Locomotive Engineers Demand Safe Trains in Houston HOUSTON, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers representing BLE Divisions in the Houston area will conduct an informational demonstration to educate the public and Union Pacific customers regarding safety and efficiency issues which will most certainly arise because of the Union Pacific Railroad's irresponsible implementation of remote controlled operations (locomotives operating without a Locomotive Engineer on board). Union Pacific (NYSE:UNP) has announced plans to implement remote control technology in Houston later this year in spite of numerous accidents that have occurred on the Union Pacific in Des Moines, Iowa, Hinkle, Oregon and Kansas City involving remote operation. The BLE is gravely concerned that the Union Pacific is turning its back on safety by using less than the most qualified personnel to operate this technology. Instead of using highly trained and skilled Locomotive Engineers, who are the only Federally qualified and licensed railroad employees, the Union Pacific is using people who have received as little as 80 hours training to operate these locomotives. Because the Union Pacific is a major shipper of deadly chemicals and hazardous materials, including nuclear waste, the BLE feels it is imperative that the public is made aware of the potential safety problems associated with the implementation of remote control operations. Houston is a major shipping hub for these hazardous materials. A local spokesman for the BLE stated, "Everyone who shares an interest in the safe and efficient operation of the Union Pacific needs to know that the railroad is allowing remote control operators, who are not Locomotive Engineers, to move rail cars with a locomotive that has no one on board. Educating the public is what we are doing today. How else are people to know that the locomotive running in their neighborhood may have no one on board?" Union Pacific is continuing to implement this technology at many of its major switching yards despite a 2-14-2001 Federal Railroad Administration Safety Advisory that states, "FRA has limited data on which to base an objective safety analysis and must therefore proceed prudently" (FRA-200-7325-37). To date the FRA has not issued any regulations to oversee the railroads' implementation of remote control. Instead the FRA has issued only voluntary guidelines that are not enforceable. In response, the BLE has filed suit in Federal court seeking to force the FRA and the Department of Transportation to live up to their regulatory responsibility with regard to remote control technology. Also, on May 15, 2002 the six BLE-General Committees of Adjustment representing Locomotive Engineers on the Union Pacific filed a lawsuit against the Union Pacific seeking injunctive relief to prohibit the implementation of remote control technology without sufficient safety data to support this technology. The impact of remote control train operations cannot be overstated. Locomotives without trained and certified engineers are presently operating in Texas without anyone physically on board!
Not taking a side in the issue, but I will point out that the arguement would carry more wieght if it was coming from an organization that did not have a vested interest in keeping engineers employed...
While I agree completely that making the public AND the engineers safe is of paramount importance, the dificulty will be in showing that low-speed switching, done my remote-control in a switchyard, is or is not safer for both the public and the engineers than live-crew switching operations. Switching at low speeds is inherintly more safe than high-speed running on the rails, especially for the public. It will be very hard to make a case one way or another without some hard data. Simply showing a derailment in a yard will not be sufficient. Was anybody injured? What were the costs to the public? Evacuations? Hazardous waste cleanup outside the railroad property? Costs to the railroad are not important to the analysis. Operating in another safety-conscious industry (electric power) I can readily see the concerns for safety. I just hope that the engineers' unions haven't done what many other unions have done, and that's strangled the employers and reduced the productivity down to zero without improving safety. Mark in Utah
OK I must have my cynical hat on today as well.... Just my thoughts mind!!! Switching accidents are pretty common the world over, someone forgets to throw a switch, or throws one at the wrong time and - oops - you've just taken the handrails off the end of that car, out with the rerailing frogs!! Anybody know if R/C itself was actually the cause of the stated accidents, or wether it was the usual "somebody got it a little wrong".... In theory at least R/C should IMPROVE safe operation, as the engineer can be whereaver he needs to be to observe clearly what is going on, not stuck the opposite end of a cut of cars out of sight due to obstructions, and assuming that someone is going to tell him where to stop... 80 hours (2 weeks or thereabouts?) training sounds like quite a lot to me, all they need to know is the basic RR safety and the R/C operation, they don't need to be as highly trained as road engineers as they will never have to face many of their daily challenges... Where's the public safety hazard in yard switching ops? I would have thought the Hazmat threat was fairly minimal at slow speeds, and most yards don't have public rights of way through the middle... Sounds like union scaremongering to me too! Humph
Scenario: You are the switchman in a dark yard working with a person who is at the opposite end of the yard with the Belt-Pak controlling the locomotive. Your yard has a terrific "table roll". You are going to make a joint. You instruct the operator to come your way x distance to the joint. You know for a fact that there are handbrakes on some of the cut that you are making a joint on, but you dont know the ratio of loads/empties on that track. The operator makes a hard joint, skewing the drawbars and shoving the cars just enough to get them rolling. You ... A. Attempt to climb on the rolling cut to apply the handbrake at your end, only to realize that the brake is at the other end of the car. B. Hope they will stop rolling before they foul an adjacent track, or run through a switch or over a derail, or out on the lead or even the main track. C. Wait til they stop and roll back your way and possibly run into the cut being controlled from the other end and further damage the drawbar. Sure I realize these things can happen with a 3 or even 4 man switch crew, or do they? Why is it I have these memories of crossing over several cuts of cars to get to a rolling cut that got away from someone. Why is it I have these memories of being on the end of a cut of cars to protect the shove or watch the hind end to make sure it doesn't foul or run a switch or derail. I guess I was hallucinating! Money! fellas, its all MONEY! The carriers are too damn cheap to spend it on humans. Any of you who have been riding AMTRAK or some of the METRA lines out of Chicago Union Station in recent weeks know that there have been catastophic failures of the new computerized interlocking system. These are not isolated incidents. They seem to be chronic. AMTRAK is taking action with the provider of the system in order to either rectify it or get something different. It took AMTRAK and their program supplier to foul up technology that is 150 years old. Now ain't that special!!!! CT
Does any of this sound familiar? Anyone remember I tried to tell you this was coming? Anyone remember I helped design parts of this control, but NOT for the simple yard switching operations. I was working on the remote computer controlled high speed main line engines that will operate with YOU on board...alone! Right now, these tests are to iron out flaws and tweek the control for eventual mainline service, including "people mover pods". Good luck riding future trains guys!
What I find interesting about all this is the BLE talking abput how inexpierienced the RC operators are. The reason they are inexpierienced as a group is that no one with any seniority will get near these things! I believe conductor rick was discussing this exact issue in another recent forum.
I'm a railroad employee (yardmaster) and what people don't seem to realize is the fact that these R/C engs are NOT RESTRICTED to just "yard switching", they are allowed to operate anywhere a manned eng can go. Here in Detroit we have just 1 R/C in service at this time - in a yard all by itself - free of other yard jobs working in the same area - however there are road crossings in this territory. The eng IS SUPPOSE to be fail safe - but there have been malfunctions that have caused concern. The crews operating this loco are the "new hires" with only a couple/three years railroad experince as none of the "older" heads want anything to do with it, it does involve more physical work for the employee.
Very interesting point.... as someone who tries to see both sides of an issue, as well as someone who has worked for a company that came under union attack because we were non-union, I think it is important to read through the entire message carefully, as well as consider the intention of the source (BLE). Harold
My only thought on this subject is this: How many of you have owned radio controlled cars? I have and every now and again the car would stop repsonding to the controller and just move back and forth on it's own for a couple seconds. This was usually caused by outside radio or cb interference. Now what happens to a remote control locomotive in a large industrial area where there is a lot of radio and microwave and cellular interference? In theory the same thing. With any type of wave there are always dead spots. This is all that I am concered about and just my 2 cents! Now , go have some fun!!! Russ [ 13 June 2002, 05:50: Message edited by: rush2ny ]
The question of loosing control is one of the points the BLE is making. One of the incidents was just such a problem when the operator sat down inside a van for a moment and the engine and cut ran into a standing cut. The technology is not fool-proof. The scenario mentioned earlier in this post about directing someone else running the remote-pack is supposedly eliminated by each man on the ground having a controller with ability to transfer control between operators. Whoever is at the critical location controls the engine. The BLE in its haste wrote off the use of R/C as something that would 'never happen'. The UTU quickly picked up the ball and signed a letter of intent to negotiate the R/C issues with the major carriers. Now that the BLE sees the inevitable they are in-part reacting to it. There are many issues regarding this technology. I do not 100% support it but I do realize that the future is upon us. Done correctly the R/C operations will eventually have a place, just like the diesel engine itself.
OK, I have to admit to a smidgin of devils advocacy, and just a little stirring here...but hey, i'm in a mischevious mood Interestingly it's not one of the points made in the article above, but this IS the only concern I can see with this stuff so far...how many of these r/c "incidents" have been due to the person operating the equpment, and how many are the equipment's fault? I am just curious here. I do stand by my comment that most switching "incidents" (and the majority of rail accidents as well) are caused by someone making a mistake....and that can happen no matter how many or how few there are in the crew, and wether they are running on r/c, in the cab or whatever....(see the "damages awarded to BNSF employee" thread elsewhere today!) Charlie, in your scenario what would have been different if the guy was in the cab? All things being the same the first he would know about the hard joint would be when his nose hits the console? That's why they give folk working in yards radio's right? Shouldn't the guy at the other end of the cut be "talking him in" rather than waving at him in the dark? Or did I misunderstand you? [ 13 June 2002, 23:48: Message edited by: Martyn Read ]
Somthing else to remember here is that while R/C technology is perhaps not yet a mature technology, it isin't new. This is essentially the same system as used in Distributed power systems for midtrain helpers. I think the end result will be expanded use of R/C locomotives, regardless. Anytime somthing better-faster-cheaper (Especially the latter) comes along it tends to be adopted. Given the current regulatory climate I don't think a any system which causes a lot of accidents will be accepted, but by the same token a safe system that cost people their jobs will be. Here, as everywhere else, the only constant is change.
Remote control has been in use in steel works and the like for many years. I suspect it is only union pressure that has prevented it escaping into the wild much earlier. The point about R/C cars is interesting because the same issue has arisen over R/C for model trains - that jerky behaviour could ruin an expensive live steam loco. The solution is the same in both the model and real train situation - you use a robust, digitally encoded signal that is secure (like Microsoft products ). For the 1:1 trains you also make the loco STOP if the signal disappears for more than a second or two. Not difficult. Excuse me, but what was this guy doing sitting down in a van? If he was controlling the train why wasn't he out there with it? I must confess, IF I were a train engineer I would actually prefer the R/C option for just that reason. And probably more interesting than just sitting in the cab of a road engine all day (in a siding more than likely ). But probably less well paid . On balance I think I agree with Martyn at present - most accidents (anywhere) are due to human error, or more often just plain stupidity/irresponsibility. There is no inherent problem with the technology. Now, unmanned road trains controlled by a dispatcher in another state .... that's a whole different ball game
I read somewhere that 2 R/C locos lost there carrier singals and crashed through some buildings. I know this might be old news,but im thinking simple stuff here:like r/c cars and planes and such. they dont lose singals and the remotes on the AM band can go forever and out of sight. I've even seen a r/c fertizeler trucks in cleburne that dont mess up and crash . If im correct, dont all the railroads have their "tech companys dates"? Mabe they need together and make it work right
Martyn, To answer your question, yes and no, an engineer in the cab can make a hard joint too, but what I am saying is that by eliminating one person is that you are taking away one more possible safety check. The field man can sometimes see things that the engineer or switch foreman cannot. that is why I qualified my statement with some of the examples that I have been party to. In addition, the belt-pak user simply doesn't have the "feel" of the train that the engineer in the cab does. I am a qualified,certified engineer as well and I don't think there is an engineer alive who will deny that you need the "feel" of the train to help you with train handling. As I mentioned in my post, it is all because of money. The railroads simply don't want the cost of labor. PERIOD Even with the cost of labor, the railroads are earning fantastic profits and paying dividends. their ROI is envious in corporate circles and operating ratios are well under control. The UTU is still in negotiation for a national contract. Allegedly a tentative agreement has been reached. I have not seen it nor do I know if or when a vote is scheduled. Scuttlebutt sez that the proposed contract is an insult to an idiots intelligence. The carriers are doing all they can to keep us in a 19th century work-rule mode since it is the only way we scheduled employees can earn a living wage. Management "seriously" worked with labor to improve "quality of life" and "crew fatigue" issues, then turns 180 degrees and cancels all guaranteed rest day boards because they didn't want to pay guarantees. That, Martyn, is the convoluted logic that feels that the cheapest "palm pilot" can be used to operate a machine costing several 100K's to switch millions of dollars of goods and hope the cars stay on the track and dont damage the goods! If it doesn't, there is a rule in effect that was broken by the belt-pak operator! Lets fire him/her! Romance of the Rails ??? Kiss this......
I feel that I can offer some perspective regarding this issue, having had several years of experience in racing radio controlled cars myself, as well as driving real race cars for a couple of years as well. Because of this, I have some relative experience with normal versus R/C vehicle operation that can be translated to rail operation: I think the idea of a radio controlled train going out of control due to signal interference is not very likely. When I raced R/C cars in the early 1990's, there were three types of signal. AM signal was the oldest type and was most prone to what we called "radio hit" which would cause the cars to go out of control. Later, FM transmitters came out. These controllers were more finely tuned to their specific frequency and experienced far less signal interference than AM, but it was still a possibility to lose control. Finally, around 1992 or so, PCM (Pulse Control Modulation) radios began to come on the market. These systems were more efficient than FM transmitters, but the most important feature of PCM systems was their "fail-safe" feature which would send all controls to a pre-determined default setting when signal failure or interference occurred. For cars, this would be power off and maybe full steering to one direction. I'm pretty sure that R/C rail operations use similar (but probably more advanced) technology that fail-safe defaults to engine idle and either full-service or emergency braking. Since this was over 10 years ago and was available in $200-300 hobby radio systems back then, I feel fairly confident that this form of R/C technology is probably what is being used for R/C rail operations. That being said, I don't see a problem with the technology. My problem is from whether or not a good locomotive engineer onboard a locomotive is necessarily a good R/C engineer, and whether or not it is a skill that can be trained. Having raced R/C cars and raced full sized race cars that you sit in, I can tell you that both require vastly different skills. Running a locomotive, whether mainline or switching, requires a certain "seat of the pants" feel in order to do the job safely and efficiently. This feeling helps with making joints, judging distances and velocity, and with gauging the pull or effort being exerted by the locomotive. Take the engineer out of the engine, and he loses this "feel" for how his locomotive is operating. He also loses the first hand perspective that allows him to judge his speed and figure stopping distances based on how throttle and brake applications "feel" to him through the "seat of his pants". The result of this with "experienced" engineers operating R/C equipment is hard joints, passing through incorrectly aligned switches, and mis-judged stopping distances in yard tracks that result in fouled main lines and side swipes of adjacent trains. I can tell you that when I drove a race car, you knew whether the car was loose or tight by how it felt when you drove off into the corner. You made adjustments based on how it felt. When driving an R/C race car, you had to learn how to determine these same things by "sight", knowing what to look for that would relate to the lost "feel". Driving a real race car only gave you a basic understanding of how to drive an R/C race car. The other skills are completely unrelated, and you either have it or you don't. Very few people can "learn' these skills without extensive hand-eye coordination training, and many times that wouldn't really be of much help. The problem is that the railroads are throwing engineers into the deep end without teaching them how to swim. What will be needed to make R/C operations safe is a complete training and certification program seperate from normal engineer certification. Until this issue is identified as the true problem with R/C operation, they will just be barking up the wrong tree...and the accidents will continue to happen.
It seems to me that this is a situation where inexpierience may work to the railroad's advantage, albeit unintentionally. As has been discussed before, the guys with seniority don't want anything to do with this technology, so it falls to the younger employees. As it now stands, no one has a lot of expierience with these systems, but the employees who are learning them are starting out fresh on them. They don't have 10 years expierience with conventional locomotives and so are less likley to be dependant on the "feel" of a locomotive when making decisions. To put it another way, they have less to unlearn and as such may have an easier time mastering these new systems.
