Celebrating safety excellence: Seven BNSF teams earn 2025 Safety Bells
By KENZIE MUCKWAY
Staff Writer
Our teams work tirelessly to ensure the highest levels of safety so that they and their teammates go home in the same condition as when they came to work. This teamwork resulted in 2025 being BNSF’s best-ever in safety in the 177-year history of our railroad.
One of the measures we track is injury frequency rate (IFR). In 2025, our IFR was about a 16% improvement from 2024. We also had a 13% decrease in rail equipment incidents, surpassing our target for 2025 and continuing to lead the industry, as we have over the past decade.
These levels of safety success deserve recognition, which is why we have a Safety Bell Award program. The Safety Bells are brass bells preserved from steam locomotives of yesteryear that remain a symbol of our industry. They are awarded annually to operations teams with the best safety performance.
In 2025, seven BNSF teams earned Safety Bells for their outstanding safety performance.
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Best Transportation Team – Powder River Division, Denver
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Best Engineering Team – Powder River Division, Denver
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Best Mechanical teams – Northwest Division, Vancouver, Washington; California Division, Barstow; Topeka, Kansas, Diesel Shop; Lincoln, Nebraska, Diesel Shop; Twin Cities Division, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Northtown)
In addition, the Powder River Division took home the bell for Best Overall Safety, which considers the safety success of all three crafts (Transportation, Engineering and Mechanical) in each division.
“I’m tremendously proud of these teams for their commitment to keeping each other safe day-in and day-out,” said Chad Sundem, vice president of safety. “They are truly modeling the way in striving to achieve our vision of operating a railroad free of accidents and injuries.”
The Safety Bell trophies are held by the Safety Bell honorees for the year in “Stanley Cup style” and each team is recognized with their own nameplate affixed on the trophy base. Also, all members of the teams are honored with a commemorative Safety Bell challenge coin.
Thanks to these teams and all our railroaders who continue to build upon our industry-leading safety performance.
