Some years back, there was al ot of talk on here about the coming of widespread use of remote control operated engines used for yard switching. It doesn’t seem like all the doom and gloom predictions came true. In fact you don’t hear about it much at all. RCO in widespead use, and was it a smooth transition?
I suspect it was. At least it seemed like it up here…
Let’s be honest - how much do we hear about derailments in yards? Mostly minor incidents (due to low speeds) that do not make the newspapers - whether it be by man or machine.
That being said, I’ve worked the same jobs before and after they transitioned into RCOs. It’s a heck of a lot more work for the conductor when he has to do both the conducting and the running, but you don’t have to talk as much over the radio. It allows the flexibility of having two non-engineers staff a train, yet also allows the inflexibility of not being able to use that crew to do other things. With two RCO drones, most of the time you just can’t send them out to bring in an outlawed train a couple miles away on the main, unless you have a real engineer on the crew and get a new timeslip, etc.
RCOs, like anything else, have their place. But that place isn’t “everywhere” as those who count the beans would have you believe.
Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto.
Do you mean a two man crew, one with an RCO pack(?), or do you mean 2 men, each with an RCO pack?
-thank you Kilroy
Zugmann, if I understand what you’re saying, someone who is not a qualified engineer is allowed to operate a locomotive by remote control?
Yep. Just need to be a certified remote operator on FRA-governed railroads.
For us, we have 2 men crews - each with a RCO pack. Other railroads/terminals/yards do it differently. Other places have 2 men crews, with only one of the guys a RCOer, and yet other places have just one man RCO jobs.
I’m not sure I follow. How does the operation differ, with the number of RCO packs on a crew?
If two guys each has a RCO pack, you can take turns controlling the movement. Helpful when spotting cars. With only one beltpack (RCO pack), then one guy has to do all the running.
For example, let’s say I have to switch out a cut of cars, then spot a group at the airplant at the other end of the track. I can send my switchman (with his beltpack) to the other end of the track. Then once he gets there - he can take over control to spot the cars without having to do the whole radio thing. Adds a little more flexibility.
The RC operator certificate is a license. When I qualified about 10 or so years ago, we where told it was just short of a hostler’s class. If we had just a few more hours of training, we could have held the hostler’s class and then moved locomotives without having to use the remote control gear. We could’ve used it the one night our RC equipment went belly up on the main at an industry and there was no engineer on duty to move the engine.
The RC operators have to have check rides done by MOP/road foreman of engines every so often.
Jeff
When RCLs came to my area about 10 or 12 years ago, you could almost do no wrong with them. That first terminal is still the only one in my area that has RC jobs, and at first they tried converting all yard jobs there to them. Now they have some jobs that regularly work with an engineer. Most of the RC jobs consist of a Foreman and helper, but there are one or two industry jobs where the foreman is all by himself.
The “do no wrong” part at that time was because A-They wanted the RCOs to look good, and B-They didn’t have enough qualified people to replace those that they would have otherwise disciplined. (I was in the second class to become qualifed because at the time they guaranteed 60 days work for those who signed up. It was about the time of the recession of the early 2000s and I was 15 away from being cut off.)
I heard others talk (in general terms, no one admitted outright) about switches, including maybe a mainline switch, being run through with no repercussions. My partner and I were going into an industry track one Sunday afternoon when our slug/engine combination dropped a wheel off the rail. We only found out because we heard the “clunk” when the wheel struck a joint bar. It turned out that we had been on the ground for about 30 feet. The MTO came out and was like, “Oh that’s nothing. We’ll get the car men out here and get you going in about 15 minutes.” My partner later said that the exact same thing happened to him a few months previous on a conventional job. A wheel came off the rail, but then the same MTO acted like they caused the biggest rail disaster ever.
One other day, a RC job was shoving cars into a track and a rail rolled over. Back then the yard tracks weren’t in the best of shape and it was attributed to track defects, no blame against the crew. That night a conventional job was shoving a track and a r
A observation with no axe to grind -
I have observed very little difference in ‘rules compliance’ between RC & Conventional jobs - the employees that screw up can do it equally well in either situation.
Why would a RC job be any more or less prone to having a mishap?
Not being a RR engineer and never having run a real locomotive I can’t say for sure, but having some experience with both driving a car while seated in the driver’s seat and controling a car via R/C, (as well as controlling an airplane via R/C and controlling a toy Live Steam locomotive via R/C) I have to believe that using R/C would be somewhat more prone to “mishaps”, than sitting in the cab where one is able to “FEEL” via the “SEAT OF THE PANTS” the response of the engine to control commands and the action of the engine on the track while starting, stopping and just running.
Then I would also be concerned with a problem similar to texting while driving… i.e.: Distracted driving. The man on the ground is (or I assume, should be) concerned with watching the cars move, both to keep himself out of the way as well as looking for obstructions to the car motion, etc. and while doing that his attention may not be totally on the control of the engine and where it is going. (At least I know some people that sometimes have trouble chewing gum and walking at the same time! [;)] )
FRA treats RCO operators as a qualified engineers under its engineer certification rules (49 CFR PArt 240). That means that they have to have to have engineer certificates, and are subject to the various requirements and disciplinary procedures in those rules. However, if all they are qualified on is remote control operations, their certificates will be appropriately restricted. Keep in mind that FRA rules apply based on the function the employee is performing, regardless of the labor “craft” the employee belongs to. Even though most RCO jobs are run by the “conductor craft”, FRA still considers them “engineers” for purposes of its rules. A railroad can also run into union problems by allowing RCO operators to operate in conventional mode. Years ago, when RCO operations were introduced, the railroads and UTU agreed that the work belonged to the “conductor craft” when the engine was operated from the remote control transmitter (RCT). The logic was that the conductor was essentially doing the same thing he or she does when passing signals to an engineer, but is instead transmitting commands to a computer on the loco rather than a live engineer. This position was upheld in some key labor arbitrations. But these decisions wouldn’t cover a situation where a UTU employee operated a loco in conventional mode on a road where the engineer craft is represented by BLET
On the other hand, RC operations reduces some of the accident potential in conventional operations, particularly the potential for an accident caused by sloppy radio voice communications. For example, a common cause of conventional yard accidents is the ground person not giving the engineer a distance to a stop, an then losing radio communication or being distracted, while the train plows into whatever
One reason is that under certain situations sanctioned by the rules, RC jobs don’t have to protect the leading edge of the movement. They have RCO Zones, usually on the yard leads. When the RC crew activates the zone (by telling the yardmaster, who keeps a written record) it belongs to them. No other train, engine, or maintenance forces may occupy or foul the zone without permission from the crew. The zones are also (in most cases) equipped with pull-back protection. Unless overridden, it will automatically stop the movement from leaving the zone. That is as long as the cut being handled doesn’t exceed the braking capacity of the RC engine consist.
There was one case a couple years ago where a RC job gave permission for a train to enter their zone and depart the yard. As the train was departing, the RC job ran their engine into the side of it. I don’t think there was anyone riding that engine. If there had been, either an engineer or the RC operator on board, they probably would’ve noticed what was going to happen and stopped the movement.
Jeff
If you have a 2 man RC crew, what have you saved over having a 2 man conventional switching crew?
Depends whether your “2 man” conventional crew includes the engineer (in other words, 2 persons on the ground plus the engineer). In this case, the operation would be pretty much the same as a 2 person RC crew (but, of course, it requires a separate engineer). On the other hand, if the “2 man” conventional crew is comprised of only the engineer and the groundperson, the operation will be less efficient than a 2 person RC crew, because the ground person will waste lots of time positioning himself. A 2 person RC crew can operate the same way as the conventional “2 person + engineer” crew mentioned above. The advantage is that you don’t need the separate engineer. The key to this kind of operation is that both of the ground persons need to have their own beltpacks. The beltpacks allow two RCO’s that are linked to the same locomotive to transfer control of the loco back and forth between themselves . In this mode, they can “pitch and catch” control of the train between each other. For example, person A can control the train when it’s going in one direction, while person B (at the other end of the train) can control it in the other.
Unfortunately, accidents like the one metioned in your last paragraph can (and do) as easily happen with conventional operations as with RC operations. Change your facts slightly so that the RC movement is a conventional shoving movement in a yard (with the engine on the trailing end of the move) with the ground person not on the point and you have essentially the same accident scenario. It can also happen if the ground per