Railroads want one-person crews on freights

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Railroad staffing plan ‘backward,’ Hare says

Reduction could mean up to 300 lost jobs in Galesburg area

Thursday, August 31, 2006

BY KEVIN SAMPIER

OF THE JOURNAL STAR

GALESBURG - A plan by the nation’s largest railroad companies to reduce staffing to one person per train has one congressional candidate “more than angry,” because it could mean up to 300 lost jobs in the area.

“This community has had enough of jobs leaving,” said Democratic candidate Phil Hare. He is running against Republican Andrea Zinga for the 17th Congressional District seat held by U.S. Rep. Lane Evans, D-Rock Island. Evans is retiring at the end of his term.

Hare said the country’s major railroad companies want to switch from two-person crews to one-person crews to operate their freight trains.

Hare said the move would not only harm local economies but would present a national safety threat, because one person wouldn’t be able to monitor an entire train alone.

Hare said one train car of ammonia rigged with explosives could kill about 100,000 people in Chicago, and he added other hazardous materials move by train all the time. He said these trains could be targeted by terrorists and should be watched by more people, not fewer.

“This is priority backwards as far as I’m concerned,” Hare said. “I’m more than angry about it.”

In addition to safety concerns, Hare said the plan would mean between 200 and 300 lost jobs for the Galesburg area. That would be another blow to the city that suffered economically when Maytag closed its plant.

“I’m really angry that they would even remotely propose this,” he said.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe,

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I have always been in favor of the two-person crew.

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Hare’s arguments are typical fear-mongering hype. The idea that the extra crew member would make the slightest difference in the event of a terrorist action is ridiculous. A more sensible safety approach might be one that addresses crew fatigue or risks associated with the health of the person in a cab alone. But at least he mentioned safety.

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Holy cow![:O] You don’t suppose the fact that this man is running a political campaign has any effect on his newfound concern for railroad safety from terrorism, do you?[;)]

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…It’s obvious we’re getting into the mid term “political season”…and from both sides. But, I believe if one could take a count from citizens of this country re: “Would you favor a one man crew on freight trains moving about in our country”, I believe the answer would be a resounding NO…

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If you really want to have humans monitor the train for safety reasons, then you should have a crew member at each end. Maybe even build a special car for the rear end with bump outs on the side or a cupola on the top so the crewman can sit and monitor the train.[swg]

But with all the technology available today for monitoring the train and the ability to transmit that information to the locomotive and other places, it’s hard to see what the second crew person does. I understand that you may want to phase in one man operation to avoid laying people off, but let’s be up front about it. It confuses the issue to drag security into it. If terrorists are a concern on hazmat trains, then armed guards are the answer - not more train crew.
[2c]
Enjoy
Paul

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This is sounds like a stupid idea, a really stupid idea, and it all falls apart with one event. Does a one man crew have to stop the whole train to use the toilet, or will “Depends” be issued as standard equipment?

OK that sounds silly but its absolutely serious, a one man crew CANNOT even get up and relieve himself with no one to temporarily take control, dont all locos still have a deadmans control to stop the loco if its not activated at the proper interval, what do they do with that? get rid of it so the engineer can move around the cab?

I have a few questions:
What happens if the engineer has no one their to help him fight off fatigue and falls asleep, or has a medical emergency, or is attacked by a hobo or gangster out to rob him? What about getting food or even getting a drink? How does one simply monitor both sides of the train down its full lenth? How does one person handle alot of the repairs I keeps reading that often have to be done by the crews. Gonna get awfully nonely in that cab if this goes thru.

I forsee alot more stalled trains and alot of crew vans driving hither-nither with repair crews, relief crews etc. if this is approved.

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Im just gonna sit and wait until A train stops and hold up all the Z trains while the engineer had to walk all the way back and restart the unit/walk the whole train, crahses and burns because the engineeer has to take a crap and has noone to watch the controls, among other things.

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Really the most stupid argument for a good cause. A only one person crew in America is , beside some special cases (commute trains?), not realistic.

But you need to bring forward much better arguments that this one, or it will be counterproductive.

No one can make me believe that a mile long train can be even half efficiently be secured (while standing on some unlit siding or moving slow etc) with less that 20 armed and trained people. It does not need much to place a time bomb on a tank car.

Just think to the ww2 resistence in france/italy/Russia/Jugoslavia. Not even armored cars in front and behind were enought to avoid attacs on trains.

Lets be honest. the only way to avoid that is to give to no ‘right minded’ people the reason to even try. Our societies are like so, they work on trust, or everything come to a stop…

sebastiano

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Of course that’s what it is. With the election coming up in November, he suddenly has developed a selective concience based on a topic’s appeal to the largest block of voters. Not that one-person train crews are a good idea, but in an effort to call attention to himself he decided to push the magic, attention-getting “terrorism” button while making a statement about preserving jobs, a potentially volatile combination punch – which surprisingly can have a great effect in heartland cities like Galesburg (which would still be corn and soybean fields if it weren’t for the railroads).

Let us also consider that his town is trying to build a multi-million dollar National Railroader’s Hall of Fame tourist trap… er, attraction – and want the nation’s railroads to pay for it, natch.

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One person crews are the norm in more places than they’re not nowadays, and these other places don’t have problems.

You will conform to the majority eventually.

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Hmmmm… this one-person crew concept begs another question:

Would railroads then cut shipping prices if this happens, or would they keep the extra profits in-house?

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There are several reasons to have more than one crew member on a train. First, I think the most important is a derailment or train seperation. Who is gonna walk the train and whose gonna call for help you cant do both, hand held radios rarely can talk to the dispatcher, having someone relay that information is imperative. Or are the railroads gonna issue sat-phones? Unlikely since the railroads have the same disease every other company has. We dont know how to make our product better so why dont we just cut staff till we cant make any product.

Second, will you have to stop the train to copy a mandatory directive. i.e. track warrant, track and time, speed restrictions, crossing warning notiofications. That is really gonna help the velocity of the railroad. I realize that it will come to one man crew someday, but, I want everyone to understand that this is for the company to save money, not for safety, not for efficency, this is simply a money saving concept.

There are many reasons why one man crew should be scrutinized before its implementation, safety is a concern I just think we try to use the topic of the day such as terrorism to justify blocking it, when the answers are sitting there satring at us.

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I agree with the thoughts of some others that a one man crew scenario could work provided the following:

  1. There absolutely has to be a backup of some kind - video assistance from the home base comes to mind - where constant feedback aids in detecting operational anomolies.

  2. Automation should be the primary operational dynamic, with the one man crew acting more as an on board monitor rather than the de facto driver. With automation it is possible for the crew member to take those occassional breaks without having to stop the train.

  3. Regardless, the feds should only allow one man operations under scheduled conditions, not call up conditions. Fatigue issues are bad enough with two man crews, thus a separate set of working rules for one man crews to ensure full rest and physical replenishment of the one man crew member.

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I know an Indiana shortline that are running one man crews. They have a rover that comes to trains in distress. But that wouldn’t work on a 22,000 mile system! It’s more efficiant to have the cornductor to drop off and walk it out, then to wait for some guy to come out. Just think of the train delays.

And before you say the engineer will get off and walk, well that doesn’t work either example…(1) I would have to tie the train down. (2) start walking (pray your not on a coal train) (3) found problem-broken knuckle/air hose (4) walk back to the headend (again, I hope this ain’t a 133 car coal drag) (5) Get knuckle/air hose w/wrench. (6) walk back to problem car (7) fix problem (8) (I would assume the engines are remote control) couple train back together (9) walk back to head end (10) call dispatcher and request limo because by now your either “hogged out” or your about to!..and I should add so is everyone else!!

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…Are the profit margins so close on a mile long freight train that {if possible}, the railroad must eliminate one crew member to make the freight run viable…!! If it is, they better shut the system down and get into some other line of work…

Balancing one and two member crew status against the safe operation of a class one freight train should play over to the use of two bodies on the train.

I’m sure genuine railroaders {on here}, can cite {rear world}, multiple conditions {with today’s technology}, why two crew members are superior in the safe and efficient running of such trains…

Perhaps some day when conditons and technology have changed it will be safe to do such an operation.

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Exactly, Modelcar, and as a railfan and enthusiast, I truly fear that one day, the system may indeed be shut down, and the “other line of work” will be the only one that exists. If (or since) technology is advanced to the point where one crew member is enough, how long will it be until/before the technology replaces the one guy? Since profit margins appear to be ever growing in importance (I’m probably revealing my political stripes here, but oh well), how long will it be before, as has been suggested elsewhere on this board, a Maersk or a Hanjin will snap up a US transcontinental RR and, ahem, liquidate the assets? Call me crazy if you like, but it’s hardly outside the realm of possibility, is it? I truly hope it is…

Riprap

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A Engineer only train is great…as long as there are not mechanical problems with the train.

Train goes into Emergency…only person on train now goes for an 18000 foot or longer jaunt in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, or more ominosly…in the middle of someswhere with multiple road crossings blocked by the train with irate drivers contemplating mischif and mayhem for any rail worker they see. Now our engineer finds the knuckle his train handling broke…7500 feet from the engines…of course the knuckle to fix the break is 7500 feet away…and on and on and on…

Getting todays 9000 foot+ freight trains over the road is a team effort between engineer and conductor, expecially when the train becomes stopped for mechanical reasons or defect detector inspections.

Without Cabooses and the the Conductor & Flagman that used to occupy it, the length of time trains are stopped for repairable mechanical problems has more than doubled, as inspection and problem resolution can only take place from the head end now, rather than initiating the inspection from both ends of the train. With a One Person crew we can expect line of road delays to double again. So what was a 30 minute delay in the days of the Caboose and is now an hour delay, will become a 2 hour or more delay. Two hours on a busy single track railroad is an eternity to have the line SHUT DOWN, as any train that should be moving and isn’t is a virtrual derailment in the operating throughput of the line.

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How many disasters will it take to prove that the Management of Transportation Corporations are cutting the number of employees to below a safe level?

There are no flying robots to monitor loads, make repairs, and check the brake lines. They have not found a way to replace all the employees yet. Nobody is that efficient.

The railroad does not actually run itself after the locomotive engines are started.

Andrew

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One-man crews are feasible, practical, and inevitable, for most of the road jobs in North America.

If it’s safety you want to improve, ask Congress to change its instructions to the FRA and start permitting U.S. railroads to implement the systems that are on-the-shelf and available today that positively enforce authority violations and excess speed. Those systems do more to improve safety than any number of extra employees in the cab. (Ironically, those systems – which are engineered and manufactured in the U.S. – are being installed in developing-world countries where the FRA has no jurisdiction.)

S. Hadid