How many RCO Operators have to die before the railroads get rid of the Belly Packs? Within the past two days a BNSF switchman died in Denver. One died in Minneapolis. A goodly number of NTSB reports involve Belly Packs. A locomotive engineer belongs in the cab of a locomotive! You can't do two jobs at once.
Ed Burns
Retired NP BN BNSF from Northtown Yard, Minneapolis.
Some see it simply as a cost of doing business.
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...
They're called beltpacks in these parts.
The remote-control system itself isn't so much the problem, it's poor training and handing the controls to new hires without any real experience. Before we go to engineer training we must work as a conductor for at least two years (which itself is a bit short), while the few weeks of beltpack training starts immediately after new hire rules class and sometimes before the on-the-job portion of new conductor training is completed.
A lot of our beltpack yard assignments not considered very desirable, which leads to the most junior and inexperienced employees being forced to them.
A two-person beltpack crew is also less productive than a full crew with an engineer, but the railroads seem to think that the cost savings outweigh this loss.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
CN has its fair share of RCO fatalities as well. As 70Dude just stated poor training combined with little experience. To back that up. The TSB finally released the cause of how a CN RCO died in Mac Yard back in 2019. What makes this different than past incidents. Poor blocking of empties and loads in a dangerous and inefficient manner exacerbated the situation..
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/remote-control-conditions-a-factor-in-2019-cn-derailment-fatality-report-says/
CN being an early adopter of RCO. I remember when they started using them in Sarnia, ON it was a wreck to say the least... It was that way for quite some time.
Lack of experience all the way. If you read the report, you will see that the trainee that died had been trained by an individual who had only a short time of service and had been trained by another individual with little experience. A real case of the blind leading the blind. (I hope I don't stir up any comments about a taboo subject) I doubt there was much taught about stringlining or other possibilities to these poor smucks who wanted to do a good job but had no clue as to what could happen. Then give them a train with a makeup that screams STRING LINE and a loco control that goes to full throttle and I think a good lawyer might see $$$ in a murder case. Yes, I said murder because this case screams MURDER at me. Fast turnover of personel in a hazard work environment such as train operation is akin to murder. I hope some of the other operating people on this blog may want to address this thought as they have more first hand knowledge of the training and what is taught but experience is still needed and valuable. Engineers used to start as firemen and got years of seasoning before being put in charge of a train. These men had just weeks of training and were taught by inexperienced men.
Electroliner 1935Lack of experience all the way. If you read the report, you will see that the trainee that died had been trained by an individual who had only a short time of service and had been trained by another individual with little experience. A real case of the blind leading the blind. (I hope I don't stir up any comments about a taboo subject) I doubt there was much taught about stringlining or other possibilities to these poor smucks who wanted to do a good job but had no clue as to what could happen. Then give them a train with a makeup that screams STRING LINE and a loco control that goes to full throttle and I think a good lawyer might see $$$ in a murder case. Yes, I said murder because this case screams MURDER at me. Fast turnover of personel in a hazard work environment such as train operation is akin to murder. I hope some of the other operating people on this blog may want to address this thought as they have more first hand knowledge of the training and what is taught but experience is still needed and valuable. Engineers used to start as firemen and got years of seasoning before being put in charge of a train. These men had just weeks of training and were taught by inexperienced men.
Today's railroads have eliminated all the 'learning positions' that previously existed within the industry. Firemen operated on locomotives with Engineers for several years learning some of the tricks of the trade by seeing and hearing them being performed. Train Order Operators worked with Train Dispatcher on a day in day out basis and could observe the strategies and practices that it took to keep the railroad moving. Brakemen rode trains and performed duties as directed by the Conductor and/or Engineer and picked up all the 'background knowledge' from them. In each case, the junior job offered the opportunity for those that performed those duties to LEARN from those who had been 'through the wars' and had learned and polished their craft through their experience.
The downside of that form OJT education was that the 'senior' members are not 'trained teachers' and may not be able to effectively communicate their knowledge and tricks of the trade to those that are in the position to learn from them.
There is a learning that comes from continued experience over time that cannot be communicated during a classroom style enviornment. If the trainer only has limited real world experience more than the trainee - it is truly the blind leading the blind - without a cane or service animal.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
To the railroads it is who cares, it is cheaper and easier to get another employee than place the employee in the cab of the locomotive.
BaltACDThe downside of that form OJT education was that the 'senior' members are not 'trained teachers' and may not be able to effectively communicate their knowledge and tricks of the trade to those that are in the position to learn from them.
Had a co-worker who's training mantra was "you can figure it out." I always got the impression that they were afraid someone else might become smarter than them and thus diminish their importance.
I've seen more than a few stories in Trains and other such magazines in which the fireman was "in the seat," either sharing the task with the engineer or covering for him.
I'll be very interested in Joe's solutions to these issues, particularly how you 'train the trainer' for the experienced cadre (to give them the people skills to make their training and mentoring valuable to all concerned)...
SD70DudeA two-person beltpack crew is also less productive than a full crew with an engineer, but the railroads seem to think that the cost savings outweigh this loss.
I'd say in order of productivity: 3 man crew (engineer-conductor-switchman) > RCO 2 man crew > 2 man conventional (engineer-conductor only).
We lost a lot of our RCO jobs. They were pretty much stuck in yards where engineer-conductor jobs can go out on the road and serve customers/recrew/whatever. Plus you need dedicated RCO-equipped engines. Big terminals had several, whiel smaller terminals may only have one. And if that engine is shopped? Now you're scrambling to find enough engineers for the jobs.
But honestly? The guys that ran RCOs rough usually become engineers that run the engines rough. I don't know how much the technology is to blame at times.
RCOs can help guys understand how the engine interacts with the cars, too. You see how the engine and the cars interact since you're down on the ground. You see how long drawbars can pull out, or how they get shoved in with slack. If you're open to seeing that stuff, I guess.
Zug (who has run RCs).
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
The idea, as provided by the railroads, is that with RCO, the yardman at the coupling is giving signals direct to the engine instead of through the engineer. It's safer because a verbal signal isn't misunderstood, or missed, at a critical moment. The yardman controls the movement, or nonmovement when coupling air hoses, etc. I'm sure it's happened that something went wrong on a conventional switch crew, but not that often. And probably less since radio has been adopted.
That switchmen make less money than an engineer, or you're cutting out completely one crew memeber's wages probably never occurred to the railroad. Many of our yard jobs were foreman only, no switchman helper. Even before PSR. So on some assignments you exchanged an engineer for another switchman, on others you just cut off the engineer's pay. I've even heard of a yard job, one that left the yard to service industries, operate with only one person.
I was RCO, too. I still have my vest that the box attached to. Although my license says I'm still good, I haven't run one in almost 20 years. We started out with old yard slugs that had the RC receiving equipment and could MU to any locomotive. I've seen pictures of old GE road engines outfitted for that duty, but we never had them. Now they have equipped engines.
Productivity dropped at first as people became familiar with them. You could also do no wrong, at first, with them. The worst I had was a wheel derailed on the slug on a industry track that was in very bad shape. (We had run about 30 feet, determined after we stopped, from the point of derailment. We only noticed because we heard a loud "clunk" when the wheel hit a joint bar.) The managers were all smiles, no problem, etc. The guy I was working with had a similar derailment at another industry about a month earlier. He said that same manager was madder than a wet hen.
I've heard rumors back then that someone ran through a main track switch, but it was swept under the rug. It's kind of like the current Energy Management Systems we are required to use. If an engineer's train handling causes a break in two or worse, it's like the world is coming to an end. If EMS does it, it's no big deal. Just a mechanical failure.
Jeff
jeffhergertThat switchmen make less money than an engineer, or you're cutting out completely one crew memeber's wages probably never occurred to the railroad. Many of our yard jobs were foreman only, no switchman helper. Even before PSR. So on some assignments you exchanged an engineer for another switchman, on others you just cut off the engineer's pay. I've even heard of a yard job, one that left the yard to service industries, operate with only one person.
Bunch of our jobs went foreman only at the end, too.
But RCO's were given a remote allowance that raised you to engineer rate. You guys didn't do that?
zugmann jeffhergert That switchmen make less money than an engineer, or you're cutting out completely one crew memeber's wages probably never occurred to the railroad. Many of our yard jobs were foreman only, no switchman helper. Even before PSR. So on some assignments you exchanged an engineer for another switchman, on others you just cut off the engineer's pay. I've even heard of a yard job, one that left the yard to service industries, operate with only one person. Bunch of our jobs went foreman only at the end, too. But RCO's were given a remote allowance that raised you to engineer rate. You guys didn't do that?
jeffhergert That switchmen make less money than an engineer, or you're cutting out completely one crew memeber's wages probably never occurred to the railroad. Many of our yard jobs were foreman only, no switchman helper. Even before PSR. So on some assignments you exchanged an engineer for another switchman, on others you just cut off the engineer's pay. I've even heard of a yard job, one that left the yard to service industries, operate with only one person.
I don't think so, but the one person crew happened long after I left the Des Moines yard boards. I do know everyone got an additional 46 minutes of pay for working RCO.
Why 46 minutes, some may ask? Because the BLE (Engineer's union name at the time) held the working contract for all crafts on the Montana Rail Link. They negotiated the first US contract for working with remotes. The UTU (Train and yardmen's union name at the time) held the working contract for switchmen virtually everywhere else, at least on Class Ones. They weren't going to be out done, so they got 46 minutes for their people.
Zug, did you use Cattron-Theimeg remote equipment? We did. They were the US licensee for Canac, the Canadian National's company that developed that remote control system. They could've bought direct from Canac, but instead of buying the latest version they bought the licensed version. An earlier version that still had bugs in the system. They buy the best they can for the money they're willing to spend.
jeffhergertZug, did you use Cattron-Theimeg remote equipment? We did. They were the US licensee for Canac, the Canadian National's company that developed that remote control system. They could've bought direct from Canac, but instead of buying the latest version they bought the licensed version. An earlier version that still had bugs in the system. They buy the best they can for the money they're willing to spend.
Both names were thrown around. Maybe we started with one, then the other, or the name changed? I don't know. I think we started with Cattron, then were full CANAC.
Our beltpack conductors and brakeman get paid about $1/hr more than those on a regular yard crew with an engineer.
CN uses both CANAC and GE beltpack systems. As Jeff mentioned CANAC invented the thing in the first place, back when they were still CN's consulting division (you know, back when railroads actually had R&D departments). I think the GE system was becoming preferred since it gave the operator a bit more flexibility, from what I've been told the CANAC system wouldn't let you release the automatic while moving.
I hired on at a smaller outlying terminal that doesn't have any beltpack jobs, so I'm not RCO-qualified and likely never will be (my seniority should keep me out of the yard even if I can't hold as an engineer). While I think that it's wrong to force brand new guys into beltpack training immediately after they hire on, I do agree with Zug that paying attention to what the equipment does in response to throttle and brake commands is a valuable training tool. Engineers who never spent much time working yards when they first hired on are usually painful to switch with, while guys who switched a lot tend to know what they are doing.
The only conductor-only yard jobs we have are transfers, rovers (rescues) and hump jobs. Transfers have an engineer, the hump jobs are just one guy. Our yard crews are allowed to go as far as 25 miles outside the terminal and CN will send beltpacks anywhere they can.
The yard assignments in Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Melville, Saskatoon, Prince George and Kamloops are almost entirely beltpack crews. Vancouver still has several with engineers, and they also have quite a few transfers every day. For the longest time Edmonton only had one yard assignment with an engineer, and it was only kept because a seniority protection agreement from 1981 (the Northern Alberta merger) required them to keep one protected NAR yard assignment with a full crew. The last NAR guy retired a year or two ago and they did get rid of this job for a little while, but it was soon resurrected with an engineer after they realized they actually needed it (it was habitually used for transfers and a couple other duties where having an engineer actually made sense, even to management).
Nearly all the remaining jobs with engineers are conductor-only transfers or 'rovers', whose main purpose is to rescue trains that have run out of time close to or within the terminal. Of course, if the beltpack dies they have no choice but to call an engineer off the spareboard.
It's common now to see SD38s, SD40s and SD60s that have been fitted for beltpack operation. They hold down a lot of heavier switching and hump jobs within yards. The older four-axle power is still needed for industrial spur switching, but their ranks are thinning with each passing year.
70Dude CN has been using SD70's. Mainly some of the late 5600's here on the GTW for various local runs for some years now. I wonder if they will eventually get equipped for RCO.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.