety rules that are named as

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R-17-17. Federal Railroad Administration issued it after delayed in new rules many times
(NTSB, 2019). They also introduced the system safety program to introduce safety in the
operations of various vehicles of the country. According to the notice of Federal Railroad
Administration, the rules were proposed to make railroad operations more effective and accident-
free as much as possible (International Railway Journal, 2016) (Magel, Mutton, Ekberg, &
Kapoor, 2016). It is experienced that the board was in lacks a sense of urgency to implement the
set of new safety rules soon enough. It is considered the ultimate responsibility of the railroad to
ensure the safety of their passengers and other things involved in their operations in an effective
and efficient (US Department of Tranportation , 2019).

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Conclusion
It can be inferred from the above report that the practice of safety and risk management is
very important for the security of the workforce as with the assistance of management, risk can
be identified before time and necessary actions can be taken before time. Risk cannot be
eliminated from the system. However, its impact can be minimized from the system as was
observed through the case study of 2017 Washington Derailment Accident.

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Bibliography
Lele, D. V. (2012). Risk assessment: A neglected tool for health, safety, and environment
management. Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine , 57-58.
Liu, X., Saat, M., & Barkan, C. (2019). Freight-train derailment rates for railroad safety and risk
analysis. Accidents Analysis and Preventions , 1-7.
Sánchez-Borràs, M., Nash, C., Abrantes, P., & López-Pit, A. (2010). Rail access charges and the
competitiveness of high speed trains. Transport Policy, 102-109.
BLISS, L. (2017). Passenger Rail Has an Accountability Problem. Retrieved September 7, 2019,
from CITYLAB: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/12/passenger-rail-has-an-
accountability-problem/548687/
Chadwick, S., Zhou, N., & Rapik Saat, M. (2014). Highway-rail grade crossing safety challenges
for shared operations of high-speed passenger and heavy freight rail in the U.S. Safety
Science , 128-137.
CHAN, M. (2017). What to Know About the Deadly Amtrak Derailment. Retrieved September 7,
2019, from TIME: https://time.com/5069706/amtrak-train-derailment-seattle/
Filtness, A., & Naweed, A. (2017). Causes, consequences and countermeasures to driver fatigue
in the rail industry: The train driver perspective.(Report)(Author abstract). Applied
Ergonomics, 12.
International Railway Journal. (2016). The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
has determined that the driver of a Washington DC-New York Amtrak Northeast

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Regional train which derailed near Philadelphia on May 12 2015 was likely to have been
distracted by radio traffic causing him t. International Railway Journal, 11.
Isabel Da Conceição, L., & Ivone, P. (2018). Train Accidents: Development of Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder in Train Drivers. Psychology, Community & Health, 44-56.
Liu, X., Liu, C., & Hong, Y. (2017). Analysis of multiple tank car releases in train accidents.
Accident Analysis and Prevention, 164-172.
Magel, E., Mutton, P., Ekberg, A., & Kapoor, A. (2016). Rolling contact fatigue, wear and
broken rail derailments. Wear, 249-257.
Miller, J. J. (2011). Safety and Risk Management. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation &
Dance, 3-6.
NTSB. (2019). Final Report on DuPont, Washington, Amtrak Train Derailment Published.
Retrieved September 7, 2019, from National Transportation Safety Board:
https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20190624.aspx
Reportable and recordable. (2013). Reportable and recordable--what is the difference?(Safety
and Risk Management). Transport Safety Pro Advisor, 1.
Tollefson, R. (2017). At least 3 killed after Amtrak train derails in Washington state, spilling rail
cars onto busy highway. Retrieved September 7, 2019, from The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/12/18/amtrak-train-derails-
in-washington-state-rail-cars-fall-onto-interstate-5/