What and where is the deadmen control or button in the cab of diesel engine?
On recent engines, it’s a button on the control console usually. You have to press the button every so often (maybe once every 60 seconds?) or make some change in the controls like increase/decrease the throttle or adjust the brake setting, blow the horn etc. There’s usually a display that counts down the time remaining. If the countdown reaches zero and you haven’t hit the button, the train brakes come on.
Some systems now sense motion, and will ask you to press the button if you’ve been motionless for a certain amount of time.
In early versions from years ago it was a pedal you had to hold down - which is why engineers sometimes carried a brick in their satchells. [:O]
The active engine service folks on our forum will be able to correct any inaccuracies here, but as I recall most first and perhaps second generation units had an actual pedal that the engineer would depress with his/her foot and it kept the unit “aware” that there was actually someone in control of the train operation, but contemporary units now have a computerized system that only requires the engineer to make some sort of “control” movement (i.e. brake application, throttle movement, horn activation, etc., etc.) in order to alert the system that he/she is in control of the train…if no “feedback” is perceived by the engine computer system in a predetermined period of time the unit will automatically apply its brakes and bring the train to a stop due to it assuming nobody is in control.
The “dead man’s pedal” was/ is on the floor at the engineer’s control stand, in older locomotives (esp. diesel - not steam, though). Nowadays, it is more commonly an 'alerter" button somewhere on the control stand, desk, or side wall of the locomotive cab, which the engineer has to touch every so often to reassure and demonstrate to the control system that he is still alive and functioning. Beyond this, you might find some people to be understandably reluctant to discuss this in detail, out of concern for security and safety reasons. I didn’t find anything much on this site, so try an Internet search. Here’s some of what I found:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man’s_switch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead-man’s_vigilance_device
http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/101269284/Dead_Man_System_Caution_And_Alert.html
http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/about/roster/simulator/index.shtml
Watch almost any video of a cab ride, and you’ll see the engineer either touching/ operating the alerter button frequently, or else overriding the resulting warning after he fails to do so, and the system warns him that if he doesn’t do something in the next X seconds, then the system is going to stop the train automatically, etc.
- Paul North.
Or why they would whittle a point onto the wooden shaft of a red signal flag - to wedge it into the pedal to hold it down. (As per “Bozo Texino” and various stories and written recollections by W.M. “Mike” Adams of the Missouric Pacific.)
- PDN.
I belive that this is what caused a CN trian to smash head-long into a VIA Rail train a few years back. The engineer would put his or her lunch box on the pedal and then would fall asleep. Then what do you know… Smash! Sad thing there. Thank goodnes the alerter isn’t like that!
Justin: Yes, crew fatigue is a big issue the railroads are facing. Most older locomotives don’t have alerters, so on older locomotives, the engineer dozing off and passing a signal or something was a big problem. Nowadays, that’s less of an issue but ONLY on locomotives equipped with alerters! The big Class 1s are still operating a lot of older locomotives without alerters, and with the exception of the regionals/shortlines with new or rebuilt power equipped with alerters, it’s still a problem.
Even with alerters, I would think you get into a routine and just press it automatically, on autopilot. While you can’t easily doze off, spacing out might be an issue, causing you to miss a signal or something. Any railroaders want to elaborate on that?
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Ty, you are quite correct.
I thought the “alerter” was great! It was just like the “snooze” button on your alarm clock. No crossings or signals for the next 60 seconds? Take a short nap; the alerter will wake you in time…
Of course, if you attach a rubber band to it with just the right amount of weight on the other end, the bouncing and sway of the locomotive will keep your contraption hopping around without any intervention needed to keep it thinking you are alert. Be alert! The world needs more lerts.
The best safety device is a rested engineer.
You’re thinking of the Silver Streak.
The air hose wrench worked much better than a lunchbox.
I never saw a dead-man’s pedal that worked the way the one in Silver Streak did. Real ones affected only the brake system, not the throttle position.
I remember when the GTW started installing the pedals in switchers and road-switchers (this was in the mid-1960s, about the time firemen were being eliminated). Not having the foot on the pedal caused air to be released through a shrill whistle mounted by the pedal. Pressure through the whistle was not always enough to blow away the blue air resulting from engineers voicing their opinions of the device.
They could position the wrench so it would actually hold the pedal down, not just act as a weight. A fuse (fuse, not fusee, is correct in this case) jammed into the hinge of the pedal also worked.
Or bend the spare brake hose and wedge it in under the edge of the control stamd with the glad hand end holding the pedal down.
No, the incident he’s referring to actually happened up in Canada. It was portrayed on one of those hour long documentary type TV shows on Discovery, National Geographic Channel etc.
I don’t know if the engineer actually used a lunch box, but that’s what the show said.
Jeff
I haven’t been on a Class I locomotive for a l-o-n-g time that wasn’t equipped with a working alerter so whoever said otherwise, I would just have to question that.
Not all roads had deadman pedals, the N&W never had them but along about 1971 or 2, they began equipping locomotives with alerters that had a wire attached to a small switch in the console, that had to be hit about every 43-45 seconds. The early ones had to be hit, the bell or whistle or throttle position changes had no effect on them.
Zardoz, don’t know about C&NW, but the N&W alerters, if struck too much, would cause the air to set up, so I don’t know how long your rubber band would have worked there. Some of those old engineers, who absolutely despised them, had their own methods, though, but I hesitate to go into that here, even though today it would be HIGHLY illegal to do some of the things they did with them. They were downright insulted that the company thought they might fall asleep.
The C&NW had no deadman devices (except for the suburban equipment) before I left (early 90’s). The newest locomotive I ever worked on was a SD60.
We did, however, get enough foreign power that had deadman devices. Back then, most of the alerters were a spring-like toggle extending out from hole in the control stand. There was no penalty for hitting the alerter too often.
Regarding the old engineers you mentioned, it is my belief that there are 2 types of engineers: those who will tell you that have fallen asleep at the throttle, and those that won’t admit that they too have nodded off at the controls. It’s just that some engineers nod off more than others.
But when one is working on call 24/7 month after month, answering to crew callers that couldn’t care less about their punctuality and honesty, there are going to be times that a person is going to get called to go to work in a less-than-rested condition
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Zardoz, I know that if you hit ours TOO often, then they wouldn’t reset and then you had to recover the penalty by going to suppression or letting it set up. Of course, if you were quick enough, you could cut out the brake valve, set it on suppression, and reset it, then cut it in, not that I’d know anything about that. I know exactly what you’re talking about, these younger folks really and truly don’t know how good they have it with cellphones and the like, I thought a pager was such a liberating device, and it was. I’ve had several tell me that they just simply wouldn’t have worked for the railroad if they had to sit by the phone and wait for it to ring. Yeah, right, if you didn’t know any better, that’s exactly what you would have done. Heck, I remember when I got a cordless phone and I thought that was pretty daggone nice.
Yeah, right; me neither [;)]
My thoughts exactly back then.
A really long time ago, I’m down in Champaign for no good reason. I see a friend and co-worker who had run suburban, but set back to firing he is working the Northbound Panama Limited. An E-8 is on the point and I am offered a ride.
Probably one of the best jobs on the engineer’s roster, my guess is that hogger is near the top of the list. From my young view, he looks like he is pushing 80, but he is at lesast old enough to have to go into the nose and use the facilities 2-3 time during the 2 hour trip.
His grip was setting on the floor next to his right foot and probably held a couple of locomotive brake shoes just in case a replacement was needed.
It is a bit disconcerting to be running up the line at 80 per with the left seat empty. However, during his absence there were no grade crossings or any other reason to be at the controls. So?