BNSF celebrates its Safety Employees of the Year. Also, Union Pacific’s (UP) Chicago Service Unit earns a 2025 Safety Bell Award and UP brings its Silver Spike along for the Big Boy’s eastward tour in honor of the 157th anniversary of the driving of the Golden Spike.
BNSF has recognized three Safety Employees of the Year for 2025, including:
- Bob Courteau for the mechanical team, which maintains BNSF’s locomotives and freight cars.
- Matt Oldham for the engineering team, which maintains BNSF’s track, structures and signal systems.
- Jakub Szyzdek for the transportation team, which operates BNSF’s trains, yards, terminals and intermodal hubs.
These three joined other employees from across BNSF’s system on April 14 in Fort Worth, Texas, to be honored for their outstanding contributions to the company’s success last year.
Each of the honorees is making a significant impact and helping BNSF move toward an accident- and injury-free workplace. Read more about their stories here.
UP’s Chicago Service Unit on May 8 was recognized at the Illinois State Capitol by the Illinois House for earning the Class I’s 2025 Safety Bell Award, setting a new service unit benchmark with 380 consecutive injury-free days and the lowest derailment rate among all 13 service units.’
Also, as UP’s Big Boy No. 4014 prepares to steam eastward, the Class I’s Silver Spike is along for the ride, honoring the 157th anniversary of the driving of the Golden Spike while simultaneously commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, “marking where we began and how we continue connecting the nation,” UP stated in a social media post.
