RR Safety -Some Thoughts-

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Recently, there was a Thread here titled 'Good Old Days. It would end up being a discussion about Commuter and Urban railroads. Good Old Days is relative to all sorts of people.

I got to thinking we all tend to remember the events in our lives as we go forward. Specifically, mostly the happy ones, or the ones that bring the useful and fond memories we hold on to.

The melancholy ones we tend to not remember in as much detail and we, over time tend to ‘polish up’ those memories, those kinds of memories do not lend themselves to many anecdotes or stories we want to retell.

A couple of days a go there were a couple of tragic accidents reported in the TRAINS Newswire. The first was early on 23 May in Boone,Ia. he was getting off one train an was struck by another passing train, apparently loosing a arm by amputation.

On 26 May a BNSF train ran over a 28 year old road forman in Ft Worth, apparently he lost both legs and a arm was amputated.

On 24 May a CSX train rear-ended another near Mineral Sprngs, NC on the CSX Monroe Sub. which uses ABS system to track trains. The two crewmen in the train that rear-ended the other were killed, one at the scene and one later in the hospital.The two crewmen in the lead train were injured, but treated and released.

These were not all the incidents, There was the Red Oak Iowa crash that killed the two crewmen on the coal train that hit the BNSF MOW equipment train. There is a very lengthy and on going Thread here on that one.

The Government Mandate to the Rail Industry to have in place a system of Positive Train Control is now looming over the Industry and the discussions are about inter-changability, COST, and is it an effective control.

Hopefully, they can prevent accidents out on the lines, it seems vigilence is the only way to help those who work in the switching, yards and those environments where

2

Today railroads move far more tonnage with far fewer lives lost and injuries than in years past. Trains had the statistics on that not long ago…the number of deaths and injuries in, say, 1911 was absolutely staggering. I don’t recall the numbers; however, I do recall thinking that railroaders back in those days really did gamble with their lives, and a terrible death was a not so unlikely possibility. Is even one death or injury unacceptable? I think so…yet all the technology and regulation in the world won’t put an end to on the job accidents. That said however, it needs to be recognized that the railroads today are doing a magnificent job of safety. They screen their hires rigorously…and as I understand it…flaunting safety on the railroad will get you fired in a heartbeat. Other industries (including the one in which I work) are years away from acheiving anywhere near what the railroads have already accomplished.

3

On my carrier the biggest cause of Transportation Department officials losing their jobs is a consistantly poor safety record for the employees they supervise…SAFETY is serious.

4

Human error will never disappear, yet sorrow lingers, The wild animals live and die with short memories and are blessed with short memories and instinctual fears. We (humans out there) are cursed by some legend of an afterlife that doesn’t exist. But if it gets you through the day, whatever.

Can never happen, but if you look at Google Earth, with churches all over the States, if we taxed them we’d again “Rule the World” (better to get it on a unified course, (this is our planet) and stop lamenting and wishing for the good ole past days.

If you’ve lived a good or not so good life and (mostly) helped those around you’re heaven-bound.

I guess I’m going there via Purgatory, but would prefer that it all stops when in the ground.;

Whoops, Tigerv Stadium in Detroit or Neversink mountain in Reading.

Rix.

5

While not quite on topic, between December 1941 and spring 1944, the US suffered 102,000 war worked fatalities and 350,000 war workers permanently disabled (Popular Science monthly, Sept 1994 page 209 - available on Google books). Industrial safety in the US has improved since then. The first article in the series, appearing in the June 1944 issue, predicted great safety advances from two way radios on trains.

Think it would also be safe to say that RR safety has improved since then - evidenced in part by the unfortunate deaths and severe injuries being considered newsworthy (the deaths and severe injuries are a tragedy for the friends and loved ones no matter how newsworthy they may be).

I don’t think many brakemen are pining for the days of manual brakes and link and pin couplers.

  • Erik
6

Would be interesting to find how many of the present day accidents are due to fatigue! Certainly the rear enders are all fatigue since one train ignores signals. They will testify they saw the signal and blah blah blah to try to save their butts, but they don’t have to tell the truth. The companies and unions are trying to defend this inhumane way of scheduling and won’t admit that the crews are exhausted.

Might as well go back to letting the crews show up drunk. It is a lot safer than showing up exhausted!

7

petitnj said: “…Might as well go back to letting the crews show up drunk. It is a lot safer than showing up exhausted!..”

The problem with sleep deprivation is what is now knows as a micro-nap.

In the following posted link: One might substitute railroad crewman or simply railroader for trucker or truck driver. Tiresome and irregular work schedules in both industries create conditions of non-rested employees doing work un-rested:

http://www.mrtraffic.com/sleep.htm

"LONG-HAUL TRUCKERS

NEED MORE SLEEP"

“…A small study of long-haul truck drivers in the United States and Canada has shown truckers don’t get as much sleep as they need to be alert behind the wheel. Reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, the study showed that in one out of every eight trips, drivers did not get or did not take their full eight-hour breaks between shifts. When they got their breaks, they did not spend the time sleeping and, as a result, got far less rest than they needed…”

{additionally,} FTL:"…Dr. William Dement of Stanford University said the findings reflected his belief that ‘‘pervasive drowsy driving is an established fact in the United States. Numerous polls have found that up to 56 percent of the general public drives while drowsy.’’

8

A good friend passed away recently. He was living in a retirement home. He had been an operator with a light rail system, a sort of paridise for him, after years as a successful transit consultant. He had been fired from his operator job after running a red signal and then barely avoided a head-on crash at the crossover outside the two-track terminal station. He swares he saw a green signal, but the investigation showed the signal was red and operating properly.

I was thinking of this recently when I started to board what I thought was a 68 bus for my morning regular commute in Jerusalem. A woman on the sidewalk who frequently is there when I board each morning yelled: “That is not a 28!” I turned on the step and yelled back. “I know, there is no 28 here anymore, it’s the 68!” Whereupon the (very kind) driver asked: “Where are you going?” “To Mt. Scopus, Hebrew U.” “You’re on the wrong bus, this is a 39.” I turned around and thanked the woman before a “real” 68 came along. (This is all translated, accurately, from the Hebrew.)

People who say they saw a green signal when the signal was red are not necessarily lying. Sun reflecting off glass, all sorts of things can impead human senses.

I do believe any engineer or operator should not operate or drive, ever, after a serious safety violation, but be given every opportunity for employment on other capacity in the organization, with responsibilties commessurate with future performance. And I won’t drive an auto unless someone else alert is beside me on the front seat. At 79, I feel that is a wise decision.

9

Dont know why I should even dignify this with a response, but what the hell does this have to do with anything?

10

[quote user=“petitnj”]

And you know this how? Were you there?

11

The E. H. Harriman Awards for railroad safety were recently awarded (May 18, 2011), and 2010 was the safest year ever - from “Norfolk Southern employees win rail industry’s top safety award” at:

http://www.nscorp.com/nscportal/nscorp/Media/News%20Releases/2011/ns_harriman_award.html

“In 2010, train accidents on U.S. Class I freight railroads were down 3 percent with the rate per-million-train-miles falling 9.6 percent from the previous record established in 2009. The number of employee casualties on U.S. Class I freight railroads fell by 14.2 percent, while the employee casualty rate measured per-hundred full-time equivalent employees declined 16 percent from the previous record set in 2009.”

Notably, NS has now taken the Gold Award 22 times in a row - but can’t get complacent about that, because CSX has been right behind them for the last couple of years.

Although working on/ for a railroad is supposedly safer than in a grocery store, it’s hard to get the actual numbers to compare with other industries, such as OSHA’s incidents or ‘cases’ per 200,000 employee-hours worked (= roughly 100 employees for a year).

None of that diminishes the sadness of each individual death* or serious injury, or negates the several recent tragic accidents, but the trend is consistently in the right direction, and by significant amounts.

Coming back into the industry after being away from it for a period of time, I’ve been impressed by the pro-active and pro-safety culture that is definitely more prevalent now. I suppose that took a generation to change - likely the time needed for the previous cadre to either retire or wise up and come to terms with the new order - but safety has beco

12

I believe all (100%) of the recent wreck fatalities would have been avoided if all railroads ran LHF (like the VGN and N&W used to do for that very “safety first” reason).

13

That’s a pretty broad brush and doesn’t necessarily reflect on the effects of secondary collisions (crew members into bulkheads) and rollovers - both of which would be little affected by running LHF.

On also has to consider that there’s a lot of hardware behind the lead locomotive - some of which will likely impact the now less-protected rear of the locomotive, particularly if the collision resulted in the sudden stop of said locomotive. All you have to do is watch that video involving a train and a tornado to appreciate that.

Crossing incidents, absolutely. Train-train collisions, not so much.

14

Yes; perhaps it was a broad brush, but when I looked at the recent wreck fatalities locomotive front ends, there was little damage past 8-10 feet of the rear of the cab. In those cases, just common sense would dictate that the further that a human is from the initial impact, the better the chance of survival. I’m not saying injuries would be avoided, but death certainly would be less likely. It seems a no-brainer to me, unless the RR companies value the prime mover, generator, etc…over the lives of the humans.

15

Just shows that railroading is still a dangerous profession, even with all the safety rules in place.

My Dad used to work 3rd trick at Frisco’s Lindenwood Yards checking cars and had only a battery lantern, the yard light towers had not been installed yet. He said it was scary at times moving around in near darkness and he would have to keep swinging his lantern to make sure he was seen.

Some co-workers were killed or injured and Mom was glad when he got enough seniority to get a job inside the Yard office.

You just have to be vigilant at all times and my sympathy goes to all the families of these employees.

16

What are your qualifications to make a statement like the above? Physics, engineering…? That is a bold statement. major wrecks, as Larry pointed out, have many factors at play. Many forces fore and aft. And by running LHF, you are now putting 4000 +/- gallons of diesel fuel in front of you. Plus uit adds limited visibility, which may affect restricted speed running.

Which brings us to the real issue. There’s been many wrecks this year where restricted speed has been violated for one reason or another. I would not be shocked to see the feds crack down and further add restrictions to running, well um, restricted. What is going on in these crews’ minds that they are pushing the envelope speed-wise? It’s basic railroading 101: the point of running restricted is not to hit stuff. I don’t get it. nor do I have any idea why guys want to run on the nickel on a slop freight just to get to a stop signal faster (and usually end up getting dinged for speeding, eventually), or guys that have to “hot-dog” it to a stop signal. Training issue? Pride issue? Harassment issue for being too slow? I don’t get it. I really don’t. Someone help me.

17

My 2 cents worth.

Long hood forward on today’s road power is dangerous, visibility is very limited, it is uncomfortable physically for both the engineer and the conductor, especially if the unit has the desk top controls stand.

I prefer the short hood leading because I like my engineer to see clearly what is ahead, and it allows for better signal recognition and better sight lines at grade crossing.

And I agree with Zug…what the heck are these guys thinking…restricted speed, both Norac and GCOR is intended to keep you moving slow enough that you can stop before hitting anything, yet I see guys running right on the limit all the time.

Is the “scheduled railroad” concept pushing them to keep it at the limit, or is it a cultural thing that is just now showing up?

I know we have a new crop of hoggers, but come on…the whole idea is to go home upright, not in a bag.

Like Paul North pointed out, last year was outstanding.

My own railroad won the Harriman Silver for Class 3 roads.

And we print this little message on our switch list folder…

“Asking me to overlook your “simple” safety rule violation is asking me to compromise my entire outlook on the value of your life”.

Trust me, nothing, not a single thing out here is worth any one of us getting hurt or killed.

Like I tell my trainees…“They can weld the cars back together, but they can’t weld anything back on you”…

18

Long hood forward didn’t save the lives of the two crewmen on the IAIS local that had a head-on collision in 1988 with the road train. The road train overlooked a wait order and they collided near Altoona, IA.

Jeff.

19

Run LHF NO!! Anyone who has ever done it can tell you how bad is sucks. Banners can be impossible to see in curves already lets not add to it. Who likes running a desk top control loco in reverse?

What it comes down to is following the rules. Restricted speed means just that, it doesn’t mean to hual ass. As long as we(people) are out here working there will be human factor incidents. It’s been that way since the dawn of railroading.

20

The limited amount of information I have been able to get about the BNSF & CSX rear end collisions would tend to indicate that the crews on both following trains lost contact with wakefulness.

Those who have never ridden a locomotive as it moves at 10 to 20 MPH along the right of way, mile after mile, cannot comprehend the ease with which one can be lulled to being less than fully wakeful. The rocking and drone of the engines moving at less than full chat make a sleeping environment better than a mother singing a lullaby and rocking her baby to sleep in a cradle. Crewmen have to seriously WORK at not being lulled out of alertness under such circumstance.

I cannot speak to the actions of officials efficiency testing on other carriers or on other divisions of my carrier…but generally 3 nights a week, somewhere on my territory officials are out testing crews on restricted speed compliance. Railroading is a unforgiving business with its operating rules having been written in the blood of those who caused their creation.