More on this subject... NTSB Wants Rules to Ease Fatigue in Railroad Workers Union Pacific Corp. and other U.S. railroads should be required to take steps to reduce worker fatigue after a fatal 2004 accident in Texas in which the engineer probably was asleep, a federal board said. The National Transportation Safety Board urged rail regulators Thursday to develop science-based rules to prevent irregular schedules that reduce alertness and to limit duty time after 12 hours. The board found that a Union Pacific crew caused the June 28, 2004, crash by passing a stop signal, hitting a BNSF Railway Company train and releasing chlorine gas. The train was bound for Tucson when it hit the BNSF train, which was headed for Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was moving to a side track about 15 miles from San Antonio, Texas. Union Pacific employs about 900 workers in Southern Arizona. Three people died after inhaling the gas from a tank car punctured in the collision. The accident happened about two hours after the crew reported for duty. The engineer worked 37 of the 55 hours before his shift and still was within federal rules limiting duty time, NTSB investigator Gerald Weeks said. "It seems amazing to me that we are in this point in time and we don't have better management of employee schedules," board member Deborah Hersman said at the Washington hearing. "The crew is being asked to get more rest when they are off duty, but they have no control over when they are called for duty." The board's recommendations to the Transportation Department's Federal Railroad Administration aren't binding. The rail agency sets and enforces industry safety rules, including duty limits that require eight hours of rest after as many as 12 hours of work, and 10 hours off if duty time exceeds 12 hours. The railroad administration will give railroads a technical report on fatigue as early as August that will include methods to calculate tiredness that draw on studies by the Defense Department and others, agency spokesman Steve Kulm said. The Union Pacific crew in the Texas accident worked irregular schedules and watched movies or played cards instead of getting enough rest before going on duty, Weeks said. The NTSB didn't identify the crew members. The conductor failed to alert the engineer when the train passed a warning signal at 45 miles per hour instead of 30 mph or tell him to stop at a red signal, and the engineer didn't slow down, Weeks said. The engineer told investigators he didn't remember anything about the trip. The conductor's blood-alcohol level exceeded federal limits when he reported for work, Robert Chipkevich, director of the safety board's railroad office, said. All railroads forbid alcohol consumption on duty. The companies don't have rules that limit drinking before work. "While we agree generally that the accident was caused by human factors, we cannot comment fully on the board's investigation until we review the actual findings and conclusions in detail," said Union Pacific spokesman James Barnes. The company is the biggest U.S. railroad by sales. The board also recommended that workers receive training in finding more time to sleep when they are off duty and that railroads be required to install crash-prevention technology. Technology called "positive train control" would have prevented the collision, said Mark Rosenker, the board's acting chairman. The satellite-based technology lets a dispatcher halt a train if it passes a stop signal. BNSF is using such a system on a 124-mile line in Southern Illinois. Union Pacific, Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration also are testing the technology in Illinois for use on trains between Chicago and St. Louis. The safety board again recommended putting tank cars toward the rear of trains to reduce the risk of puncture in a collision. The chlorine car in the Union Pacific accident was 12 cars back from the engines and had 62 loads behind it. - Ripley Watson, Bloomberg News, The Tucson Arizona Daily Star
Exactly. Fatigue sets in. Morale drops. Ability to function at top efficiency drops dramatically. No matter what the pay rate. No company gets, or retains the top quality people they need, under these conditions. And then, things go so wrong....... :sad: :sad: Boxcab E50
Hello...Earth calling the NTSB...All the training in the world won't make more time out of 6 to 8 hrs. or less out of 12 to whenever. Even being reasonably responsible with your off-time as Jerry suggests doesn't leave enough to see your kids, cut the grass, change the oil, etc. etc. I don't party or heaven forbid, 'watch movies or play cards' on my off time but the extra lists and first-in-first-out 24/7 pools still wear you down. How much dedication is enough? Sooner or later, life intrudes on the corporate vision of 'human resources'. I've seen the training videos and pamphlets they put out and laughed. "Sleep at the same times every night (night being the key word, what about days?), plan your sleep schedule (around the RR? What schedule?), don't eat or drink before bed (when else would you?), make sure you don't have sleep apnea (apparently that's worse than alternating day and night calls for a month but at least the medical office can hold you out for it)." You can only turn-and-burn so much before you collapse and training, technology, wishful thinking, greed, pressure, threats and discipline can't change it. If anything, PTC will make it worse because guys will learn to rely on the box to protect themselves instead of using their own heads. A well, trained, well rested human on the stick will beat a GPS tracker any day of the week. The unions, feds, crews and carriers have to come up with a way to balance time and be realistic for once if the fatigue-caused disasters are to stop.
There are way too many railroaders whose attitude is "work to live, not live to work", so they really don't care about proper sleep and time management. Younger conductors especially, I've noticed, use their time on the train to catch up on sleep. They can get away with it with engineers that they trust, but as this case shows, some get a little too trustworthy. To many, this is just a job, not a lifestyle. If the job gets to a point where it interferes with "life", many will quit and find a more normal lifestyle job. When the RR hires, after a year they're lucky to retain 30-40% of the people hired. I've noticed a lot of new hires came from low paying jobs, and once they make the equivalent of a week's pay from the old job (usually in about 3 days), they disappear ("work to live"). Then you're back into the overworked few covering all the vacancies created by these people disappearing. So the RR thinks they need to hire more, and then you start the same cycle over again. I've always said that the more the RR hires, the more people that will be on the "off board" on the weekends.
All work and no play make jack a dull boy. ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKE JACK A DULL BOY. AlL WoRk AnD No PlAy MaKe JaCk a DuLl BoY. (Well, you get the idea) Russ
I’d like to address this rest and fatigue issue with some observations since I’ve been railroading. With 27 yrs in the industry I’ve seen a lot of changes. Some for the better and some not. I don’t remember fatigue being the issue then like it is now. Part of the safety valves we had were full crews instead of conductor and engineer only. After 1985 and the infamous Halloween agreement, attitudes and conditions changed drastically. Railroads started trying to do more with less. The railroads are there for their profit and rightly so. To make that profit they sold a service of transporting goods. So better use of crews is their and the customer’s right. But at what point when does this “doing more with less” start eating on its own body. There was a time we didn’t have guaranteed extra boards. The men with seniority did manipulate the extra boards for their benefit but on the week ends you expected them to layoff. I would get called to mark up Thursday or Friday. Work through the weekend and get cut off Monday morning at 8 am. It was a way of life, 8 on and 8 off in the yard. I made good money and didn’t have a problem taking time off, even on the weekends if I needed to be off. It didn’t hurt to be single either working that way. Then the guarantee extra boards came about and we lost the right to control our own boards. The company didn’t want to pay guarantee so the boards started running short. The UP started a no layoff policy. Low seniority men didn’t get the weekend work after that and sharp shooting really started. The safety valve of a furlough board to keep the extra board filled on week ends ended. Guaranteed extra boards could have had scheduled days off but that requires a few more men on them and the bare bones attitude of Crew Management wouldn’t accept that. Granted rest management is essential but there is a life off the job and sometimes employees take a chance and try to do both. Even the dedicated employees will need some time off to blow off steam so to speak once in a while. On call 24/7 will not allow scheduling of rest all of the time no matter how responsible or dedicated you are. UP is a little more truthful about working for the railroad now when they hire but still the trainees I see don’t comprehend what they are getting into. Some learn to railroad and others never accept the change in life style required to be a rail. Attrition has taken its toll on the new hires historically as it does now. Of the 70 or so people WP hired in 1979 there maybe only 10 – 15 of us still working for the railroad. Another item and maybe a subject for a new thread, on this rest and fatigue issue is the proposed one man crews on the “over the road trains” in our OVER due contract. What I expect to see in this next contract is the same old work rules and just one person in the cab. The railroads don’t even want to approach a work rule standard such as those used in Australia. Railroads don’t want to shorten the 12 work rule or even try to schedule trains to make running them predicable. Australian railroads have shorter maximum times on duty if working singly. They also have start times that are bid on by seniority over a rotary pool turns. The extra board has a much more structured call cycle with specific call times to protect. There is no easy solution. Mandatory time off will not guarantee rested crews. Many will push the envelope on rest and recreation. More people on the crews won’t resolve the problem either but it might help a bit. Better management, better training, better scheduling won’t fully solve the problem but it might start the trend in the right direction. It still falls down to the individuals doing the job. There isn’t any job or industry that doesn’t have a cross section of good, ok and poor employees. Historically railroads hired at a slower rate more often. That helped weed out the ones unable to accept the way of life required to be a railroader. It helped get the new hires trained. These periods of no hiring then sudden spurts of mass hiring leave little time to train and weed out those not cut out to the job. Greg Elems 10 yrs conductor 17 yrs engineer 27 yrs and counting…
Another phrase for what's happening w/ over worked crews is called "turnin and burnin" They'll complain about the hours worked, but then forget all about when they see their paychecks add up to over $100K + /year. Back in the day they used to run red signals to get 60 days off w/ job insurance of course. Now they get fired outright.
Forgive me for being ignorant on this subject, but wouldn't this problem also exist with OTR trucking? What action has the USDOT and/or the trucking industry taken to prevent fatigue related accidents? I don't read much about truckers falling asleep anymore, or is it such a common occurance that it isn't considered news any more?
Truckers can get away with excessive driving by keeping 2 log books, one for the DOT reps to look over and one showing what they actually do. Most, if not all, railroads keep track of time via computer systems, but still, when a crew is called to work, they are called to report at a specific time, and so it is very clear when the 12 hour time limit will occur.
My POV is similar to a lot of others, but one of the major factors that I know FOR A FACT that causes crew fatigue is just plain ole greed! Guys (and gals) simply wont mark off,even when sick, because they not only want, but NEED,that big paycheck. Someone has to pay for the "booze cruise" to Mexico or the family vaction to Orlando. Payments have to be made on the Dodge Ram pickup for dad and the Lexus for Mom, not to mention the 35' boat, and did I mention the RV? Johnie and Suzie need the latest Nikes and the trendiest fashions. Sorry guys but ya gotta draw a line somewhere. If you are sick or drunk, MARK OFF! I know your gonna tell me about your railroads "attendance policy"!!!!!! I went thru that same BS myself, more than once! I finally wound up getting Family Medical Leave Act so that I could use it when my medical conditions would "flare up" If you do mark off sick, go to the croaker!!!! Attendance policy notwithstanding, the railroad has little or nothing to say about your health. If you doubt me read the literature the FELA law firms keep sending you, or go to one of their free seminars or Q & A sessions. They make their money, from the carriers, by defending YOU! If your carrier has scheduled jobs,and you have the seniority, bid one one! Bite the bullet and pocket a few $$$ less a check, or bid on a board that works less. When you hold a scheduled job, you dont have to answer the fone and you can turn your pager and cell fone off! There are lots of ways to work WITH the system and the guys who pi** and moan the most about working too much are the guys who are to stupid and greedy to say NO! Another thing, if you get a short call or a call on short rest, REFUSE IT. Those are governed by FRA! Let them hold an investigation and prove that they weren't violating FRA rules! I could keep on going but I gotta get off my soapbox! CT
Ok, so far this has been a pretty interesting discussion. I can see that it can get heated quickly but I'd like to know some more opinions. With all this "fatigue" problems and such, what do you all think will happen if the RRs get their way for one man crews in places??? Personally I think there's some crack smokin goin on but I don't work for the rr and don't have any insight other than what I read. Lets do this but try and stay civil and objective cause I'm sure there are tons of very hot opinions on this.
I understand Amtrak is more or less doing that now on many routes. Of course being a passenger train they still have a conductor but he is not in the locomotive. If the engineer has to use the crapper, they have to stop the train. I heard the Sunset Limited coming east out of San Antonio discussing it once on the scanner. The dispatcher was teasing the Amtrak engineer that he already had one potty stop and could not get another.
My opinion, without another crewmember in the cab there are no checks and balances. Would you fly in a jumbojet with only the pilot at the controls? Sure he could do the job himself but as my grandfather used to say, "It is ALWAYS good to have an extra set of eyes and ears." Russ
Geez my hats off to you guys. I've been looking at RR websites to learn more about the job, I have to admit I've thought about it but I had no clue as to the kind of conditions engineers and conductors had put up with until reading this. Suddenly my current career doesn't stink as bad. I am curious about something though and forgive me for being ignorant, when you all make a run and its a twelve hour day does that mean you end up 12 hrs from home? What do you do when you reach your destination? Finally, wouldn't it makes sense for the RR to have you run a train to a point 4-6 hrs from start and switch crews and run another train back home or is that already done?
Yep Charlie is right about the greed part. Another thing I’ve noticed is all the new cars the new hires are now driving, not all but some of them. When I hired out one of the pearls of wisdom was wait 5 yrs before going out and buying that new expensive car. As far as Amtrak and single engineer in the cab, I believe it is on runs that are under 4 hrs. Amtrak #5 comes in to Sparks with engineer only from Winnemucca but has a fireman on board #6 from Oakland. Greg Elems
bierbass, Here in Sparks, we run to away from home terminals. Elko is 364 IIRC and with the slow orders out there for maintenance, even the inter-modal trains are on duty 10 or more hrs. Once you die on the hrs of service, you stop and wait for a relief crew or a van to pick you up. For a while the RR was forced to get you off the train at the end of 12 but for some reason the FRA changed their stance on that and we are once again waiting on the train for up to 6 hrs. Another thing to consider is your rate of pay. Some new hires start out at 80% and over 4 yrs go to 100% pay. Some times the incentive of starting at 100% is offered, depending on where you hire out. There is no sick pay, and you get two personal leave days instead of holiday pay. If you are at a good paying job now, really consider the change. At least from my view point, UP isn’t a job to step into for less stress, stupidity and the hrs certainly will make you work in the dark. Very few jobs start and end in daylight hrs. Greg Elems
