Incidence of upper extremity pain in railroad maintenance and repair operations

A written questionnaire was used to survey 448 employees at a facility that performs maintenance and repair on railroad locomotives and cars. Seventy-eight percent of the workers reported pain, numbers, and/or tingling in their fingers, hands and/or wrists. Fifty-eight percent of the workers experience the most pain in their hands. The body parts' pain was characterized as moderate by 48% of the respondents. Typical worker tasks include using hand and power tools, lifting, holding, carrying prying, pushing, pulling and operating various controls. Recommendations are made to reduce the potential risk factors suspected of being major work task contributors to pain in the upper extremities.