What Is Speak Up Culture — And Why Every Railroad Needs One
A signal maintainer on a regional railroad notices something during a routine inspection. The relay housing shows signs of moisture intrusion — not enough to trigger an alarm, not quite within the parameters that would require a formal defect report, but enough to concern someone who has been doing this work for twelve years. He knows what moisture does to relay contacts over time. He knows what happens when signals give false readings.
He also knows what happened the last time he raised a concern that wasn’t accompanied by a clear rule citation: his supervisor told him he was “overthinking it” and reminded him they were behind schedule. That was eighteen months ago. The concern was eventually validated — two months later, when the signal failed and caused a mainline delay. No one was hurt. No one acknowledged his original observation.
Today, standing in front of the relay housing, he makes a decision. He files the inspection as clean and moves to the next location. The moisture is still there. His knowledge is still there. But the environment has taught him that the cost of speaking up exceeds the perceived benefit.
This is what the absence of speak up culture looks like in rail operations. Not dramatic whistleblower moments. Quiet calculations made by experienced professionals every shift, every day, across every yard and mainline in the country.
Why “Speak Up” Is a Culture Problem, Not a Policy Problem
Every Class I, II, and III railroad in North America has a policy that prohibits retaliation for safety reporting. Federal statute 49 USC §20109 explicitly protects employees who report hazardous conditions. FRA regulations in 49 CFR 225.33 require railroads to maintain internal policies prohibiting retaliation for lawful reporting of accidents, incidents, injuries, or illnesses.
The policies exist. The protections exist. And yet the FRA’s own data reveals persistent underreporting. The DOT Office of Inspector General has noted that injury reporting forms don’t adequately capture the human-factors context behind incidents. Near-miss reporting rates at most railroads are far lower than operational volume would suggest.
The gap between policy and practice is the culture gap. A poster on the break room wall that says “Report Safety Concerns” is a policy. Whether the crew member who reads that poster believes — based on lived experience — that reporting will be received constructively, investigated fairly, and resolved without informal consequences — that’s culture.
“Safety and dignity are at the core of everything we do. When we face challenging conversations, we always start by asking: how do we keep our people and our communities safe, and how do we address gaps in a way that isn’t demeaning?” — Pauline Lipkewich
The Operational Cost of Silence
Between 2018 and 2023, FRA data shows 3,391 roadway worker injuries — an average of 565 per year. Ninety-six roadway workers have been killed since 1997. Human factors are cited as the cause in approximately 65% of rail accidents.
Behind each of these statistics is a question that most incident investigations never ask: what did the people around this incident know before it happened? What concerns existed that were never raised? What observations were made and never shared?
The FRA’s Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS) has demonstrated what happens when the reporting environment changes. One C3RS pilot site reported nearly a 70% reduction in certain accident types. The information was always there — the culture simply hadn’t created the conditions for it to surface.
The Core Insight
Speak up culture doesn’t create new information. It surfaces information that already exists in your workforce but is being suppressed by the environment. Your most experienced railroaders already see the risks. The question is whether your culture allows them to say so.
What Speak Up Culture Is Not
Speak up culture is not a suggestion box program. It is not an anonymous tip line. It is not a training module on communication skills. These are tools that may exist within a speak up culture, but they are not the culture itself.
Speak up culture is the cumulative result of thousands of daily interactions between leaders and workers that establish whether honesty is rewarded or punished, whether questions are welcomed or dismissed, whether raising a concern leads to resolution or retaliation.
It cannot be installed through a program. It can only be built through sustained behavioral change at the leadership level. When a yard foreman responds to a crew member’s concern with genuine curiosity rather than irritation, that is one brick in the foundation. When that response is consistent — across shifts, across supervisors, across operational pressures — the culture begins to shift.
How Speak Up Culture Gets Built
Building speak up culture in a railroad requires working at three levels simultaneously: leadership behavior, structural systems, and frontline experience.
Leadership behavior is the foundation. If supervisors don’t model openness — if they don’t visibly welcome challenges, publicly acknowledge when they’ve been wrong, and consistently respond to reports with investigation rather than discipline — no system or policy will compensate. Workers read leadership behavior far more accurately than they read policy documents.
Structural systems provide the scaffolding. Reporting mechanisms need to be accessible, confidential where appropriate, and connected to visible follow-through. When someone reports a concern, they need to see that it was received, investigated, and acted upon. The feedback loop is essential. A report that goes into a void teaches the reporter that reporting is pointless.
Frontline experience is the proof. The culture is real only when the newest hire on the most pressured shift feels as safe raising a concern as the most senior person on the quietest day. This requires sustained attention — not a program launch, but a cultural residency that transforms daily habits over months and years.
Speak Up Culture and Psychological Safety in Rail
The academic research on psychological safety — pioneered by Harvard’s Amy Edmondson and validated across industries — consistently shows that teams with high psychological safety outperform on every meaningful metric: fewer errors, higher innovation, better retention, and faster problem resolution.
BCG’s research on psychological safety in industrial settings specifically found that environments with high psychological safety retain four times more employees than those without it. In an industry where workforce availability is the number-one concern heading into 2026, this finding has direct operational implications for every railroad in North America.
Speak up culture is the operational expression of psychological safety in rail. It is psychological safety translated into the specific context of switching operations, crew coordination, dispatcher communication, and the hierarchical structures unique to railroading.
Where to Start
If you are a VP of Operations, a VP of Safety, or a COO at a Class II or Class III railroad, the starting point is honest assessment. Not a survey administered by HR, but a genuine reckoning with how your crews actually experience the culture today.
Ask yourself: when was the last time a frontline worker told you something you didn’t want to hear — and you were grateful they did? If you can’t recall a recent example, the speak up culture you think you have may not be the one your people experience.
The Rail Way’s approach is a cultural residency: we embed with your leadership team and frontline supervisors to transform the daily behaviors that determine whether people speak up or stay silent. We build internal faculty who sustain the work after the engagement ends. The transformation happens with you, not to you.
Speak Up Culture Assessment
Check each statement that accurately describes your organization today:
Sources & References
FRA Safety Analysis. Roadway Worker Injury and Fatality Data, 1997–2023. Federal Railroad Administration.
U.S. DOT Office of Inspector General. Report ST2025029: “Federal Railroad Administration’s Oversight of Roadway Worker Protection.” May 2025.
FRA Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS). Pilot Site Outcomes. Federal Railroad Administration.
BCG. “Psychological Safety and Organizational Performance.” Boston Consulting Group Research, 2023.
49 USC §20109. Federal statute prohibiting retaliation for railroad safety reporting.
49 CFR 225.33. FRA regulation on internal safety reporting policies.
Edmondson, Amy. “The Fearless Organization.” Harvard Business School, 2018.
The Rail Way™ is a division of KingdomBuilding Leadership, Inc. — dedicated to being the preeminent voice on leadership, people, behaviors, and culture for the transportation industry. Contributing Editor Pauline Lipkewich has 14+ years in North American rail operations and writes regularly for Railway Age. Contact: [email protected]