Group,
With the coming of Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) it seems like trains have been getting longer.
I was wondering, has this led to an increase in derailments? It certainly seems like that to me but I have no stats.
What are your ideas about this?
Regards,
Fred M. Cain,
Topeka, IN
Any increase in derailments would more likely be attributed to the decrease in track maintenance that also tends to accompany the shift to so-called PSR.
Not only ‘economizing’ on track maintenance, but also on equipment maintenance.
And locomotive maintenance. My son seems to be experiencing engine failure on average of once every two weeks.
The longer trains have resulted in more broken knuckles and pulled out drawbars. One co-worker remarked the other day, “It’s beginning to look like a scrap yard out there.”
There’s even iron laying on the ground in places where you wouldn’t think things would break. Probably items that were already stressed and on the way to failure that finally let go in those unexpected places.
And more trains getting multiple breaks in one instance. The record so far that I’ve read of is 5 knuckles at one time.
Has long as the failures are within some expected failure rate, everything is fine. If they can pin the blame on the engineer, all the better.
Jeff
For us it is fairly difficult to blame the crew as long as no train handling guidelines were violated and you weren’t speeding (not that they don’t try).
I try to approach known ‘break in two’ areas far under track speed so that I can get everything set up as best I can and then leave the controls alone as we cruise through the area.
Some people give up and let Trip Op do whatever it pleases, as a train separation while T.O. is engaged is not considered to be the crew’s fault. But I prefer to try and give us the best chance of making it through.
The strangest knuckle I’ve seen so far was in the middle of a fully loaded welded rail train. Fortunately I only got to see the aftermath, I wasn’t on that train or part of the cleanup crew.
Our identified break in two zones also have some instructions for some trains. Trip Optimizer and LEADER unfortunately haven’t read the instructions. They don’t run a train through those areas any where near what the instructions say.
For a while, we had instructions to run the problem (oversized) trains manual through the B I T zones. Then they repealed those instructions and we are to use T O and LEADER as much as possible. I used to run manual even when we weren’t supposed to out of respect for the conductor. With all the nasty grams others have gotten for not using the EMS enough, I now believe in giving them what they want and let the EMS run through those spots. I had the worst slack run out a few weeks ago with LEADER coming out of a B I T zone. (LEADER is usually the better at train handling.) We didn’t lose our air, how I don’t know, even though it almost knocked us out of our seats.
With us too, if the EMS tears them up it’s considered a “mechanical” failure.
Jeff
Anecdotal, but I’ve only seen one broken knuckle around here in the flatlands. (so far)
Is it time to send out the Work Train with the crane and elctro-magnet to pick up all the reclaimable scrap metal?
Maybe PSR is a good reason why the acrylic sump ordered by my husband this spring out of Florida shipped via UPS on the NS showed up at my house looking like a package of scrap plastic.
Jeff,
This is what I was wondering about. Another thought I had is that if anything were to go wrong with a piece of equipment such as sticking breaks or a bad roller bearing or whatever, there’s a least somewhat of a chance on a 70-car train that the head end crew might catch it and stop the train. But there is far less of a chance on a train that’s 2½ miles long. YIKES!
There was a derailment a year or so ago where CSX dumped some cars in a river back East and I thought the news article said the train had around 230 cars. Is that right? Are some of these manifest trains that long?
So, yeah, I was just wondering, have derailments increased in the years since PSR went gone into effect? Running freight trains on tight schedules kinda makes sense but what does running those long trains really have to do with scheduling?
Sounds to me like just a cost cutting device. But if derailments increase they might not be saving as much $ as what they’d figured on.
Essentially hidden from you is the network of sensors, some as close as 30 miles apart, that continuously monitor for hot bearings or wheels and various damaged-wheel signatures (e.g. WILD). This can find defects that no on-train vigilance could… monstrain or not.
I believe FRA regulations require trains pass a Hot Box Detector at least once in every 50 miles. When that regulation was initially implemented CSX made efforts to have HBD’s at approximately every 25 miles - as push came to shove and it was discovered that HBD’s could have electronic failures more frequently than was initially thought - on high velocity, high capicity routes they endeavored to have HBD’s approximately every 15 miles - thus they could have consecutive detectors out of service (for whatever the reason) and the next detector would still fall within the 50 mile regulation.
If a train IS NOT inspected by a detector within the 50 mile limit, the train must be stopped and the crew must perform a walking inspection before the train can continue.
The reality is that even in the days of full crews and cabooses, it was generally not possible for crews to lay real eyeballs on the entirety of their train in most cases.
Monster trains will indeed reduce the crew’s ability to spot trouble and prevent derailments. And this will be compensated for by increased use of wayside detectors.
But aside from that, monster trains also are said to cause more rough train handling, pulled drawbars, and broken knuckles compared to traditional size trains. And detectors do nothing to prevent those problems. So I don’t see why increasing to monster size trains would not result in more derailments.
Aside from my agreeing with you, I think we’ve had credible information from trustworthy actual railroaders pointing out the increased incidence of handling problems, not least from improper action of just the automated train-management ‘aids’ that are supposed to reduce train handling to a more scientistic, if not safer, exercise. Theoretically I think that some of this notch-4-limit hysteria is to limit maximum speed of monster trains and thereby limit the in-train forces that might build up. This may not be completely wack but I get the stronger and stronger idea that upper management has a strange idea that it’s a definitive way to address the situation … when they can’t blame the engineer for it.
I confess I’d dearly love to know the ‘back-end negotiations’ when there is some drawbar-snatching debacle when LEADER or TO is mandatorily being run and there is no way to Blame The Crew™. As Hilal-style capitalists are never the tyoe to leave money on the table, I expect there has to be something – insurance, maybe? Escrow funds? – that pays when the robots make their mess.
Doesn’t answer the concern about increased derailments, though. If we were to operate powered blocks in the train as Don Oltmann described, at least some of the danger would go away, and perhaps that is a DPU approach that should be considered as ‘block swapping’ becomes more and more a dominant paradigm for loose-car railroading…
I would love to be the fly on the wall when the VP of operations has to explain why the track on a busy main line was tied up because the conductor had to walk to the end of the train to check a two mile train and then walk all the way back to the head end because an HBD went off and the rules say the crew had to do it.
Many of the land barges getting torn up are DP equipped. One coworker had a knuckle break between two engines that was the mid-train DP set. Some times the DPs cause the problems.
I know of two instances in my area where trains went over hot box detectors, received a “no defects” message and burned off a bearing derailing the train within 4 or 5 miles. Once as a conductor I was instructed to set out a car. It hadn’t set off any detectors, but the hot bearing desk had been watching detector read outs and it was warmer than the cars. The brakes had been cut out, thinking that was the problem but it didn’t help.
We went over a detector about 8 miles from the yard we were going to set it out at. “No defects.” While pulling up to a stop, the yardmaster came on the radio and said one of his yard engines waiting for us to pass had spotted a car smoking. It wasn’t the one we were to set out nor was it close enough for detectors to make a mistake. Sure enough, the bearing was smoking when I found it so I set out two cars.
Don’t get me wrong, the detectors do work. But they aren’t fool proof by any means. Besides, it’s not the longer trains that result in more derailments. (Not that I’ve seen an increase in derailments.) If anything, it’s the cut back in maintenance of just about everything that would lead to more of them.
Jeff
They’ll blame the conductor for delaying the train.
next?
Remember the VP Operations has a hand in writing and implementing the rules that require on ground walking inspections. If they are upset, they can only be upset at themselves. If they are upset at rules compliance, they shouldn’t write the rules.