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The reporting railroad pool is smaller — eliminating direct comparisons — but the Federal Railroad Administration's preliminary safety statistics for January through March show U.S. railroads made some strides compared with similar 2003 data. FRA compiled the stats from 614 reporting railroads compared with 659 last year.
Total accidents and incidents fell 6.8 percent to 3,226, while total non-fatal injuries dropped 8 percent to 2,016. However, total fatalities increased 6 percent to 196 compared with 185 during first-quarter 2003.
Highway-rail incidents dropped 6.8 percent to 694 while "other" incidents decreased 9.4 percent to 1,801. In addition, trespasser fatalities and non-fatal trespasser injuries decreased 7 percent and 14.3 percent, respectively, to 93 and 72.
Although employee fatalities remained flat at five, non-fatal employee injuries fell 3.7 percent to 1,424 compared with 1,479 during the same 2003 period.
Meanwhile, train accidents — a safety concern throughout 2003 — were nearly flat at 731 compared with 727 last year. Track causes, yard accidents and derailments dropped 10.7 percent, 2.6 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively. But collisions increased 23.8 percent to 52, signal causes rose 27.2 percent to 14 and equipment causes went up 17.5 percent to 114.