Toledo rail workers on edge after New York death

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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The December death of a CSX railroad yard worker in upstate New York has reinforced local workers’ fears that similar incidents could occur in Toledo railyards where CSX assigns remote-controlled switching locomotives.

At Stanley Yard in Lake Township, CSX is on “a real drive for productivity” that results in pressure on workers to take safety shortcuts, according to several employees who spoke to The Blade recently on condition their names not be used for fear of disciplinary action. They’re especially concerned about the effect on a “point protection” rule under which workers are supposed to watch the leading end of any train movement operated by remote control. The combination of so-called “blind shoves” and freight cars accidentally being switched onto the wrong tracks is a recipe for danger, the workers said. When tracks thought to be empty have cars on them, they said cars can be pushed out the other end of the yard and into the paths of other trains.

“We had a propane car that went missing in the middle of the yard for three weeks,” one worker recalled. In the Dec. 14 incident at CSX’s DeWitt Yard in Manlius, N.Y., near Syracuse, the unattended leading end of a string of freight cars being shoved through the freight yard struck a car inspector’s pickup truck on a crossing. The pickup was shoved 444 feet before it was flipped onto its roof, then shoved about 490 feet farther before the train stopped. Inspector Ronald Foster, 54, a 30-year railroad employee, was killed.

According to a Federal Railroad Administration safety advisory issued Jan. 18, the crewman operating the train by remote control observed the track to be clear at the start of the movement, but he did not keep watching the moving cars’ leading end while he was driven to another spot in the yard by a co-worker. Riding in a vehicle placed the remote-control operator in violation of a CSX company rule prohibiting workers from riding a vehicle or any other equipme

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The CSX workers should also notify the FRA. Those people will enforce the remote-control rules that are in place for safe operation. Trust me on this one.

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been up to the area in question.people are in such a hurry at walbridge and stanley yards.wood county sherrifs have done extensive operation lifesaver operations to catch people running the signs.they have had a lot of derailments in stanley caused by remote switching.you cant see a broken track while shoving the rows of cars they want you to shove in the yard.

stay safe

joe

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Just wondering:

How is it the remote equipment’s fault that they “lost” a propane tanker in the yard for three weeks? Does this quote relate to the subject of the story?

It sounds like most of the accidents are due to human error and safety rules being broken by employees.

Why don’t they put a camera on the front of remote locos so the operator could see the track ahead?

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Where is the screen going to be so he can watch the TV while he’s also pulling out a track looking for a cut number for the cars he is about to switch?

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It now appears that their fears are justified. This showed up on the UTU website this morning.

[i]Propane tank car struck in CSX’s Toledo yard
A train of cars being pushed by a remotely controlled locomotive ran through the end of its track and struck an empty propane tank car in a second train at CSX’s Stanley Yard in Lake Township, Ohio, early yesterday (Feb. 5), according to the Toledo Blade.

No one was hurt and no hazardous materials were released, but the accident occurred about 2:10 a.m. on a day when The Blade published a story describing railroad workers’ complaints about remote-control safety at CSX’s Toledo-area railyards.



Gary Sease, a CSX Transportation Corp. spokesman, said two empty tank cars were struck in a “slight collision” at the yard and that neither derailed.



Rod Bloedow, local chairman for Division 937 of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said the train that was struck had an engineer on board. The moving train was controlled remotely by a crewman standing on a nearby hill - or hump - over which freight cars are switched into trains using gravity for sorting.



A second employee was closer to where the collision occurred and realized the remotely controlled train was going too fast, Mr. Bloedow said. But the employee was not able to alert the remote-control operator in time to prevent the crash.



That employee, known as a “utility man,” did not have a control box for the remote control.



Mr. Sease said the brief report he had received about the accident did not provide that level of detail. But as he had said in an interview for the story published yesterday, Mr. Sease said CSX has specific rules requiring train movements to have “point protection” - someone watching the leading end of any move.



The CSX spokesman also reiterated that, when used in accordance with company rules, "remote co
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Well, it looks like they found that lost car…

LC

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It does sound like the employees are breaking one or more rules when they have these accidents.

Even if there had been an engineer in the locomotive, they still would have put some of those cars on the ground. Maybe not 15, but it still would have been classified as a derailment in the yard.

What exactly would the fire department have done besides bill CSX for a response call?

So there would be less pressure to perform the same amount of work if there was an engineer in the locomotive?

Sounds like the story should be “front line supervisors encourage dangerous practices and rule breaking by underlings who imperil their own jobs following the unwritten directives” rather than pinning anything on remote units.

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Stanley Yard has had a ‘Us vs Them’ mentality for years. That mentality was not helped when CSX shut down Stanley several years ago and then was forced to reopen it because of the congestion that the resulting operating plan caused. It will take strong people from both the management and labor sides of the equation to solve the Stanley problems.

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Gonna jump in here and explain something.

Had they been working with a full 3 man crew, engineer, foreman and switchman, the foreman would have been at the locomotive end of the shove, to cut the locomotive away, and the switchman would have either been at the other end of the track watching the shove, or riding point(the end) of the cut.

One or the other of you has to have visual contact and control of both the movement and the point at all times, period.

You don’t shove blind.

That’s the rules.

I know, because I work under them every day.

My engineer will hear me say “I need 40 more to get in the clear” and the very next thing he hears is" You have room for 50 more back here, Port Job 152" from my helper, because my helper is either riding the point, or at the other end of the track watching.

No exceptions.

If there is no cab in the yard to bring him back up to “our” end, I drag him out on the next switch cut.

If I am working a one man job, my engineer will tell me when we are in the clear, because I will be riding the point…he is my second set of eyes at that end.

“Even if there had been an engineer in the locomotive, they still would have put some of those cars on the ground. Maybe not 15, but it still would have been classified as a derailment in the yard.”

Odds are, if there had been a engineer, and a switchman riding point, I would bet the switchman wouldn’t have run out the other end into a train, ya think?

But, because they (CSX) are using one man crews and remotes, the guy running the locomotive stays near where he will need to cut the locomotive away, and shoves the track blind, counting cars and hoping there is no broken rail or that a job at the other end isn’t shoving the same track.

To assume that he could keep an eye on the end of the movement from there also assumes there are no cars on the adja