Cleveland Rail Executive Honored by ASLRRA

A Cleveland railroad executive was recently honored at the annual conference of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association held in St. Louis.

Nathaniel Mazo received the organization’s Safety Person of the Year award.

Mazo is general manager for four OmniTRAX properties in Ohio, including the Cleveland & Cuyahoga Railroad, Cleveland Harbor Belt Railroad, Northern Ohio & Western Railroad, and the Newburg & South Shore Railroad.

He was recognized for instituting regional safety programs designed to ensure that employees understand the safety goals of the company, including training employees on work rules compliance, defining and implementing new employee training, supporting locomotive engineer certification and training, and expanding operational testing for all employees. 

In nominating Mazo, OmniTRAX CEO Dean Piacente said Mazo developed an operating philosophy of open and constant communications in the workplace including conducting daily safety meetings.

Piacente notd that Mazo established a regional safety committee that focuses on maintaining safe operations and looking for ways to improve on an already safe environment.

As a result, the railroads that Mazo oversees exceeded OmniTRAX’s key metrics in operations, safety, and finance.

Two Pennsylvania railroad were honored at the ALSRRA conference with business development awards.

The Allegheny Valley Railroad created a transload facility in Pittsburgh to serve the local steel industry.

The facility was created in Glenwood Yard with work beginning in the first quarter of 2021. AVR moved 500 carloads into this facility that year.

The Union County Industrial Railroad was recognized for creating new and innovative ways of providing customer service.

The short line serves eight shippers over 18.2 miles of track but grew its carload traffic by 300 percent over a 10-year period.

It reopened the Delta Place transload siding to serve agricultural shippers during the COVID-19 pandemic, rehabilitated an unused siding for Winfield Storage, and worked with two new customers to locate along the UCIR.

Tags: American Short Line and Regional Railroads Association, Nathaniel Mazo, Ohio short line railroads, OmniTRAX