Railroads call some safety rules ‘obsolete,’ ask for reliefPublished: April 4, 2011
WASHINGTON — The U.S. railroad industry has asked the Federal Railroad Administration to consider ending six safety rules the industry believes are no longer necessary. The rules relate to health and safety in the railroad environment.
Edward Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads, outlined the industry’s case. He said new technologies “have outpaced some of the rules and regulations related to how we operate.” The rules AAR wants waived are:
• Daily and 92-day locomotive inspections. AAR says electronic self-diagnostics on modern diesels render these inspections unnecessary.
• Immediate repairs of track defects. Federal rules say railroads must immediately fix track defects, and this impacts some that don’t impact safety. With modern track inspection technology, railroads find defects that wouldn’t necessitate immediate repair if not for the rules.
• Standards for gauge at frogs. The industry says it’s unaware of gauge deviation at frogs causing derailments, and says rules are overly stringent and provide minimal safety benefit.
• Thousand-mile air tests. Trains with traditional air brakes must be inspected every 1,000 to 1,500 miles. These tests ensure brakes set and release properly. Yet stuck brakes will cause wheels to overheat, and
No official opinion here, but I recently found a major defect on a locomotive that required a visit from the service truck before it could be used. This defect had the possibility of being VERY dangerous. The limited diagnostics in the engines did not detect this defect…
My personal opinion is that giving your power the “once-over” is the safest course of action - FRA law or not.
Brand new frogs straight from the mill , created issues with guard check gauge and frog face gauge (see 49 CFR 213.143) on many railroads, including the one diningcar & I worked for. The problem is all within about six inches of the point of frog. The rule was written in the days before cast frogs and frog inserts became common. If the related turnout guardrail is in good condition, the technical problem that caused the rule to be written is a non-issue. Those wheelsets that hunt and have sharp flanges (mysteriously never found in limited mechanical inspections), are a much bigger problem.
#1 - #5 are all beancounter driven, compounded by whining from the dispatchers and operating folks. (bad decisions made in the 1990’s dumbsizing / merger era are now coming home to roost, the beancounters, dispatchers and front office folks, many who have never spent any serious time on the actual railroad, could stand a good dose of reality.)
(2) rediculously overstretched dispatchers with absurdly long territories having to notify every train on the clock out running about new slow orders (how many times have you sat behind a rail detector?)
(3) Operating people are not allowed/qualified to make track department decisions, can’t flag themselves over a track defect…
(4) Signal testing in an interlocker holding up a train.
along with the signal tests, the only reason that they didn’t ask for a waiver on the track inspection frequency issue, is that they got in serious trouble over that one in recent history. The operating bubbas and the dispatchers, if they could, would leave the track gangs in the hole forever and still whine about rough track. (ps - I saw and heard a trainmaster close out a derailment as “wide gage” over the radio without even getting there yet…the bent switch rod on a rigid switch said something else…) This one may be a source of friction between AAR (operating bubbas good 'ol boy club) and AREMA…
Do we really want locomotives reduced to the level that most people treat their cars - just jump in, turn it on, and go ? Even a 5-minute walk-around has value to help mentally acclimate the crew to their new environment and look for anything that’s out of whack that might not be detected by the computer - a dirty windshield, ice and snow on the steps, ground lights burned-out, etc.
If not fixed immediately, then place a “slow order” on it immediately. If it’s truly a safety defect that creates a hazard - which is another question - then how long is it going to be left go unaddressed either way ? How long should you let a fire burn in your house before calling the fire department ?
While mainline territory may not be a problem, I’ve seen too many frogs with battered points in industrial sidetracks to be comfortable with elimainting this as a defect. There are several things that could cause or contribute to this - the guardrail itself, its fastenings to either the turnout rail and/ or the deterioration of the switch timbers - and without this ‘hammer’, some owners/ operators won’t spend the comparatively more money (as compared to tangent or curved plain track) to fix it, until the problem makes itself known in the usual unmistakable way . . . [:-^]
Dragging brakes are not the only potential problem with air brakes. What if there’s snow or ice in the brake rigging or on the shoes or wheel treads ? What if the orifices are plugged with snow or ice ? What if some miscreant turned the anglecock ? What’s the trainline leakage rate at a high-altitude cold-weather summit, as compared with the sunny beaches and humid air where the train originated ? And what if some of that humid air condensed in the trainline as ice and has now blocked it or impeded the air flow ? Most of these are cold-weather problems, but how long does this kind of inspection take anyw
A lot of great points. Sounds like the railroads would just rather foot the bill for derailments (and hope there are no lawsuits-HAHAHAHA) than foot the bill for the safety stuff being done so far. Or maybe management simply is that much out of touch that they really don’t know any better. Whatever happened to having management spend the day with a train crew and find this stuff out themselves?
On the issue of the sun on signals, that is a constant problem, just like what you get at traffic lights. I am well aware of that myself and have almost even been hit by people who couldn’t correctly discern the signal lights. I have long thought that additional measures needed to be taken regarding the sun against these things, though there isn’t a whole lot that can be done. I’d think maybe sensors within the signals could detect bright artifical light entering the bulbs when they aren’t lit and somehow send back a notification of some type. Not sure if the same type of thing could be done at the back of the signal where bright sun can blind the crew, making it impossible to see anything at all, but I’d think there’d be a way.
How true: Got into a verbal argument with a traffic engineer who told me there was no problem. He had inspected the light 4 weeks later when sun was no longer a problem. So I took a picture of it and presented it to his boss when the sun angle was the same. Funny thing… Sun shields were installed both the type you see around most RR signals and a hood as well.
I suspect that this type of seasonal problem is missed many times??
The NTSB understands that this can be a contributing cause to signal violations and, when necessary, attempt to recreate the situation as a part of their investigations.
That’s exactly what they did to investigate the accident that I referenced above - only 2 days later - so that not too much has changed in the meantime what with the seasonal variation in the sun’s path and other factors, etc.
I also meant to note that the report specifically mentioned that they called it a “phantom signal” indication, in the paragraphs above and below the “PROBABLE CAUSE” heading on page 2 of 2. Here’s the link to the "PDF’ format version as well (2 pages, only approx. 11.3 KB in size):