past history… what happened to fireman…brakeman…etc…they too had strong union affiliation and support…
not saying this WILL come to pass…however if (IF) trains are run from a remote location from a room then there’s really no reason why that has to be done in Chicago or Dallas…could conceivably also be done in Mumbia…Kuala Lumpur…
Prediction: If/when remote control of mainline locomotives comes to pass, expect to see either a law enacted and/ or an FRA regulation promulgated that requires the engineer to actually be within the U.S., the same as was done for dispatchers when CN or CP proposed moving some to Canada a few years back.
See the FRA regulation on that - Title 49–Transportation, CHAPTER II–FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, PART 241–UNITED STATES LOCATIONAL REQUIREMENT FOR DISPATCHING OF UNITED STATES RAIL OPERATIONS, at - http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_08/49cfr241_08.html
Sec. 241.1 Purpose and scope.
(a) The purpose of this part is to prevent railroad accidents and incidents, and consequent injuries, deaths, and property damage, that would result from improper dispatching of railroad operations in the United States by individuals located outside of the United States.
Great…but manufacturing CAN be exported…where’s the terror angle on that?
Above FRA regs relate to the dispatching of trains…nothing in there says they can’t be operated from outside the country. You could have Billy dispatching from Dallas and Gurjit running the train from is office in Mumbai…
When the last American worker’s job is “out-sourced” to somewhere outside the USA by a multinational corporation, perhaps someone will realize this nation has completed its economic suicide.
I am certain in the Lawyers would have great interest in accidents involving crewless trains.
But would they really be crewless if an engineer was operating the locomotive remotely from a stationary office? Anything the engineer could do from onboard the locomotive, he could do from the office.
If anything goes wrong there’s no escaping the lawyers anyway…they got you coming and going…nothing you can do about it other than have a shark for a lawyer yourself.
This probably hits the nail on the head as to why it won’t be outsourced beyond the country’s borders. Operating crews can easily be held legally responsible for their actions, and if they violated the law, extradition would come into the picture.
Funny, while reading this thread, just as I started thinking about Canadian National’s failed attempt to move the Illinois Central train dispatchers to Canada and Canadian Pacific’s similar attempt with the Soo Line and ex-Milwaukee Road dispatchers going to Winnipeg, Paul North cites the subject. Thank you Paul!
Unmanned trains? Fuhgeddaboudit. To achieve that goal would require eliminating all highway grade crossings, installing AND MAINTAINING thousands of miles of secured fencing, fighting with the tree huggers over restricting the migration patterns of wildlife, and maintaining locomotives to a higher standard of reliability than what is found in current practice.
To make those trains more reliable and easier to control would require running shorter, faster trains with higher horsepower per trailing ton ratios. Higher hp/tt leads to greater fuel consumption per revenue ton mile and that would mean violating one of the most holy of modern shibboleths rigidly adhered to by too many railroad managements. As long as the top brass wants to keep driving down the gallons-consumed per gross ton-mile figure, long, heavy, difficult-to-control freight trains will prevail.
Lastly, there’s the question of politics. Would you want to have freight trains carrying hazardous materials barreling through your village with absolutely nobody on board? Would you want to have trains hauling hazardous materials meeting unmanned freight trains? Getting past these types of political hurdles is probably the toughest one of all.
Blownout Cylinder’s fantasy speculation is mildly amusing, and it brings to mind a news item I read a little over 40-years ago.
Sometime in the mid-to-late 1960s Consolidated Edison installed and fired-up what was then the world’s largest combination steam turbine and electric generator. “Big Allis,” named after its manufacturer, Allis-Chalmers, when operating at full capacity, required an energy input greater than all of the muscle power - both man and beast - available to the armies of ancient Rome at its height.
As for the Starship Enterprise and the feats its capable of performing, my guess is that all of the wooden fires burned by man, all of the fossil fuels consumed by man, and all of the atoms either split or fused by man over the last 10,000-years wouldn’t even begin to meet the energy requirements of anything flown by Captain Kirk, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, or Darth Vader.
Theoretically teleportation is possible. As a practic
30 years ago they were asking “would you want a train with only two men on board and no caboose?” Seemed unthinkable at the time…but we’ve gotten used to it. Getting used to crewless trains might not be such a stretch as we become used to increasingly sophisticated technology and the emergence of artificial intelligence…
To expand on my previous post - there are really three factors that will govern such a move:
Technology. I would argue that the technology exists today to run trains “from a room somewhere.” Between remotely controlled airplanes half a world away, GPS, telemetry, teleconferencing, and existing remote control of locomotives, it’s all there. The integration hasn’t occurred, but it could. The reefers that trains are hauling are already being controlled from “a room somewhere.”
Economic. This will be a significant driver. If and when it becomes cheaper to put a single “driver” in a room than it is to put a crew on a train, it’ll start to happen. I don’t see that balance coming any time soon, however, if only because of the massive amount of technology that will need to be in place to make it happen. PTC, or a relative thereof will be a major part of such an implementation, and we’ve seen how that’s coming along.
Social. This includes legal, environmental, and human factors and will be the biggest roadblock, as the discussion so far has so nicely illustrated.
Back in the 60’s I saw a demonstration at GM’s Proving Grounds of a guidance system for cars. Based on a wire laid in the pavement and a receiver under the front bumper of the cars, the system would make driving on the Interstates a dream. Drive onto the highway, get locked in, sit back and read your paper. The system will handle your steering, speed, spacing, and even warn you when you’re approaching your exit.
I don’t have that on my truck.&
You could have a recording that says, “Would you like fries with that?”
Seriously, though, the new jets can take off and land and fly to there destination w/o a pilot. That’s why those pilots were busy on their computers and forgot to land at Minnesota a couple months back.
Actually the FEC was two man crew with no caboose in at least 1966.
Just a quick question, but let’s suppose we have a train that is totally remote controlled - so we know the engineer can operate the train from a room, but suppose the train breaks in two, or for some other reason the air dumped, can you walk the train from a room?
It would give engineers better working hours. Have certain amount of operators working a shift like a 9-5, they would not have to wait and drive another train back the next day; they would just let the next shift take over. However, there are just somethings you need to have engineers in a cab. You can’t replace the fact of being in a locomotive and seeing everything that is going on it may be unsafe to have engineers operating from a computer screen. People who work on computers all day long have to look away from it after awhile because it is a health issue, you can’t do that when you operate anything. Plus there is the motivation to get the job done safely. We were just discussing the other day that we would want pilots operating a commercial jet from the aircraft, I gives him a bit motivation to get the plane down safely because the pilot’s life is at risk too. I am not saying any pilot or engineer would think that way, but it was the key issue in the discussion. Oh and a side note, why is this not showing my spaces between paragraphs.
I think that remote control drone train operation would require some on-the-ground support. This could be provided in a number of ways. 1. The section crew, trainmaster, road foreman could be called out to assist in changing knuckles and the like. 2. Jobs like a roving conductor, roving carman or emergency response team utilizing a four wheel drive vehicle could handle knuckle changing as well as enroute switching like setting out bad order cars. 3. Clearing a public crossing involves operating the pin lifter and closing the train brake pipe. Police and fire departments could be taught how to do that in order to clear public crossings in emergencies. This would require some communication links between the peace officer on the ground and the engineer of the train, where ever he is. 4. Electronic car air brakes could locate defective cars safer and faster than walking the train. 5. The “classic” Union Pacific built a lot of roadways next to their main tracks. It is a lot safer and faster to inspect a train from a motor vehicle than it is by walking the train. I recall Union Pacific operating people telling me that when a train went into emergency there was often UP employees in a motor vehicle there to assist within a few minutes. Personally, I think that walking the train should be avoided even in conventional train operations. Walking the sloping ballast is not fun.
“That’s why those pilots were busy on their computers and forgot to land at Minnesota a couple months back” That’s also why this isn’t likly to happen. You always need eyes.
True Enough! Indeed, True Enough! We will always need “eyes”.
However, those eyes can now be, and will be, “remote”.
The pilots and engineers will be working from home offices. Regular hours with regular breaks and a lunch period. Regular time to watch the daughter’s basketball game. And to walk the dogs.
Nirvana or Nightmare, take your pick.
kay… think about this You’re on a Boeing 747 heading to Beijing. There is no one flying it, except a man in Beijing with an RC joystick. He’s being very careful, and he’s a well trained pilot. But would you feel comfortable, knowing that their isn’t a living breathing human behind the wheel. At least for me, i’d like them to be sitting there. Same with hazardous cargo on trains. It would make a lot of Americans, IMHO sleep sound tonight knowing that there isn’t what could quickly become an unmanned, RC bomb hurtling through Central Illinois at sixty miles an hour. Perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic, but that’s my opinion…