FRA Issues Advisory to Address Switching Operation Safety

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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OH&S

In recent months, the railroad industry has experienced three employee fatalities that occurred when employees were caught between rolling equipment.

Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo on Tuesday issued a safety advisory to the railroad industry to help prevent injuries and fatalities of employees working between rail cars during switching operations and other dangerous or unsafe workplace behaviors.

In recent months, the railroad industry has experienced three employee fatalities that occurred when employees were caught between rolling equipment. Over the last two years, two additional employee fatalities have occurred in the same circumstances. As a result, FRA is issuing a Safety Advisory to raise awareness and ensure universal compliance with safety rules that protect employees who must physically place themselves between rolling equipment in the normal course of their work.

We must achieve a workplace culture of meticulous safety compliance throughout the industry,Szabo said. Rail carriers must ensure a consistent and clear message throughout their organization that performing work safely takes priority over expediting a train movement. Rail employees must also assume greater responsibility for rules compliance, ensuring their own safety while mentoring peers to do the same.

FRA understands that multiple factors can contribute to fatal events, the agency noted. While the railroad industry and its employees have long recognized the need to take adequate safety precautions and remain alert at all times, recent incidents indicate that the workers involved either did not have enough room or time to avoid moving equipment, or were unaware that equipment was in motion.

The Safety Advisory reinforces to railroad companies and their employees the critical importance of following key operating procedures when going between rolling equipment.

Highlights of the recommendations contained in the Safety Advisory inclu

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The Carriers work force is in a period of big transition. The Baby Boomer generation of employees that hired out from the middle 60’s to the late 70’s are now reaching retirement age and are pulling the pin. For most carriers business is surging well past the recession levels of 2008 & 2009 and staffing levels are increasing. The carriers are having to hire, train and place in service new train service employees in unprecedented numbers. Those new train service employees have to be force fed ‘experience’ so they can be moved to Engineer training where they will be force fed the skills and knowledge to become a locomotive engineer. It is not all that unusual to have a crew where the Engineer is making their first trip on their own with a Conductor that is also making their first solo trip.

The occurrences mention by the FRA in their advisory are not all ‘new’ people, many have been ‘old heads’ who lost focus on their job requirements. Railroading in the field is a occupation (any job type in the field - T&E, Trackman, Signalman, Bridge worker etc. etc. etc.) that requires FULL ATTENTION to the undertaking if one is going to go home in the same condition they came to work.

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Is there any mention of how much experience the ones that died had? Or whether remote control was involved?

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The following loink might be of interest to this Thread. Linked is the Federal Register

and the item is as follows :Safety Advisory 2010-03 : Notice by the Federal Railroad Administration on 10/18/2010

http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2010/10/18/2010-26089/safety-advisory-2010-03#h-6

Admittedly, it is a year old, but the current advisory posed above is a reitteration of the one in the link, with the exception it answers some of Zardoz’s comments to the experience level of individuals who were involved in the previous year’s events.

This link to a PDF file explanation of regulations, and how they were put together:

www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/advisories/sa2000_3.pdf

"…On November 2, 2000, FRA published Notice of Safety Advisory 2000-3 in the Federal Register

(Volume 65, No. 213, page 65895), addressing safety practices to reduce the risk of serious injury or

death both to railroad employees engaged in switching operations and to the general public…"

&nbs

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Excerpt from FRA Safety Advisory. Full text at link.

http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/SA201102.pdf

The most recent incident occurred on September 8, 2011. At approximately 5:15 a.m., a single helper locomotive had coupled to the rear of a standing 125-car train with the intent of assisting the train’s movement up an ascending grade. At some point, the movement stopped and the conductor of the single helper locomotive detrained and separated his locomotive from the train he and his engineer had assisted. After the separation, the conductor of the single helper locomotive reattached the end of train device to the last car of the assisted train, and announced to the crew of that train that he had finished his tasks. He then began to walk back to his locomotive. Shortly thereafter, the slack on the assisted train adjusted and the conductor was crushed between the rear car of the assisted train and his locomotive. The deceased was 59 years old with 5 years of railroad experience.

On August 15, 2011, at approximately 1:30 p.m., a three-person remote control locomotive (RCL) crew consisting of a foreman, a helper, and a trainee entered a track in a bowl yard from the east and coupled onto a cut of cars. The foreman and the trainee boarded the locomotive to provide point protection and the helper, using his remote control transmitter, began stretching the cars eastward to identify gaps created by uncoupled blocks of cars. As the gaps were revealed, the helper repeatedly entered the space between the blocks of cars and made adjustments to knuckles and/or drawbars. Using his remote control transmitter, he then shoved the cars attached to the locomotive westward to couple the cars before continuing the process. The last time the helper went into a gap to adjust the knuckles and/or drawbars, the cars attached to the locomotive moved west and crushed the helper between the cars being coupled. The deceased was 52 years ol

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Take a look at the FRA’s SOFA report and recommendations.

http://www.fra.dot.gov/rrs/pages/fp_1781.shtml

One of the main advisories is about having adequate separation between cars, cars and locomotives and equipment.

While I can’t speak for other railroad, mine takes the SOFA group advisories seriously, to the point of making them part of our safety rules.

Going in-between equipment with less than a car length separation will get you fired here, no ifs, ands or buts…

Crushing injuries and “coupling up” injuries are the main reason for the Red Zone or Three Step Protection rules all railroads use now.

For the cited cases, I suspect the two involving RCO operations might have a root cause in the RCO operator not separating the cars far enough before trying to open the knuckles, or possibly bumping or in some manner working the RCO box accidently while in-between the cars, and the incident involving the pusher or helper train seems, based only on the statements provided, to involve both a Red Zone violation and insufficient separation distance.

The FRA lists switching operations, both in yards and for road crews as the most dangerous part of operations on any railroad.

As someone who is in-between cars in a yard all day, and opens 20 to 30 knuckles each tour of duty, I can tell you nothing is more frightening that the sound of cars suddenly coupling up behind you, or the sound of slack bunching up hard, even when it is one or two tracks over it can really scare the crap out of you.

Two of the men mentioned had 5 or less years’ experience, and the FRA list this lack of experience asthe number one factor in most fatal incidents.

Trust me, when I hired out, you didn’t have the rule to separate the cars by a car length, in fact, it was considered somewhat sissy to even stretch them unless the knuckles were bunched up against each other…you were taught

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Clear - and sobering - analysis and summary, Ed. I understood what went wrong a lot better and faster from your write-up than the FRA’s. I’ve said it before - you ought to be a trainer* for new folks and safety initiatives.

(*Pun not intended, I just didn’t want to use the “teacher” word.)

Do you think a “brake stick” be useful in opening knuckles and adjusting couplers without having to go between cars, or take the time and effort to separate them by the car-length ? (It’s supposed to be good for that, but we all know there’s often a gap between expectations and performance.) See: http://www.omnigroupcorp.com/ and especially page 2 of 2 of the brochure at (approx. 5.0 MB in size): http://www.omnigroupcorp.com/brochure1.pdf

  • Paul North.
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Ed made valid points on several issues in his posting. Lack of experience is bad enough, but even old-timers can get into trouble when they start cutting corners. I recall having read a few postings in which the railroader complained about the requirement for 3-point protection since it (in his mind) slowed operations unnecessarily. The rules are there to keep you alive.

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The OTR side is dealing with the Exact same crap also. People with 30-40-50 years and there are people out there with 50 years experiance saying to HELL with the Regs that have been forced upon us and hanging up the keys and getting out of the Industry. Sad thing is these are not just Drivers they are Mechanics Dispatchers OWNERS and Brokers in the Indyustry the people that keep it running. My First boss that I ran OTR for just said to HELL with it and sold his 80 year old Company his Grandfather started it in the 30’s and it is GONE now out of Business. His reason he was tired of dealing with all the Crap from the DOT. This man had a Perfect saftey rating and CVSA2010 score and was tired of dealing with the DOT what does that tell you. He was not scared of the Current REGS it was the Fyuture ones coming down the pipe.

When someone that has been running a company for 30 Years hangs it up like this guy does there is something freaking WRONG. He survived all the recessions and Downturns in the economy the Spoikes in Fuel Prices and he was tired of all the New Regs. He had 2 sons that wanted to take over the company also and he said NO I will not let you we are done.

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Paul,

Yes, a brake stick could be useful, the only problem with them is they are quite heavy, and in yard work (lots and lots of walking) hauling around a 15 lb. tool all day is tiring and fatiguing.

The real enemy is complacency, new guys get out there, ride the side a few times, and nothing happens to them, and the one time they get distracted by the stuff going on around them, like the operations in a paper mill, or in my case too busy watching a possum running along the edge of the track, and that chain link fence that leaned over after the rain last night suddenly appears from around the curve about three feet in front of you, fouling the track, and you have no time to do anything but hug the car and hope.

Lost the back of my shirt, my pager and a lot of skin, but gained a lot of awareness about how fast this stuff can creep up on you, even at 2 mph.

The reason the guy was killed in the paper mill was incomplete communication and failure to follow the rule that tells you if you don’t understand what you are told to do, then do nothing until it is clarified.

The conductor told him to get off the chip cars at the first road crossing, but failed to tell him why.

The chip unloader has super close clearance, inches only, and is located just around a curve against a building; the view of it is blocked from the side the brakeman was riding by the edge of the building.

The foreman was going to shove the cut through the dumper and into a tail track so the mill guys could get their switch engine out and in position to pull the cars back through the dumper and un load them.

The brakeman failed to get off at the spot he was told to, from his point of view there was no reason to, no switch was there to line, and there was nothing there at all but the road, he saw no reason the get off in the middle of the road.

The conductor got off before the unloader, shoved the cut through, cut away and went back to where he expected the brakeman t

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Not sure right now who has said it here, but I think, I remember it has been quoted on several occasionsin these Forums that (paraphrased): “The GCOR (Rule Books) is/are. written in the blood of those who either ignored its rules, or took shortcuts around the rules.”

Not having been in the railroad industry, but Transportation for thirty years, Rules are there for your individual protection. They are either administratively, or practically evolved. Rules are guideline that allow you to do your job, and get home safety to your family and friends. At one time or another each, of us have broken rules, thinking they were impractical, and possibly ‘got away with it’. Only to have gotten caught later in ‘situation’ that we did not get away with, or almost did not get away with. Learning those lessons in that best and most unforgiving of enviornments ‘The School of Hard Knocks’.

But, it seems that Government Regulators ( Whose jobs are dependent on writing regulations, and then enforcing punitively, those regulations) on industries that they have never participated in, or only read about Industrial-relatedcircumstances that they write regulations for. It is the induatries themselves that are innundated by waves of regulations that govern their activities; Too much regulati

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Brakesticks (or spinbrakers as I have been calling mine) are good for popping knuckles, but you aren’t going to adjust a drawhead with it unless that drawhead has recently been greased. Moot point, since they are not allowed to be used for adjusting drawheads. They can only be used for applying and releasing handbrakes, opening knuckles, setting retainers, and pushing EOT buttons per our rulebook.

And the interpretation of the rules that I have always been told is that a brakestick is an extension of your arm, so proper protection and space requirements are the same as if you were using your hand to do the work, At least that is what I figure, and I figure I know more than most weed weasels.

I like my spinbraker, but it does sometime walk itself down the yard ladder when I’m not looking. It does makes me feel like a Japanese ninja… just need to get those sheaths that strap to my back so I can carry two and look the part. Then I can use my free hands to carry my lantern, switchlist, tablet computer, and still have my RCO box on my chest.

“Forget the brakeman, get me a SHERPA!”

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Ed, the brochure I linked above says the weight of the brakestick varies between 3.4 and 6.4 lbs., depending on the model/ length. But we all know that’s at the beginning of the day - and, yep, by the end of the day, I’m sure the darn thing weighs every bit of that 15 lbs. !

Is a carlength of separation before going into the “red zone” really enough ? If it’s a 100-car train and there’s 1 ft. (or more) of slack or coupler/ hydra-cushion motion in each car, then potentially the closest car could move more than 100 ft., which is greater than a car length.

Further, what do you do to safely lace up the brake hoses ? Even the brakestick can’t do that, so then you have to go between the cars. Yes, I know, “3-point protection” - but is it for sure that none of the cars will shift or the slack won’t suddenly run in on you, when you’re back in the train from the loco ? Remember, the train air isn’t operative yet - that’s why you’re lacing up the hoses - so a service application isn’t going to have any effect on the cars to the rear of where you are. Meantime - per my comment above - aren’t you still vulnerable to the slack running in/out from the other cars to the rear of you ?

zug, thanks for clarifying the rule and practicality of not using the brakestick to adjust the drawhead/ coupler horizontally.

If you can get all that gear on sometime - together with all your other required PPE - there’s the makings of a pretty funny or sarcastic photo, I think. [:-,] Either that, or a Halloween costume to scare the kids with for later this month . . . [swg]

  • Paul North.
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Paul, when you’re connecting the hoses, you’re not likely to be crushed, because you’re doing that only after the coupling has been made and stretched to ensure that it’s secure. Yes, the slack could move the cars, but you’re (theoretically) standing with one foot outside the rails and capable of getting out of there, or at least moving with the slack. Happened to me a time or two…

I’m perturbed at the possibility of new regulations being laid down when existing rules (and, yes, proper training) should have given these people adequate protection already. When I hired out, the amount of separation required between cars was 20 feet before going in to adjust the couplers; by the time I retired that requirement (on UP) had increased to 100 feet.

A hundred feet–two carlengths, roughly. Kind of hard to figure out just where to slide the drawbars to make the joint, especially if the track isn’t straight, but we were stuck with it, for good reason. And it can take a half-dozen attempts to get it right, and a well-lubed drawbar can slide away from the proper position in 100 feet of travel. I often heard complaints about the time people took to do it right, but there wasn’t much one could do to get around it.

And have you ever noticed that it’s always the “good workers” who seem to find themselves killed like that? Never the lazy goof-offs that nobody wants to work with, anyway…

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[quote user=“edblysard”]

The reason the guy was killed in the paper mill was incomplete communication and failure to follow the rule that tells you if you don’t understand what you are told to do, then do nothing until it is clarified.

The conductor told him to get off the chip cars at the first road crossing, but failed to tell him why.

The chip unloader has super close clearance, inches only, and is located just around a curve against a building; the view of it is blocked from the side the brakeman was riding by the edge of the building.

The foreman was going to shove the cut through the dumper and into a tail track so the mill guys could get their switch engine out and in position to pull the cars back through the dumper and un load them.

The brakeman failed to get off at the spot he was told to, from his point of view there was no reason to, no switch was there to line, and there was nothing there at all but the road, he saw no reason the get off in the middle of the road.

The conductor got off before the unloader, shoved the cut through, cut away and went back to where he expected the brakeman to be standing.

The brakeman had been swiped off the chip car by the support frame for the unloader, fell into the auger pit, knocked out by one or the other impact, and didn’t answer his radio when the conductor began calling for him.

It only took a few seconds for the conductor to realize the only place the guy could be was either in the auger pit or between the cars and the building, the area around the mill is totally flat with visibility for thousands of feet…

By the time he got ahold of the mill crew to tell them the brakeman might be in the pit it was too late, they had started the auger the moment the conductor cut away from the shove.

Had the conductor explained why he wanted the brakeman to get off where he told him to, and had the brakeman followed those instructions, there would have been nothing to write about.

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Paul,

Did a totally un-scientific experiment to weight the brake stick I have.

Got on the bathroom scale and weighed myself, then cleared the scale, got back on holding the brake stick, according to this method, the stick weighs 5.5 pounds.

Sure feels like 15 by noon!

I don’t use them, in fact, I have only seen one person use it on the Port, and they gave it up after a few days.

Reason is we ride the sides of cars into industrial track, and riding a car, holding a brake stick and trying to use the radio leaves you short a hand or two!

In yard work, it is, for me at least, easier and faster to tie the brakes by hand.

As Zug pointed out, it can be one more piece of equipment to drag around.

On the PTRA, separation is one car length, approximately 50 feet.

The FRA allows this because we are a switching terminal road, technically everywhere on the PTRA is within yard limits, and inside the industries that extra 50 feet can be hard to find.

Carl answered the other part of your question, we are taught to keep one foot outside the rail, and expect the cars to move anytime.

They do in fact, but as Carl pointed out, to lace up the hoses the cars have to be coupled already, and any movement is small, you can gauge how much by the sound of the slack and by experience, you know when there is a real active “slosher” in the cut, and you time its movement.

The area between the cars is small, 36 inches maybe, sometimes closer, and often you are leaning or in contact with one or the other of the car, you learn to sway or move with them, but again, there is real little action.

And of course, you are working under the Red Zone or Three Point Protection rule, so engine movement is, or shouldn’t be, an issue.

In yard tracks, you don’t start to lace the cars until you have coupled all of them, and then stretched the train.

On the PTRA that means you stretch it at least one full car length and the em

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I can understand a person being injured if they are in-line with the couplers of two cars (I think someone refered to this as “being coupled up”), because the couplers stick out from the cars and do come in contact with the next car’s coupler. But to my totally inexperienced “bystander’s” eye, it seems that the space between the cars when coupled is more than the thickness of a human body (well… maybe not mine, but the “average” person’s body). There has to be some space to allow the train to flex in curves.

So this makes me ask; What is the absolute minimum spacing between the frames of two cars with the couplers completely compressed in the draft gear? i.e.: In a maximum compression coupling? For the sake of simplicity, assume the cars on on tangent track.

How much compression would one expect with just the slack running out such that the last car rolls against a car to the rear of it with enough energy to complete a coupling? What would be the distance between the car’s frames then?

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That’s why we have restricted speed. Be able to stop in half the distance.

Some places do put up ‘close clearance’ signs, and there are spots where you are not allowed to ride the sides of cars, as stated in timetable or special instructions.

But industries move around equipment and

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[quote user=“zugmann”]

Bucyrus:

Ed,

That is a very interesting and tragic story. But I have a few questions. It sounds like anybody who did not know not to ride a car there would get wiped off the side and possibly killed. I imagine there would be some special instructions written down about this hazard, but is there nothing such as a sign, some sort of telltale, or whatever right there to warn somebody who happens to be riding the side of a car? I can’t imagine not having some type of backup safety warning for such a deadly clearance constriction.

I gather this brakeman was either new or did not know this territory. If so, it seems to me that the conductor should have made the clearance hazard clear to the brakeman. I realize that the brakeman failed to get off where the conductor told him to. But perhaps, he simply misunderstood the conductor.

You mentioned the rule that tells you if you don’t understand what you are told to do, then do nothing until it is clarified. But what if a person does not know that they do not understand what they are told to do?

That’s why we have restricted speed. Be able to stop in half the distance.

Some places do put up ‘close clearance’ signs, and there are spots where y

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Bucyrus,

I see what you’re driving at, and that’s one of the things the SOFA group concentrated on, intermediate job briefings.

If the work changes from the norm, or if any member of the crew is un sure of what the next move is going to be, the SOFA group recommends the crew hold a new job briefing before any work continues.

And this incident occurred long before the SOFA group was formed.

Now days, we have a job briefing every shift, all the crews are required to be present, we have to sign in, and the trainmaster or yardmaster briefs us on each job, where they will be, what they will do, any special hazards found during the last few shifts, so forth and so on.

Then, each crew should have a job briefing specifically for that crew and job, where we are starting, what we will do, which tracks to work first, that type of thing, and we plan to have a “break” where a new job briefing will occur.

Back when this occurred, there was no requirement for that, and guys were expected to learn by rote, you do the same thing over and over, exactly the same each time.

The second or third time you caught a particular job, you were expected to know what that job was going to do and how it was going to be done, because nothing ever changed and it was going to be exactly the same as last time…

In this instance, the conductor assumed the brakeman understood what he wanted him to do.

No, there was no signage about the close clearance,

It was assumed that every crew who work the mill would see the unloader and the building and know not to ride that side all the way in.

The conductor saw no reason the explain why, he assumed the brakeman had worked the job before, or could see why he should get off there, and the conductor failed to make sure the brakeman got off where instructed to.

There was no clear and concise understanding between the two as to what the movement would consist of, where it was going, where it would stop, and what