remote control locos

[Anonymous]

I have seen the BNSF use remote contorl locomotives in there yards, and the UP trying them on main lines. I think this is a huge mistake. How can anyone replace people with machines? Thers has already been some deths in virous train yards where remote control locomotives are used. The whole idea will make the railroads even more deadly, and also cost jobs. Nothing can replace humans, PERIOD!

[kenneo]

It costs less to pay off a family for a death than to pay wages and benefits for a worker.

[Anonymous]

It seems like the RR's are are always portrayed as very conservative about new technology, but there are tons of experiments that lasted a few years and went away in the history of RR.

I valunteer that the future of remote control locos is not written in stone.

[MP57313]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Jay1

Nothing can replace humans, PERIOD!

Jay1,

You may be right; we'll see. On lines that cross many grade crossings and junctions, or pass through densely-populated areas, I can't see them going entirely to unmanned engines. But look what happened to the caboose...

MP

[Overmod]

Use of RC at present is entirely restricted to yard and switch moves. Where it is considerably safer than "normal" operation.

The idea is that the switchman making a coupling or moving the train can control the locomotive while watching what's happening. Doing this with a separate engineman requires hand signals, radio communications, etc., and just can't be as good as having haptic control directly -- ever try driving down the road with someone else pushing the gas and brake on your request? Or, worse yet, trying to park in a tight space without being able to see, or backing up a blind trailer? Think how much easier it would be if the guy on the loading dock could control the accelerator and brake on the truck...

As I indicated elsewhere on the forums, I think this is at the heart of the current war between UTU and BLE. But there's something of a semantic difference between road locomotives -- which move trains from point to point -- and switch/transfer engines, which are essentially motive power to perform switching tasks.

Unmanned operation can be fine for city transit systems, or fancy Monorails Of The Future at theme parks. On normal railroads, about the only real 'advantage' would be the elimination of many 8-hour-law crew van trips -- and the perceived tort liability, for grade crossings, trespassers, rockslides, washouts, etc. etc. etc., is like a John Grisham wet dream.

I wouldn't even look for the adoption of 'one-man crews' on mainline trains any time soon, although I do think we will see two-man crews that 'co-drive' in the manner of over-the-road truckers, perhaps doubling the acceptable 'legal' time between mandatory crew replacements.

[jeffhergert]

Having worked with remote control in the past, I don't believe RC is any safer than normal operation. Instead of communicating with an engineer you are communicating with a computer on the engine. There are delays built into the system and you can hurt yourself just as easily.
But yards equipped with remotes have less injuries. Yes, less people doing the job should result in less injuries. Most injuries are from straining yourself on handbrakes, tripping over things or falling off or getting off equipment and stepping wrong. That's why getting off moving equipment is prohibitted except in emergencies. The injuries and deaths from miscommunication happen, but are more the exception than the rule.
I think the big reason the UTU (the leadership, certainly not most of the rank and file) embraced remotes is because the BLE rejected merger of the two unions.

[Overmod]

Jeff makes some good points. I wasn't implying that response from remotes is immediate (although I think a well-designed system could be) -- more that once the guy on the ground has learned the responses and 'quirks' of the system in use, it should be faster, easier, and safer to 'eyeball' switch moves from the ground. The skills required ought to be similar to those required for cab control of push-pull commuter trains with an older diesel at the other end...

I don't think the 'less injuries' is the result of fewer people on the job. There are 100% as many people in the places where they can get hurt -- unless enginemen routinely get down out of the cab and put themselves in harm's way during switch or transfer moves. Isn't it almost always the trainmen who sustain the injuries?

My opinion is that there are better ways to make the remotes, "attach" them to the people using them, and provide failsafe modes of operation. Anyone know how much input from working trainmen, and enginemen, was involved in the design of the existing boxes?

MP, the reasons for a caboose were almost all supplanted by "more effective technology" -- rear brake-pipe pressure, rear red light, radio notification of end-of-train, etc. can all be provided via a FRED-like device small enough to carry and attach. Eliminating a four-axle vehicle that needs to be switched, and contains at least one salaried employee, is a non-trivial achievement, but what that salaried employee actually did to help run trains is largely incidental if there is good PTC... and, in fact, largely incidental in a world of train radio and reasonably long headway between trains, where crews 'know' very quickly where stopped or broken-down trains are. (Of course, some railroads still operate some divisions with cabooses when they find them desirable).

This is immensely different from the front end of the train, where you have someone actually concerned with the motive power for the train, the signals, emergency conditions that can't be indicated by signals or radio, etc. Full automation there is an open invitation to plaintiff's bar...

I think something more critical will be a move to 'single-man' crews on road trains; this is already in force in some locations (I think either WAGR or Victorian Railways in Australia already runs some trains this way). My view is that there should be two people on a locomotive, but that one of them can be a person 'other' than engine crew (e.g., conductor or 'head brakeman') And that distributed computing and other technology does 100% of the job that requires any other people on board the train itself in normal operation...

[Train Guy 3]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kenneo

It costs less to pay off a family for a death than to pay wages and benefits for a worker.

I unfortunatly believe some people would take that into consideration on deciding to use RC locos.

[CShaveRR]

In a year of working with yard jobs controlled by RCOs in a hump yard, I've got to admit that I like them. The people that were good, dependable switchmen make good, dependable RCOs. (Unfortunately, things work the other way, too...and then we get the new guys who are totally lost, can't "read" a switch to see which way it's lined, and otherwise have no clue, and have no other crew member setting them straight.)

The best advantage, to me, is that humping is done at a consistent speed, that for which the controller is set. It doesn't seem like a big thing until you go back to a "conventional" humper and see the difference. How did we put up with it?

[Mookie]

Been watching the remotes in our yards - they are used for the "bump" work (no longer a good hump). They have two men when they cross the public xings and shove a lot of cars around the yard. Don't seem to have much trouble - but then, not sure we would hear too much about it unless there was an injury. It looks just like Ed in Houston - when they back up a lot of the time the switchman/conductor is hanging off the last car.
So while they are remote - they still use a lot of two man crews.

Mookie

[Kathi Kube]

Five years of doing something doesn't sound like a very long time, but when it comes to reporting and writing about remote controls, five years covers a lot.

The first time I wrote about remotes (at a prior publication), representatives from both unions told me they are "absolutely an unsafe operation." One of them went on to describe in great detail all the horrors of railroading and all the "evidence" that the companies don't care about their workers. Well, I was suckered and wrote such a terrible piece that someone else had to rewrite it. I vowed never to be had like that again.

The more I wrote about them, though, the more I talked with the manufacturers. The technology seemed sound. ('Course, what did I know of railroading at the time?) Every few months I would call FRA to find out if it was taking any action or still "studying" it — for several years.

Then, when the FRA issued its safety advisory, the unions parted company and UTU signed the contract with the Class Is, the usual song had changed: Now they were perfectly safe under the right circumstances. That is, with UTU-represented personnel operating them, that is. What exactly changed? Nothing to do with the equipment as far as I could tell.

The FRA notice governing remote control use is "Notice of Safety Advisory 2001-01 in the Federal Register," Volume 66, No. 31, page 10340. You can start here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/advanced.html to read it for yourself. In fact, people should read it for themselves. These are the guidelines FRA came up with to try to ensure safe operation. It seems they would decrease productivity, based on what I've seen and heard anecdotally.

What are your experiences? Are these guidelines being followed? Are remotes even being used as much now as they were a year or two ago? And do you think UP is sorry it decided to slash 1,000 positions — 600 of which were train jobs, mostly engineers — according to a report it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission March 3, 2003?

Five years of following the development, discussions and implementation of remotes has jaded me some. Or perhaps it's just a journalist's reaction to putting politics above people.

OK. I'm off my soapbox now. [soapbox][soapbox][soapbox][soapbox]

[sigh]

Back to other stuff.

Later!
Kat

[Mookie]

Kathi - I am with you - seems like companies large and small take out the gun, shoot their foot off and then go "oh! Probably shouldn't have done that!". The exuberance to adjust the bottom line are the politics of this fine nation. You would think it would cure them, but my opinion is it won't make any difference and they will go right ahead and do it again in the not too distant future.

I won't comment on the safety of the remotes, since I don't work them. Looking at them from a distance, they look like they could work - but like any place that has heavy machinery that moves - accidents will happen. Like Ed said - you can't have too many ears and eyes.

Mookie

[TH&B]

I have worked with remotes, and I don't think they are so bad. It does depend on what and how they are used. Remotes are not majic, they are a tool.

On the hump and pulldowns it's ok, I enjoy being in control of the movement especaily the pulldown. Leave me alone and dont watch me and I'll get it done. Some guys have comented to me that they dont like the way i kick cars far and my radar joint technics, sometimes I just stand at the switch and switch out the train from that location all by myself. Often we have 3 remotes using multi leads with the occasional engine coming by with a hogger who of course is a little nervous around the remotes, but I've never seen any accident here yet caused by remotes. I have seen accidents with and without remotes and sometimes caused by inexperience.
Anyways these are junior jobs and if by the time I could become an engineer I wont want to be a hump engineer anyways, too boring.

Protecting the point is an issue, especialy when you are working alone.

In older yards with less perfect grades remotes are not suitable.

I haven't used a remote in a long while now.

[Anonymous]

I switch with remotes and as for safety I belive they are ok. I perfer having the extra eys of an engineer. we have experianced a large increase in the running of switches, there is alot to keep track of out there, switch lists, other movements, etc. then management wonders why crews with less than 2 yrs railroad experiance are running switches? Often new hires are being thrown to the wolves..then fired.. we have a real lack of appreceation for training and experiance it seems. But the large class 1's seem too interested in pleasing wall street for the momment. Now we are told that this fall the carriers (railroads) will be asking for one man crews on mainline trains. This will be an interesting contract negotiation this fall and winter.