ASLRRA honors railroaders for safety, Sierra Northern for environmental actions

The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association yesterday announced its recognition of career-spanning dedication to safety and short-line environmental sustainability at the association's annual conference and exhibition being held this week in Kansas City, Missouri.

ASLRRA named Sam Pederson "Safety Person of the Year" and Albert Manning "Safety Professional of the Year." Pederson is a rail-car repairman at Mission Mountain Railroad and Manning is training program manager at Florida East Coast Railway.

The awards recognize individuals who have dedicated their career to focusing on safety, and leaders who hold their companies and peers accountable to and for each other. Honorees also participate in volunteer efforts to raise safety awareness in their communities.

Pederson and Manning make safety personal on their railroads, said ASLRRA President Chuck Baker in a press release.

"Leading by example, each has earned the respect of their peers, and made a positive and lasting impact on their railroad," Baker said. "We are pleased to highlight their significant contributions to safety culture and performance."

Meanwhile, the ASLRRA honored Sierra Northern Railway for its contributions to environmental sustainability and air quality improvements in central California, an area served by the short line’s intermodal port and transload facility. In 2024, Sierra Northern intends to be the first California short line to put a zero-emission hydrogen locomotive into full testing in revenue service, in a demonstration project funded by the California Energy Commission (CEC), ASLRRA officials said in a press release.

The ASLRRA Environmental Award recognizes a short line or regional railroad that has designed and enacted the most innovative and successful environmental initiative in the small railroad industry, reducing the company’s environmental impact or contributing to meeting sustainability goals for the railroad and/or their shippers.

Sierra Northern's Inland Port and Transload facility is a groundbreaking development in freight movement in California's Central Valley, resulting in thousands of tons of agricultural commodities transiting through the central valley being removed from the roads and moved to end users and port facilities by rail, ASLRRA officials said.

Sierra Northern recognized that customers lacked the ability to properly load and unload commodities for delivery to and from remote operations. Containerizing commodities at the transload facility has allowed producers to serve growing Asian markets through western ports and to capture growth in eastern markets served by rail.