Speaking of territorial qualifications. The FRA has issued some Emergency Waivers because of covid-19.
One of the things temporarily waived is the need to be territorial qualifed. There are regulations for it, they can’t just furlough half their crews and say they’re short handed. When truly needed because of a true shortage caused by quarantine of those sick or infected, they can use a crew member on a district they’re not qualified on. The railroads are expected to first try to use someone who had been previously qualifed, but who’s qualification had expired. If an engineer is used who has never been qualifed and the train is equipped with operative PTC, they can run 40mph. If no PTC, then they can only run at restricted speed.
I love the part about if an engineer is qualified but the conductor is not - there are no restrictions. There’s your 1-man precursor right now. Don’t worry, I’m sure if something happens and some local DA with eyes for the governor’s mansion is trying to throw you in jail the rest of your life the FRA will have your back.
I was talking about the belt pack operator standing too close to the next track and getting hit by a locomotive or car because they were concntrating on moving their train. Why railroads allow this usafe operation is beyond me. A heisler in the cab can control the train and be safe as well as control the train so thier would no runaways.
As opposed to the switchman reading his list while there is movement on another track.
Actually, that doesn’t happen too often, either scenario. Usually only one crew at a time is working one lead of a yard. True, another job or road crew may be working the other end or moving down an adjacent track. Usually crews will notify each other of when that will happen. Still there is a rule in the book, a very old one that predates radio, about being aware of movement on any track.
Speaking on one person crews, this has already happened with some yard crews. I know of some industry jobs, where they leave the yard and go pull and spot industries on industrial leads, that have at times been operated by one RCO alone. Not one RCO and a non-linked helper, but Foreman only to leave the yard and go across town and return.
When they first proposed RCO on my area, there was a letter from the FRA about what they could and couldn’t do. It had 9 or 10 items. I don’t remember all of them, but one was that the primary operator (the one controlling the movement with the box - You can have two boxes linked, but only one primary at a time. Control can be passed back and forth as needed.) could not be riding the side of a car while doing s
I do remember seeing something like this letter, but it’s not the one I originally saw. The linked one has a lot of info about being licensed, etc. The first one I saw was only one page with 9 or 10 items, not in a question and answer format either.
The one I first saw in the yard office specifically said RCOs could not control movement while riding the side of a car. About a week after showing up, that letter disappeared and a new one showed up. Almost exactly the same as the first, but with the prohibition about controlling movement while riding the side of a car omitted.
It was said at the time, had the railroad given us a few more hours of training, we could’ve had a hostler’s level license. That would means we could move locomotives (only-no cars attached) around as needed by using the controls in the cab. That would’ve come in handy one night when we were out on the main with the rco engines going to pick up an empty at an industry. We had just got to the switch, lined into the industry track when the on board RC equipment lost a GPS link. It shut down the RC computer and we couldn’t move the engine with the RC box. We were also on the midnight trick and there were only RC yard jobs working at that time of night. No engineers that could be grabbed to move the engines and our grade of license didn’t allow us to move it conventionally. The solution from the manager on duty? Since we were on a downward grade, we were to ride the hand brakes on the power and RC slug into the industry track and clear the main. That’s what we did.
They were able to get hold of the RC techs and they talked us through the reset process. We were able to fire it up and pull the empty. It failed once more, b
The conductor is equally responsible for the safe operation of the train. (By rule, he or she is actually in charge.) While the conductor may not need to know the subtle differences in grades, only know where the big ones are, they still need to know locations of specific items. Like sidings, control points, signals, mile posts, etc. The conductor is supposed to remind the engineer 2 miles before the end of their authority. Hard to do if you don’t know where you’re at.
To a somewhat lesser extent, the conductor may also need to know where to spot cars for industry or on-line repairs. If picking up or setting out cars in a yard, it helps to know where you’re going. There also may be certain procedures or protocols that are location specific. If you’ve never been there, you may not know about them. Especially when such information tends to be buried in some obscure bulletin thats 15 pages long.
Our traffic is way down. Enough that guys who have been on the east/west through freight pool are being forced to go the the north pool or extra board. This means they are going to terminals they haven’t been to in years. They get put on a training board, just like an engineer, and get to make a couple of refresher trips.