Why hasn’t anyone pointed out the fact that having passenger train engineers working alone in a locomotive cab is a recipe for disaster? I know from personal experience that having a second person in a locomotive cab can prevent accidents, as a frieght train conductor I have intervened on several occasions to prevent an engineer from making a mistake.
Now I am not refering to “dumping the air” intervention here, just reminding an engineer that he should be operating at restricted speed or that he should be preparing to stop at the next signal are things that I occasionally have to do in the course of my duties. Have there been occasions were I felt that I may have just prevented an accident? YES!!!
Before the Feds start insisting on mandating Positive Train Seperation technology maybe Amtrak and the commuter agencies should consider putting a second employee back into locomotive cabs. After all, Commercial Airliners fly with both a Pilot and Co-Pilot in the cockpit, why should passenger trains be any different?
No doubt that is true; however, I’ve lost count as to how many times I’ve had to wake up the conductor so he could go perform his duties.
See above.
Well, for one, if the engineer gets sick, he can stop his train just about anywhere he’s not blocking a crossing and wait for a replacement–not quite so easy at 35,000’.
Additionally, I disagree that having two persons in the cab is the answer. I’ve had many occasions where the constant chatter from a motormouth was so distracting it was difficult to concentrate. And for the short runs of passenger service, cab monotony should not be that much of an issue–it’s not like they’re running at 3am after being on duty for 10 hours after getting called out on your rest.
It certainly has been overlooked in all media coverage of this wreck. And it should be carefully examined. However, it will be pointed out that on many rapid transit systems, and on lines where there are MU (electric multiple unit) trains the engineer/moterman has been the sole crew member at the head end and there has been a remarkable safety record. It should be noted that either positive train control or “fail safe” trippers are already a part of most of these systesm, too. Better and more intense training --especially in the area of safety-- and more dedication (job, work, safety) on the part of employees will also go a long way; i.e. career choices not picking jobs for pay scale and benefits.
If more eyes are better, how come there are so many freight crashes ???
even with 3 pair of eyes in cab these people manage to rear end or head end other freights often at restricted speed.
I do work alone and feel anyone in cab is a distraction, be it a student, roadforeman, conductor , or fellow engineer, you find them either sleeping, reading, yapping on a phone, or keeping useless conversation about things not concerning safe operation of train.
In the EU, most trains - freight or passenger - only have the engineer in the cab. Freights normally don’t even have a conductor. Yet very few accidents happen that can be traced back to grave human error preventable by adding an extra crew member.
I don’t think having a second person in the cab to act as a second pair of eyes would make things safer. Wasn’t there an accident in Chicago like a year ago where an Amtrak train rear ended a NS freight train even though there were 3 people in the cab? I believe the engineer was an engineer-in-training, the other two people were the instructors and all of them misread a signal telling them to stop? Perhaps someone from Chicagoland can verify this.
And I know from personal experience that having others in the cab can be more of a hindrance than a help.
I was working a train once with three driver trainees and an instructor up the front with me, and we all missed a particular signal…
So I don’t think that one-man operation is automatically a recipe for disaster, each situation needs to be considered on its merits. Our suburban and interurban EMUs are all equipped with deadman and task-based vigilance control, so for us having a second person in the cab would offer no real benefit.
I agree that two people is not the answer because ALL people are fallable as has been stated here in several replies. Computer technology and GPS can be far more accurate and shut down a system if there is an error. There are planes flying that basically land themselves but it isn’t heralded because people have a misconception and have seen too much from Hollywood who thrives on reporting wrong information to sell movies. I ride several airport train shuttles that have no one on them yet they do not crash into each other. Give me the techie solution every time. Reports are the engineer was not the upstanding individual he was being made out to be and had a very troubled past. In my opinion do not rule out an act of suicide just yet as he never even attempted to stop. It is a plausible reason that needs to be considered along with all the evidence.
It would take many empirically tested trials with volunteers on purely robotic trains (no humans aboard) to see if the human factor could be safely withdrawn from the management of the train. Later, it would take volunteers commuting in pilotless trains (for want of a better term that I can think of at the moment) for years to see if their counterparts on trains still piloted by humans fared worse or better under the same conditions.
There’s a reason why many states ban teens from driving with other teens in the car - they aren’t paying attention to the road.
Who’s to say that the two people in the cab might not get into a spirited discussion of sports, politics, what-have-you? Are they paying attention to the road? Not if they’re trying to make their point!
There’s a reason why airport shuttle trains don’t have collisions. None of those that I’ve seen can - they either run alone or on separate tracks. The one I’ve seen that had two trains running on a shared track ran on the same drive cable. Only a broken cable could possibly allow them to be in the same place at the same time.
ndbprr: GPS is not used for auto-land of aircraft. There is a precise signal that is usually broadcast from the far end of the runway you are landing on call CATEGORY III auto land. Freq band just above the FM band. GPS absolutely only can offer a decision height of 200 - 250 ft (some locations) then the landing is manual.
There was an infamous wreck years ago in Cleveland where a freight train went through a stop signal protecting a drawbridge and wrecked on the counterweight. Cleaned the carbody right off the frame. I remember seeing a picture in Trains years ago. I seem to remember that there were 5 guys in the cab. John Kneiling has some sort of cynical comment related to safety vs. crew size…
There were two guys in the cab at Chase Md., too, although there were confounding factors.
You misunderstood if you thought I said planes were landed through the use of GPS. What I said was that computers can land planes now and that GPs could track train location.
Correct ILS CAT III is used for autoland not GPS however GPS can now be used for the approach phase and gives a much more reliable and predicable track for intercepting the initial approach fixes but does not control altitude. Then ILS takes over. My concern with PTC is the loss of signal by the radio links. Terrain interferrence (whatever type) may cause unwanted stops and on a grades can plug a RR.
Yes…expecting one well paid man to do his job properly without supervision is a bit much. But don’t tell that to the trucking industry…bus industry…and the construction industry or they will need two people on every truck, bus, crane and dozer…
Doesn’t work like that. There’s no requirement for a continuous signal. In fact, the central server may only poll the train as infrequently as once every minute in order to cut down on bandwidth cost. And, there’s triple redundancy through three different communication pathways.
Here’s how it works. The dispatcher initiates an authority for main track movement. The dispatching computer runs a conflict check, and if the requested authority has no conflicts, it grants the dispatcher the ability to transmit the authority to the train. The dispatching server transmits the authority to the PTC server (which is in the same rack), and the PTC server transmits the authority to the locomotive-based PTC computer. The PTC computer on the locomotive is listening at all times for incoming signals. When the computer on the locomotive receives a new authority, it runs its own conflict check (“Am I activated? Am I operating properly? Does this authority have any conflicts with existing authorities stored in my memory for my train and any other train I know about?”) If there are no conflicts, it accepts the authority and transmits back to the PTC server its acceptance. When the PTC server accepts the receipt, it transmits back its acceptance and when the locomotive receives this final handshake, the authority is now valid for the train. The PTC server is meanwhile locked-up and can create no new authorities (but all of this takes a matter of a few sec
Hey zardoz You seem to not like conductors.Back in my time on your former employer as brakeman I had to help keep the engineer awake. The cab was too noisy to be able to talk with the engineer. Hey no one is perfect and I know more than once my head would bounce off the window as I fell asleep but not often. When you worked commuter trains there was two in the cab. Did one of you sleep and the other ran the train? Seems to me i