Never too old to have a happy childhood!
blue streak 1Can we imagine a train carrying an incapacitied engineer along several hours that hits a vehicle or tresspasser with no notice to management. Hopefully alerter would stop train ?
That happened near Syracuse, NY. It was noticed by RR employees in the area that an Amtrak engineer wasn't calling signals. He ran into a slow moving CSX freight, injuring around 60.
An anecdote related in Trains some years back told of an old head engineer who was discovered by his fireman to be "asleep at the wheel." Curiously, he never missed blowing for a crossing.
There have also been reports of sleeping engineers reflexively hitting the alerter, resetting it.
PTC would likely have prevented the Syracuse incident. The train had to pass a temporary restriction, and would have encountered less than clear signals (to include stop) before it reached the CSX train. PTC would have stopped the train.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Single crew aircraft and trains both have several down points. What if the one has a disabling event. Braniff airlines had a Captain die inflight and my own airline also had one who died of the same condition that caused muppeteer Jim Hinson to die. There have been other events. Can we imagine a train carrying an incapacitied engineer along several hours that hits a vehicle or tresspasser with no notice to management. Hopefully alerter would stop train ?
alphasThe 1958 NJ Drawbridge accident was coverned in some detail in a train wreck book I once had. [It was loaned by my wife to a friend of hers for her husband to read and they took it plus several others of my RR books with them when they moved.] Going from memory, the final autopsy for both the fireman and the engineer revealed the fireman died from a massive heart attack before the train went into the water while the engineer died from drowning but suffered a severe stroke/heart attack just before he died. Also, the train recorder showed that someone had set the train brakes seconds before it plunged into the river. That seemed to point to either one of 2 explanations. First: the engineer having the stroke/heart attack before the "stop" signal, then the fireman having his fatal heart attack upon seeing the enginer go down, and finally the engineer then slightly recovering enough to set the brakes at the last seconds. Second: the fireman suddenly having a fatal heart attack, the engineer having an attack or stroke upon seeing his fireman die, and then recovering enough to set the brakes seconds before the plunging into the river.
Going from memory, the final autopsy for both the fireman and the engineer revealed the fireman died from a massive heart attack before the train went into the water while the engineer died from drowning but suffered a severe stroke/heart attack just before he died. Also, the train recorder showed that someone had set the train brakes seconds before it plunged into the river. That seemed to point to either one of 2 explanations. First: the engineer having the stroke/heart attack before the "stop" signal, then the fireman having his fatal heart attack upon seeing the enginer go down, and finally the engineer then slightly recovering enough to set the brakes at the last seconds. Second: the fireman suddenly having a fatal heart attack, the engineer having an attack or stroke upon seeing his fireman die, and then recovering enough to set the brakes seconds before the plunging into the river.
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The 1958 NJ Drawbridge accident was coverned in some detail in a train wreck book I once had. [It was loaned by my wife to a friend of hers for her husband to read and they took it plus several others of my RR books with them when they moved.]
BaltACD Of course then humans will no longer have the free will that their creator endowed them with.
Of course then humans will no longer have the free will that their creator endowed them with.
We seem to be marching toward that regardless of how many people it takes to run a train.
Time for another Methyl Ethyl Death to try and forget about it.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Euclid tree68 There is a vast difference between a self-driving car with several people in it, avoiding the vehicles and other hazards around it, and a hundred car freight carrying methyl ethyl awful (and even methyl ethyl death). I would submit that the general public might push back against the possibility of such a train barreling through their town completely unmanned. Has there been a push for driverless hazmat hauling trucks as well? There certainly is a push for self-driving trucks. Whether this would have to exclude hauling hazmat or not remains to be seen. But there will be no move forward with any of this sort of driverless automation unless the technolody is deemed to be reliable. Then once it is found to be reliable, it will go forward. They are not going to just stop driverless development for ever due to an open question unresolved about reliability. And if it is deemed reliable, the hazmat may be safer with automated driving than with the manual, human driving of today.
tree68 There is a vast difference between a self-driving car with several people in it, avoiding the vehicles and other hazards around it, and a hundred car freight carrying methyl ethyl awful (and even methyl ethyl death). I would submit that the general public might push back against the possibility of such a train barreling through their town completely unmanned. Has there been a push for driverless hazmat hauling trucks as well?
There is a vast difference between a self-driving car with several people in it, avoiding the vehicles and other hazards around it, and a hundred car freight carrying methyl ethyl awful (and even methyl ethyl death). I would submit that the general public might push back against the possibility of such a train barreling through their town completely unmanned.
Has there been a push for driverless hazmat hauling trucks as well?
There certainly is a push for self-driving trucks. Whether this would have to exclude hauling hazmat or not remains to be seen. But there will be no move forward with any of this sort of driverless automation unless the technolody is deemed to be reliable. Then once it is found to be reliable, it will go forward. They are not going to just stop driverless development for ever due to an open question unresolved about reliability. And if it is deemed reliable, the hazmat may be safer with automated driving than with the manual, human driving of today.
When you have human beings being automated by a central control when the set foot outside of a building - THEN - you can have automated operatorless vehicle. Of course then humans will no longer have the free will that their creator endowed them with.
Years ago (1960's) there was a newspaper editorial in some paper or another - I don't recall after all this time - touting the safety of self-guided vehicles. The main topic was "killer trees," but the piece suggested that by taking the control of the vehicle out of the hands of the occupants, many deaths could be avoided (particularly collisions with killer roadside trees and issues like following too close). Such improvements as wider shoulders were also mentioned.
The editorial finished by lamenting that someone would still have a tire blow (or something like that) and roll the car anyhow, still resulting in a fatality.
The proposal for changing from two-person to one-person will naturally be resisted by Labor as because Labor has an interest in preserving jobs. The most effective resistance will be based on the claim that the crew reduction will reduce safety. Even without any statistics, an argument can be made that a second person in the cab might prevent an accident that would not be so prevented with only one person in the cab.
So even though the second person only offers a chance of preventing an accident, there will be no chance without the second person. And a chance of preventing an accident is better than no chance of doing so. So, safety will be a big issue in the debate over reducing from two-person to one-person.
But going from either two-person or one-person down to zero-person, automatic running will be strongly promoted as a big increase in safety, just as it is currently with driverless vehicles. The regulatory community is in love with self-driving cars because they will prevent thousands of deaths every year. The premise is that the technology of self-driving cars will eliminate human error while there seems to be no focus on the possibility of computer error.
So the same premise will be used to promote driverless trains. The proposed reduction from two-person to one-person faces opposition based on a loss of safety. However this opposition will likely be defeated in the case of reducing to zero-person with automatic running because that will be widely believed to increase safety rather than reduce it.
Was there not something about gambling and bookies and the numbers fix was in?
I'll have to go back and find the right information -- one of the passengers was carrying 'secret' information but I don't remember the details (and get him mixed up with the other guy who left hydrogen-bomb documentation on a PRR train and then 'couldn't find it' even though shop personnel took the inside of the car to pieces looking...)
Overmod Electroliner 1935 How does national security get affected by wrecking a CNJ commuter train? Look carefully at the passenger list.
Electroliner 1935 How does national security get affected by wrecking a CNJ commuter train?
Look carefully at the passenger list.
Ok, now I’m intrigued. I tried to figure out the connection by looking at the passenger list. I could only find a partial list. A Yankees second baseman and Kurt Vonnegut’s brother-in-law didn’t seem like big fish. Where’s the smoking gun?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Electroliner 1935How does national security get affected by wrecking a CNJ commuter train?
How does national security get affected by wrecking a CNJ commuter train? That idea is specious to me.
Electroliner 1935When people state that two people in the cab will be safer than one, I keep thinking of this accident. WTF was the second man doing?
I have always suspected some form of sabotage. 'National security' was involved. Of all places for an inattention accident, this was about the most unlikely.
When people state that two people in the cab will be safer than one, I keep thinking of this accident. WTF was the second man doing? In Chicago Metra runs commuter trains with one person in the locomotive, as does Amtrak on many runs. But these trains have regular hours, which I think are one BIG factor in safe operation. The unpredictible schedules for train crews is I believe the primary cause of many accidents.
And I know, the accident I cite is a scheduled commuter train. So one of the two should have been awake.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tragic-train-accident-new-jersey-1958-article-1.2360153
The disaster was a tragic combination of apparent human and mechanical failure. The train, carrying some 100 late-morning commuters and vacationers toward Jersey City, drove slowly but inexorably through three signal lights and an automatic derailer to plunge 50 feet off the drawbridge into the bay at a point between Bayonne and Elizabethport.
Murphy Siding Euclid zardoz Euclid Here is some commentary on one-person crews versus two-person crews: https://reason.org/commentary/one-person-rail-crews-can-safely-operate-trains/ You do realize that one-person crew is the platform from which no-person crews will launch? Oh yes, of course I realize that. It is the same argument about reducing crew size, no matter whether from two persons to one person, or from one person to zero persons. It is the same motivation, that is, to reduce operating costs. But safety is also part of operating costs, so if it can be proven that crew reductions result in a significant enough loss of safety, it may limit crew reductions. The proof has to accomplish two things: 1) Show that accidents claimed to have prevented by having two persons in the cab would have occurred if only one person was in the cab. 2) Show that accidents that did occur with one person in the cab would not have occurred with two persons in the cab. Are you suggesting that the only way to tell if going to one man crews would lead to disaster would be to implement it and then try to backtrack if when/if it turned out to be a disaster? Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I think I could successfully argue and win the first big lawsuit that a single person crew causes based on that logic. Boring, yet somewhat related analogy from my industry: A lot of new product "development" in the building industry involves cheapening up a product until it fails, then backtracking a bit. For example, a shingle factory- cut back on the amount of expensive sticky stuff in your shingles until they start blowing off roofs. Then turn sticky dispenser dial back up a notch. Problem solved and pennies saved! Is that a good recipe for railroads?
Euclid zardoz Euclid Here is some commentary on one-person crews versus two-person crews: https://reason.org/commentary/one-person-rail-crews-can-safely-operate-trains/ You do realize that one-person crew is the platform from which no-person crews will launch? Oh yes, of course I realize that. It is the same argument about reducing crew size, no matter whether from two persons to one person, or from one person to zero persons. It is the same motivation, that is, to reduce operating costs. But safety is also part of operating costs, so if it can be proven that crew reductions result in a significant enough loss of safety, it may limit crew reductions. The proof has to accomplish two things: 1) Show that accidents claimed to have prevented by having two persons in the cab would have occurred if only one person was in the cab. 2) Show that accidents that did occur with one person in the cab would not have occurred with two persons in the cab.
zardoz Euclid Here is some commentary on one-person crews versus two-person crews: https://reason.org/commentary/one-person-rail-crews-can-safely-operate-trains/ You do realize that one-person crew is the platform from which no-person crews will launch?
Euclid Here is some commentary on one-person crews versus two-person crews: https://reason.org/commentary/one-person-rail-crews-can-safely-operate-trains/
Here is some commentary on one-person crews versus two-person crews:
https://reason.org/commentary/one-person-rail-crews-can-safely-operate-trains/
You do realize that one-person crew is the platform from which no-person crews will launch?
Oh yes, of course I realize that. It is the same argument about reducing crew size, no matter whether from two persons to one person, or from one person to zero persons. It is the same motivation, that is, to reduce operating costs.
But safety is also part of operating costs, so if it can be proven that crew reductions result in a significant enough loss of safety, it may limit crew reductions. The proof has to accomplish two things:
1) Show that accidents claimed to have prevented by having two persons in the cab would have occurred if only one person was in the cab.
2) Show that accidents that did occur with one person in the cab would not have occurred with two persons in the cab.
Are you suggesting that the only way to tell if going to one man crews would lead to disaster would be to implement it and then try to backtrack if when/if it turned out to be a disaster? Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I think I could successfully argue and win the first big lawsuit that a single person crew causes based on that logic. Boring, yet somewhat related analogy from my industry: A lot of new product "development" in the building industry involves cheapening up a product until it fails, then backtracking a bit. For example, a shingle factory- cut back on the amount of expensive sticky stuff in your shingles until they start blowing off roofs. Then turn sticky dispenser dial back up a notch. Problem solved and pennies saved! Is that a good recipe for railroads?
No, I am not suggesting that at all. I am just saying that it has to be shown in a convincing manner. But I have no idea how to show it. But according to the article, some sort of data or statistical evidence is needed before regulators will accept the premise that one-person crews decrease safety to a significant degree. I don't know how this can be shown, but it has to be shown, and that is also what regulators seem to be saying about the matter.
I don't think it can be shown by claims that two-person crews have prevented accidents that would have happened had the same train been manned by a one-person crew. The problem with that kind of data ought to be obvious.
I also don't think it can be shown by claims that accidents that happened with a one-person crew would have been prevented if the crew had been two-person. That premise too has logic problems.
In the larger perspective, neither the management nor the labor positions have anything to do with safety. Instead they are about eliminating or retaining jobs.
Ulrich Given the size and length of trains today, a minimum of two people onboard seems reasonable. There might be some applications where only one person will do (like the Quebec, North Shore and Labrador which is a remote simple operation with no grade crossings) and others might require more than two crew where switching enroute is involved.
Given the size and length of trains today, a minimum of two people onboard seems reasonable. There might be some applications where only one person will do (like the Quebec, North Shore and Labrador which is a remote simple operation with no grade crossings) and others might require more than two crew where switching enroute is involved.
It sure would be nice if those that will have the final say regarding this issue would be as practical-minded as you.
zugmann Euclid 1) Show that accidents claimed to have prevented by having two persons in the cab would have occurred if only one person was in the cab. 2) Show that accidents that did occur with one person in the cab would not have occurred with two persons in the cab. The arguments for one-man (or no man) are strictly about finances. The proponents don't give a rat's behind about safety for anyone. They'll be perfectly happy if a unmanned train rams a school bus full of orphans and nuns as long as the stock price doesn't take a hit.
Euclid 1) Show that accidents claimed to have prevented by having two persons in the cab would have occurred if only one person was in the cab. 2) Show that accidents that did occur with one person in the cab would not have occurred with two persons in the cab.
The arguments for one-man (or no man) are strictly about finances. The proponents don't give a rat's behind about safety for anyone. They'll be perfectly happy if a unmanned train rams a school bus full of orphans and nuns as long as the stock price doesn't take a hit.
When I say that safety is also part of operating cost, I mean safety as imposed by the regulators. If crew size reduction also loses safety, the regulators would impose limits on crew size reduction that would be in effect a cost rather than a benefit. I did not mean that railroad management is directly worried about the safety and viewing it as a drawback to reduced crew size. It is the regulators that will consider safety, and they will want to have solid evidence.
Johnny
Euclid1) Show that accidents claimed to have prevented by having two persons in the cab would have occurred if only one person was in the cab. 2) Show that accidents that did occur with one person in the cab would not have occurred with two persons in the cab.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Interesting post on Train Orders concerning the CSX accident near Carey, OH last summer. The preliminary NTSB report revealed something that is relevant to this one man crew discussion.
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,4881974
I’m admittedly not an economist or financial expert, but it seems intuitive to me that since each train can haul the equivalent of hundreds of truckloads of cargo, the labor component of train operation is insignificant relative to trucks. Therefore, adding or subtracting one crew member from each train should not have that much of an effect either way on rail’s ability to compete on price. If that is the case, then it seems the real agenda here is eliminating humans from the equation completely, as others have said. Or am I missing something?
I was all for paring down the 5-person crews because it seemed to me that at least two of the crew members had no real function whatsoever in the age of diesel locomotives and air brakes. However, I think there’s a good case to be made that each train should be manned by two people, for safety and operational reasons—and especially in this age of super long land-barge trains.
A one-person freight train, possibly completely automatic in operation, with the one person aboard for safety and in case of computer malfunction, makes a lot of sense on a completely grade separated right-of-way, with no switching en-route, and no unusual geographical hazards. No less safe than a typical modern rapid-transit line. And safer than a streetcar, bus, or your personal automotibile.
But add grade crossings, unfenced RoW in a populated area, switching en-route, steep hills on a hill-and-dale operation, any one or more of these, I'm all for insisting on two men. At least two men.
How would you feel flying non-stop across the country with only one person in the cockpit? How about across the ocean?
How about when some yutz decides that since the plane only takes off and lands once, that there is no real reason to have anybody in the cabin, except perhaps a few seats (with the controls removed)--perhaps calling it UltraClass and selling them for megabucks. Maybe with a set of hostler controls in the Flight Attendent station, just in case the computer goes down.
Absurd? Of course.
So is a one-person crew on freight trains.
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