I know newer loco motives have Alertor switchs to you have to push, pull, nudge every so often other wise the locomotive stops. Also, older locomotives had a deadman pedal that had to remain pressed down for the locomotive to move. Question is....have most older units still in service been retrofitted with alertor buttons? is this an FRA requirement? are units still in service with deadman pedals? Anonymously, does anyone know if these pedals were ever weighted down (toolbox, overnight bag, etc) so the engineer could prop his feet up? Was/Is doing this considered a rules violation by the RR? Thanks
Gabriel - I've never seen a working road unit with an active deadman pedal so from my limited experience, I'd say they're pretty rare if they exist at all. Older units that I've come across have all been retrofitted with an alerter of some kind and all that's left of the deadman is a hole in the control stand just above the floor. I happened onto a old switcher that had a working pedal but it didn't stick around long enough to play with it. As for propping the pedal, it is and always was a violation to defeat a safety device of any kind. Lots of guys said they did it but that was then. Just like sticking a key or coin in the independent brake to keep it bailed, it worked as long as the road foreman didn't catch you or they didn't find it that way in the wreckage after you piled up. It's tougher to get around an alerter than a deadman these days because if you hold the button or whisker too long, it goes into test mode and the thing goes off every time there's a control movement. I have seen a few units that did't have an alerter of any kind but none of them were working as leaders.
almost all the cn units i work on have been converted to have an event recorder/alerter system... the flag stick from the flagging kit is the perfect length to jam the deadman down... i've worked on 1 cn unit [CN 7501 - trail end of one of our remote hump sets [power-slug-slug-power]] that still has a deadman on it [was interesting the first time i had to drive it around shop tracks, lifted my foot not thinking anything about the unit and the overspeed whistle went off and brakes came on].. and i have seen a few forgien usa units up here that do not have an event recorder/alerter system installed [just the deadman]...
The "Deadman Pedal" has been outlawed on class one railroads for a long time. Newer systems had been developed that could not be defeated quite so easily. Not all railroads used the same type of alertness systems. So when a "foreign" unit was placed in the point position, sometimes it's alertness device was useless. Santa Fe used ATS, UP and C&NW used CCS CSS. When these units were used on other than their home road, the systems were not operable. So inevitably, sometimes the engineer had no such device. Nowdays, most railroads have a common system onboard. UP still has CCS CSS, but they also have ASES for use on foreign lines. There are still some units out and running that do not have the newer ASES or alerter buttons on board. They aren't supposed to be used as lead units but............
I read that two years ago when the infamous runaway CSX train in Ohio got out of control it was because the Deadmans Pedal was jammed and didn't stop the train as it was supposed to. The unit was CSX 8888 a former conrail SD40-2. Whether the deadmans pedal deal was true, I don't know but that has always been in my mind.
