CTE instructors learn rail safety at MGCCC Amtrak safety training
With rail safety playing a critical role in many careers, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College is making sure students start with the right knowledge.
Friday, instructors participated in an Amtrak ‘train the trainer’ program aimed at bringing real-world safety training into local classrooms.
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College is teaming up with Amtrak to make rail safety a top priority, starting with teachers.
Career and technical education instructors learned about safe practices around railroad operations and how to bring those lessons back to their classrooms. MGCCC Vice President of Teacher and Learning Jonathan Woodward said, “This is a perfect time to have this training because as everyone knows in this community we have railroads everywhere. North, south, east, and west running along Highway 90, along Highway 49 and in the community. So, it’s important and is vital right now with Amtrak service coming to our area that we have this training and ensure community safety and that includes individuals in passenger cars all the way to the trucks and the big rigs. We’ve had accidents recently on the Gulf Coast involving railroad crossings so this training is preventative for that happening again.”
The training provided educational resources, real-world safety information, and best practices that can help prepare students for careers where rail safety may play an important role. Amtrak Senior PR Manager Marc Magliari said, “People get complacent, people get distracted. A large part of what happens is people get distracted. They are on their phones, they are listening to some tunes in the car, they are yacking it up with other people in the car and they are figuring there’s not a train coming or they are disregarding the lights, gates, and bells and think they can somehow beat the train. Our trains here aren’t very big; our Amtrak trains will be across that crossing in less than 30 seconds. What’s more important to you? Saving those 30 seconds and then losing your life? Or waiting a half minute for the train to go by? Even if it’s a freight train that is longer, waiting two, three, four minutes versus the rest of your life and the life of your friends and family, it’s just not worth it to try to beat the train. The train is much heavier than you, the train will never be able to stop in time because it’s a big mass of metal in motion. Take the minute, wait for the train to go by. Don’t be using the tracks as some kind of shortcut or going out on the trussells here and fishing. Stay safe and stay off the railroad tracks.”
MGCCC says programs like this help ensure students enter the workforce with the knowledge and safety awareness employers expect.
