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5/7/2026
The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) yesterday announced a record 418 of its member railroads earned a 2025 Jake Safety Award, including an all-time-high of 371 that earned a Jake Award with Distinction for zero reportable injuries last year.
To achieve a Jake Award, a member railroad must perform better than the average reportable injury frequency rate per 200,000 hours worked as reported by regionals and short lines to the Federal Railroad Administration.
To win a 2025 Jake Award, railroads needed a rate lower than the industry average of 2.24, a reduction from the prior year, ASLRRA officials said in a press release.
“The Jake Award program serves as a key method for celebrating the industry’s top safety performers and is used as a benchmark by many short lines to measure how well their safety programs are working,” said ASLRRA President Chuck Baker. “What stands out this year is that the average industry injury frequency rate has declined once again, raising the bar even higher for earning a Jake Award.”
The Jake Awards are named for the late Lowell S. “Jake” Jacobson, the former president and general manager of the Copper Basin Railway who championed safety in the short-line industry and created his own award program to honor small railroads’ safety efforts.
In 1999, the ASLRRA’s safety committee adopted the Jake Awards. Jacobson, who died in 2021, was inducted into the Short Line Railroad Industry Hall of Fame in 2024.