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Noel, exactly what do you base the premise that the railroads are saving money with the remotes? I believe you have made the simple presumption that one man gone means money saved. In the yard where I work the railroad spent millions implementing these remotes. They had to train over a hundred men at better than $2000 each, retrofit the locomotives at over $100,000 each and install radio repeaters. I am sure you will say that the savings from one less man will pay back that investment. Unfortunately you and the railroads are not taking the loss in productivity per job caused by the change. Capital investments on the railroad are huge, track and rolling stock cost a fortune. To use these investments in an inefficient manner costs money. The yard I work in publishes the statistics every month for the yard operations. These statistics include comparisons with last year (when all jobs had engineers). I have the March publication so I can compare Jan, Feb, and Mar with and without engineers. The average number of switch engines worked per month in the three month period with an engineer was 462, RCO 476. The average number of penalty lunches in that three month period with engineers was 13, RCO 57. A penalty lunch costs about $10 each. Minutes overtime per day with an engineer was 24 minutes, RCO 370 minutes. Overtime on an RCO for two men comes to about $1 an minute and with an engineer (three men) $1.50 per minute. The average cost per car switched in the yard averaged with an engineer $8.97 per car, RCO $9.85. The cost per departed car (some cars are switched more than once before departing) with an engineer $10.74, RCO $11.59. A buck a car may not sound like much, consider the yard I work in switches 50,000 cars a month. Their own figures show that they are not saving money with remote control jobs. This doesn't include costs for trains being held out, departing late, or even bypassing the yard to be switched elsewhere and then have some of the cars sent back. How long will it take to pay back the capital outlay for remotes, when it costs more to do the same amount of work?
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