“Driving While Tired: Safety officials are slow to react to operator fatigue”## “NTSB recommendations ignored or abandoned, while hundreds die in accidents, investigation finds”## Ok the fast readers here will be already saying , 'Another irrelevant post!" move on.
It was towards the bottom of the article that this paragraph caught my eye:
"…On rails
For the nation’s railways, 25 of 39 fatigue-related recommendations have been implemented. But even when action is taken it often comes too late.
A 1991 recommendation to equip train locomotives with devices to alert conductors to dangers might have helped prevent a fatal accident six years later…"
The article goes on to make it’s point by listing a UP accident in Delia, Kansas in which the engineer ran several signals and radioed verbal calls and an through the sidings swith at about 70 mph and hit the side of another train.
FTA:"…Former NTSB managing director Peter Goelz said that under rails’ seniority system, veteran engineers get
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, that recommendation and device was not Positive Train Control - instead, it was (from the linked article; emphasis added - PDN) -
“[The NTSB investigators] suggested a mechanical system that could sense an engineer’s lack of movement and rouse him in enough time to avert a crash. No such system has been implemented.”
PTC is addressed in a ‘sidebar’ near the end of the article that mentions “automated train control technology” that supposedly could have prevented 780 accidents as "Another problem on the rails
Sleep deprivation isn’t a problem only in the transportation business. Anybody who has worked on a swing shift or even a straight 11PM-7AM shift knows that your body seems perpetually out of sync. I remember working a night shift on a factory job for the summer during my college years and there were more than a few of the full-time workers with missing fingers.
I worked rotating shifts for 26 years before I hired on with a railroad. When I was furloughed I took a temporary job working landscaping. Thought I’d died and went to heaven with regular hours in the daytime. I missed riding the rails and the money but I sure felt a lot better- lost 25 lbs and blood pressure and blood sugar normalized.
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, that recommendation and device was not Positive Train Control - instead, it was (from the linked article; emphasis added - PDN) -
“[The NTSB investigators] suggested a mechanical system that could sense an engineer’s lack of movement and rouse him in enough time to avert a crash. No such system has been implemented.”
PTC is addressed in a ‘sidebar’ near the end of the article that mentions “automated train control technology” that supposedly could have prevented 780 accidents as "A
The implementation of PTC from the California incident where operator fatigue was not a factor in the incident…only pure inattention or dereliction of the duties required of a Engineer.
Yes but those locomotive cabs are soooo comfortable. Nice and warm in the winter when the heater is working. The newer locomotives are somewhat quiet just a gentle throbbing of the prime mover. Newer locomotives ride better than they used to, they rock back and forth like a boat on calm water. The newer seats are better than my recliner at home, the desk top control stands are a great footrest and the alerter is such a comforting familiar sound…
The bottom line is that people who work in offices are clueless and are out of touch with reality. I have little regard for opinions backed with little or no practical experience.
Throw in trying to sleep in the day time because you know you’re going out at night, even though you’re not tired. Add a couple of calls (usually recorded) from political parties/candidates/charities/etc looking for your support that come just after you’ve fallen asleep. Maintaining alertness can sometimes be a real challenge.
To quote sam: “Scheduled Meets?- Where at some half-way point two trains meet, and swap crews for return to their home terminals?.”
This can work if the trains involved are always or almost always on time–or, if you have so many trains on the line that late trains are not a problem. In February, 1971, I rode the City of Miami from St. Pete to Birmingham. We were pretty much on time, but we did not meet the wb South Wind where the meeting usually took place, because the train was rather late getting into Jacksonville. The two trains met in the Jax yard; the crews out of St. Pete went back home, and the Jax crews went back to the station–a very long day (they may have needed a dogcatcher) for the crews out of St. Pete; a very short day (yet full pay) for the Jax crews.
Does the FEC still swap crews where two trians meet?
At the risk of having the thread descend into locked-mode, I will add a few comments. There are several methods that would probably improve the problem, such as “Where at some half-way point two trains meet, and swap crews for return to their home terminals.” Unfortunately they often run into two very different agendas.
The railroads need enough flexibility in the crew base to keep trains moving. If all trains always ran to a fixed schedule the crews could also be scheduled to provide regular and predictable working hours. In the real world, grade crossing accidents or broken knuckles 1,000 miles away interrupt the flow, shippers insist on shipping in seasonal surges, and so on. It might be possible to provide more regular hours while everything is running smoothly, reverting to the present method when necessary, but this runs head-on to the other agenda, below.
I seem to recall reading in Trains Magazine quite a few years back about a localized attempt on UP (I think) to improve the life of the crews. Work rules in the contract had to be changed and the railroad and the union negotiators had developed a tentative agreement. When presented to the union membership it was voted down because enough were worried that the change might occasionally result in a slight reduction in the runs they could do in a month, and thus a fairly minor reduction in pay. Dollars trumped quality of life.
At the risk of having the thread descend into locked-mode, I will add a few comments. There are several methods that would probably improve the problem, such as “Where at some half-way point two trains meet, and swap crews for return to their home terminals.” Unfortunately they often run into two very different agendas.
The railroads need enough flexibility in the crew base to keep trains moving. If all trains always ran to a fixed schedule the crews could also be scheduled to provide regular and predictable working hours. In the real world, grade crossing accidents or broken knuckles 1,000 miles away interrupt the flow, shippers insist on shipping in seasonal surges, and so on. It might be possible to provide more regular hours while everything is running smoothly, reverting to the present method when necessary, but this runs head-on to the other agenda, below.
I seem to recall reading in Trains Magazine quite a few years back about a localized attempt on UP (I think) to improve the life of the crews. Work rules in the contract had to be changed and the railroad and the union negotiators had developed a tentative agreement. When presented to the union membership it was voted down because enough were worried that the change might occasionally result in a slight reduction in the runs they could do in a month, and thus a fairly minor reduction in pay. Dollars trumped quality of life.
Or if all crews in a district were assigned on a “next train out” basis, and the trains were spaced fairly evenly throughout the day. For example, if there are 20 trains per day in a certain direction, the average is 1.2 hrs. between them. Now we all should know they’re never that regular or predictable - some might run on 10-minute intervals, and there might be gaps of as much as 4 to 6 hours between some others, esp. if my colleagues are out on the MOW. [swg] But at least going to work regularly sometime in the afternoon - or for another crew, between midnight and 6 AM - would be better for both, than each alternating between those time frames.
I believe the Trains article mentioned above was the first time I saw the higher earnings of train crews - as compared to other industrial workers with more regular hours and indoor working conditions, etc. - referred to as 'misery pay", kind of analogous to “combat pay”.
I’m going from memory of what I was told. Our terminal wasn’t part of the proposed experiment.
What I was told was that crews were to have call “windows” of when they were to go on duty. I don’t know if I was told how big the window was, but let’s just say 6 hours. If you didn’t get called for a train before the time was up, you were deadheaded to the away from home terminal.
At the other end you also had the same window with the same provisions to go home. I think they may also have been a provision for a day off between trips. (Day 1 out, Day 2 back, Day 3 off, Day 4 out, Day 5 back etc)
This would have been for the road pool crews. I don’t know if extra board crews were included. When call windows were being discussed as one of the possibilities for fatigue management, it was said extra board crews who didn’t get called during their window would just go inactive until their next window opened. If they were included, I would guess they would’ve been handled the same way.
Although it was reported the crew unions voted it down, I wouldn’t be surprised if the railroad didn’t cry much over it. I also wouldn’t be surprised to hear if the carrier didn’t propose changes to various guarantees to insure it would be voted down. This way they would avoid increased costs and be able to blame the mean old agreement employees. Operating this way would increase the number of employees needed to protect trains. Deadheading costs would’ve gone up.
We had rest days on the extra board for a while some years back. We worked IIRC, 11 days on 3 days off. At the time we had undisturbed rest; if you worked 8 hrs or less you had 8 undisturbed. Over 8 hrs you could, not required, book 10 hrs undisturbed. You also had the option of requesting “emergency work” on your rest days. Our guarantee wasn
Not disagreeing with any of it - but I’ll point out the following aspects of it, in no particular order:
Was the ‘dead-heading’ paid or unpaid ?
The human body’s natural ‘circadian rhythyms’ run in a 25 - yes, that’s 25, not 24 - hour cycle, per some studies with people isolated in a cave without clocks, etc. A lot of this has been studied with shift workers, esp. police with shift or ‘watch’ changes every couple of weeks, where errors in judgment can also have ‘life-or-death’ consequences.
It’s pretty tough for any combination of 8 or 10 hours to work out to being on-duty at about the same time every 24 or 25 hours - thus, the employee is likely to be out-of-sync wi
Paul, and anyone else who read my one post. I wasn’t comfortable with my numbers on the rest cycle. For some reason 11 stuck out and I think it was one of the possible plans discussed at the time. Our actual rest/off cycle was 7 days on, 3 off. I had a copy of the original rest agreement. I don’t think it was for the whole railroad, but maybe just the former CNW lines. I couldn’t find it, but did find one of my old time books where I had listed when I worked and when I was off. I apologize for the earlier error.
One difference between that agreement we had and the current HOS law, is that now it does affect our guarantee. For pay purposes Federal Required rest is counted as if we called in and layed off on our own. Not only do you lose the time for days actually off, you could end up losing the entire guarantee for the pay period. We have a 48 hour unavailable clause. If you’re unavailable, except for a compencated day (Personnel Leave, Vacation, etc) over 48 hours you lose the guarantee for the entire pay period or “half.”
One would think that if you work enough to get 48 or 72 hours of Federal rest that you are working enough that guarantee doesn’t matter. Sometimes though you can work a lot one week, and hardly work the next. The first time I had FR, it was such that I had the last 3 days (72 hours) of the pay period off. That half I made over guarantee, even with 3 days off. The next half things slowed enough that I collected a few hundred dollars of guarantee. Had my required days off been the first 3 days of the new half that time, I would’ve ended up bringing home only about 2/3rd of what I normally would. Some people use PL or single days of vacation, or even uncompensated days if they are in danger of getting 2 or 3 days of required rest, to protect their income incase things slow down. I’ve heard other companies are just paying t
In the 1990’s there was quite a bit of interest i the effects of sleep deprivation on employee’s in the area of Motor Transportation. A number od studies were done under th auspices of the Federal DOT. They found that sleep deprivation was a big contributor to accidents, for any number of reasons, inattentiveness, falling asleep behind the wheel, operating without a break for the full on duty period, and so on.
Over the last ten years more attention has been paid to those findings, they have lead to major changes in the way a CDL Driver Logs his hours and his other logable labor hours. They dis covered the phenomenon of a ‘micro nap’ (or later referred to as a microsleep episode). It is basicly the brains response to a condition of excess stress and lack of rest. Info on Microsleep linked here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsleep
Recently is has become an issue with CDK drivers at their biannual physical, a recomendation for some to have a ‘sleep study’ done as a part of the DOT Recertification Physical; (at the Drivers expense- read expensive). Not for everyone, apparently, (but as recomended by the examining physician) the expectation is that some people will have undiagnosed sleep apnea, may come out with a mandate for the individual to utilize a CPAP machine (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) as a condition to continue to be able to drive with DOT Physical Certification, or it may be has a surgical proceedure is the recomendation for a particular individual.
It only stand to reason that as the DOT examines the effects of poor sleep on job preformance in the truucking industry, it will eventually make potentially similar recomendations to the Rauilroad Industry as well.