ASLRRA recognizes 308 Jake Award winners

Written by Mischa Wanek-Libman, editor
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The Jake Awards are named after shortline safety proponent Jake Jacobson, president and COO of the Copper Basin Railway.
ASLRRA

More than 300 shortline and regional railroads earned Jake Awards from the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) for their safety performance in 2016.

ASLRRA explains that to be honored with a Jake Award, an ASLRRA member railroad must perform better than the Class 2 and 3 industry average injury frequency rate as reported by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) during the prior year.

Of the 308 Jake Award recipients, 272 railroads will be honored with a Jake with Distinction designation, recognizing their FRA reportable injury-free performance in 2016. The awards will be presented at each of ASLRRA’s regional meetings this fall.

“Our shortline members place a high premium on running safe operations. The Jake Awards recognize the significant number of our member railroads who perform better than industry average with respect to injury frequency – with nearly 90 percent of our Jake Award recipients performing injury-free on an annual basis,” said Linda Bauer Darr, president of ASLRRA. “The Short Line Safety Institute is assisting in these efforts by addressing not only the compliance aspect of safety, but the people side of safety, or safety culture, working to continuously improve the safety record of the shortline industry.”

In addition, six member railroads in each of ASLRRA’s four regions will be honored with the President’s Award for the best safety performance based on operation man-hours in 2016.

The Jake Awards are named for Lowell S. “Jake” Jacobson, the president and chief operating officer of the Copper Basin Railway (CBRY). After achieving a perfect safety record for the CBRY in 1993, Jacobson realized that there was no award that recognized smaller railroads’ safety records. In 1999, the ASLRRA Safety Committee adopted the Jake Awards, and since then, has continued Jacobson’s legacy of rewarding and drawing attention to the high safety standards of the small railroad industry.

Since its inception in 1995, the Jake Award program has distributed more than 5,000 Jake and Jake with Distinction Awards to America’s small railroad community.

A list of the 2016 Jake Award Winners is available on ASLRRA’s website.

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