A friend's hubby recently retired from UP as yard hostler in KC area, he was not allowed to have his cell phone with him at all times. Supervisors would do a spot check and he would have to walk them to his car and open the trunk to show them his phone was not with him. And I found out Amtrak does not allow conductors to carry cell phones either, have a friend who works River Runner from St. L to KC and return and he keeps his locked in his car at St. L station. They have the Amtrak cell to use for job info etc, but that is it, no personal cells. The cafe car guy can have his but no engineer or conductor. Good comment SD70Dude, You get fired if you get caught using your cell. That's about it. And that is the end of story.
Many thanks for the replies to my post. Perhaps I should explain the background to my question. I live in the UK. In March 2020 there was a serious derailment caused by a locomotive driver texting whilst in motion at Bromsgrove on the Bristol to Birmingham main line. It resulted in a 'scrape' collision with a passenger train travelling at 74 mph. Fortunately both the locomotive and the passenger train (a 3 car inter city DMU) stayed on the rails and no-one was hurt or injured but both were badly damaged. The UK's 'Rail Accident Investigation Branch' (equivalent to the US NTSB) has since published a report on the accident in which their recommendation was that 'drivers should adhere to their employers policy on mobile phone use'. In other words, 'don't use your mobile phone whilst driving'. I thought that this was complacent and weak. The incident reminded me of the Chatsworth crash, and the Bromsgrove incident could have been much worse, so I wondered what steps have been taken in North America to mitigate this risk. If anyone is interested in reading the RAIB report on the Bromsgrove accident search https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/report-14-2020-passenger-train-collision-with-a-derailed-locomotive-at-bromsgrove
sclm046 Isn't cell-phone jamming equipment illegal in the USA?
Isn't cell-phone jamming equipment illegal in the USA?
It is illegal to use jammers without explicit approval from the FCC, it is also illegal to offer to sell jammers to someone who is not authorized to use them, but there may be a gray area where possession may not be illegal as long as no attempt is made to use it or offer for sale.
York1 Kind of off-topic, but I remember that early in portable cell phone history, movie theaters and churches were checking on the legality of blocking phones. If I remember, it was found to be illegal?
Kind of off-topic, but I remember that early in portable cell phone history, movie theaters and churches were checking on the legality of blocking phones. If I remember, it was found to be illegal?
Depends how it is done. Converting the church or theater into a shielded room is probably legal with respect to FCC regulations, but there may be some liability issues from blocking safety related communications (e.g. EMT's). Using a jammer is definitely a no-no unless specfic permission has been granted by the FCC. Presumably the FCC could yank the railroad's radio licenses if the railraod was being especially obstinate about putting jammers in locomotive cabs.
York1 John
I asked my doctor if I gave up delicious food and all alcohol, would I live longer? He said, "No, but it will seem longer."
andy chandlerSD70: I consider railroad radio important safety item. Radio transmissions allow anyone on the frequency to hear the conversation and thus be aware of situations that arise. But if cell phones are used, only two parties know the conversation. Safety requires redundancy. Even the space shuttle had a morse code key! Finally, good organizations over-communicate. I would hope railroad radio will never go away.
We use our phones when safely stopped- but that's usually to discuss customer matters/work plans with management/dispatcher/yardmaster in places where the radios don't reach very well, or where a more detailed conversation is needed. Boring stuff that no railfan is going to get too excited about, or things no other crews really need to know/care about - but not being able to use our phones would make it a pain in the butt.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
SD70: I consider railroad radio important safety item. Radio transmissions allow anyone on the frequency to hear the conversation and thus be aware of situations that arise. But if cell phones are used, only two parties know the conversation. Safety requires redundancy. Even the space shuttle had a morse code key! Finally, good organizations over-communicate. I would hope railroad radio will never go away.
overmod you are correct. Think of a loco passing by on street running that interfeers with either predestrians or passengers in an auto ? Plus any one passing by a stationary loco?.
Note the page from those clever Israelis that mentions conference-room jamming. This is a device that could be easily installed on a locomotive and remotely activated/deactivated (or perhaps selectively programmed) as desired, perhaps with minimal interference with surrounding cell coverage.
A problem here is that locomotives are commonly stopped in close proximity to areas like grade crossings or buildings where interference with cellular access cannot be interfered with (see Phantom's own disclaimers about legality of operation in the United States). This is a big reason why more selective approaches -- including those where 'burner' phones might be used to avoid company-specific access control -- need to be considered for this application.
I continue to be of the opinion that interception and monitoring of signal traffic is more valuable for 'railroad purposes' than simple blocking, even if it does go against Alan Kay's policy on security implementation. A potential scenario I thought was going to become likely back in the days when PANs were "the next big coming thing" was wireless phones that could be activated and operated without any visible indication of use other than the user's lips moving -- and many people know techniques to make that movement unobvious even short of ventriloquist training. Likewise, head-mounted displays (even of the Google Glass type) would allow relatively covert watching of video material. The only real way to control "proscribed use" of such devices is reliable detection and tracking of operation.
This raises workplace privacy rights issues. I think it's now reasonably decided that a cab can be considered a controlled workspace, but it is interesting to consider the area adjacent to a train, which might have to be forbidden to railroad employees on duty, but unrestrictedly legal for everyone else including railroad employees not on duty. Area jamming would not accomplish this. Interdiction of access might constitute 'interference' under FCC proscription just as carrier interference does. Which leaves intelligent traffic analysis, followed by intelligent discipline, a more sensible 'solution'.
It would be interesting to see what the policy of the various unions on this specific subject is. Their active support of any disciplinary approach would be critical.
They are fighting the same battle in the prison system.
https://phantom-technologies.com/prison-jammers-the-smart-way-to-control-inmates/#:~:text=How%20does%20a%20Prison%20Jammer,are%20administered%20by%20central%20administration.
Cellular-radio "jamming"does not normally consist of attempting to block or override the actual data-radio carrier -- the point of many of the digital features being precisely to overcome natural phenomena that act like analog-radio (e.g. FM or AM) jamming. Instead the approaches interfere with the internal systems used for cell access or handoff, or with the billing-related control systems that allow a particular device to access the cellular network in the first place.
In my opinion it would be trivial to develop a system that would require special dispatcher or supervisor access to permit one-time (or persistent) connection of a dedicated corporate device to any compatible commercial cell network. It would not be particularly difficult to enable any degree of 'throttling' of the resulting connection, for example as is commonly done now to allow access to e-mail or similar 'character-based' or compressed-voice connections while disallowing any kind of streaming video even at toy resolution.
Why use a howitzer when a tack hammer -- or a trigger lock -- will suffice?
Try to get a FCC license to operate jaming equipment. If you do not get a license ? ? ?
You get fired if you get caught using your cell. That's about it.
I've heard that WiTronix has the capability to detect devices that are connected or trying to connect to a network, but I've never actually seen a case where this ability came into play, so this feature either isn't enabled or the railroads don't use it. At any rate this wouldn't detect a phone that was in airplane mode.
Any jamming equipment would also interfere with the company tablets that we now use instead of paper rulebooks and train journals, it is common to download a new journal enroute if something changes.
We are also allowed to use our phones in emergency situations, and any jamming equipment would of course defeat this, which could mean the difference between life and death in some albeit rare cases.
The railroads will probably never admit to this, but it is not uncommon for a supervisor to give a crew permission to use the phone to call that same supervisor, to get the conversation off our antiquated radio system (tower to tower and phone to radio calls are fairly unreliable and often quite scratchy). Jamming equipment would eliminate this possibility.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
I've been reading about the rail crash in Chatsworth, Los Angeles in 2008 when the engineer of a Metralink passenger train was texting and as a result his train crashed head on into a UP freight train with many fatalities and injuries. I wondered what steps have been taken in the years since the accident to prevent engineers using personal cell phones whilst their trains are in motion? I read a while ago that localised jamming equipment was being considered, where only cell use within the cab would be stopped. I understand also that Metralink may have installed internal cab video recording of the engineer. I would be grateful if anyone could advise what steps have been taken across the industry to mitigate this safety hazard.
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