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Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Yard sideswipe incident damages CSX executive train
Im happy CSX appreciates what a great locomotive an F40PH is and is willing to repair them and not deem them for scrap unlike their previous owner who sidelined them with every little scratch in latter years. The F40s could have been to Amtrak what the SD40-2 is to NS.
We had a technical term for this in my previous life: D’OH!
Don’t these systems have some sort of deadman fail-safe provision whereby if communication between the controller and the engine is lost for n seconds, everything stops? No RC system should allow the controlled device to operate when out of range of its controller.
I agree with the two earlier comments. I’ll bet the union is having a good laugh right now.
Which would best apply here…S.N.A.F.U. or F.U.B.A.R.?
1 man crew equals MM&A runaway. No man crew equals this! There are valuable lessons here both big and small!
George, not really. Railroad management people feel that the problem is people, not the equipment or a bad rule. So as long as they can fire someone, they think the problem has been fixed. (and the union guy will get fired over this) The bean counters (who are not railroaders) do not understand productivity. Their only concern is income and expense. RCO does reduce cost, but switching car counts drop per crew shift. When they get really behind, they call an extra crew or put an engineer on the job.
Remote Control Locomotives are the future. You guys stuck in the past can just get ready for it. One day we may even have completely automated trains.
Remote-control - enough said !!!
RCO’s Strike Again.
This is nothing new. Remote Control has caused more damage to track and equipment than you would realize. The thing is that it is mostly covered up because dang it they are going to make this work! It saves from paying a real qualified Locomotive Engineer to run the thing! Instead they are mostly run by conductors with less than 5 years of experience. What a way to run a railroad!
Union-inspired sabotage! Damn! The controllers should know better than try to work the remote and chew gum at the same time!
The NTSB should investigate this incident. The possibility for a runaway and a far worse accident exists.
Mr. Cupp, Amtrak racks up the miles on its locomotives much faster than freight railroads do. F40s built in the early 1980s probably have 2-3 times the mileage on them as SD40-2s built 10 years earlier. BTW, have you noticed that half of the class 1 freight RRs have demoted their SD40-2s to yard service or retired them completely?
Mr. Freadhoff: Please excuse Mr. Hays for his enlightened comments. After all, he’s from Montana, where a judge sentenced a teacher/rapist to 31 days in jail for raping a 14 year old girl (who committed suicide after the abuse).
They will get it eventually. Until then, at least Montana has Montana Rail Link!!!
Oops
@James E. Shaw, as I see it, neither. TARFU, (Things Are Really Fouled Up) would apply in this case. Where were some fail-safe apparati such as an automatic halt once the loco was out of its control range as well as collision avoidance hard and software?
Mr Hays, once again, you have managed in one sentence, to insult every railway employee in the US and Canada. A little advice: stick to tending your sheep.
Single operator remote control locomotives are used ALL OVER Europe in freight yards sometimes with 2 person crew and sometimes only one. European safety standards (thing Swiss) are generally as strict as N American and pretty well adhered to with strong unions. My understanding of wireless remote locomotive controls is that there is a “panic” button that stops everything and if 2 way communication is lost the system is designed to stop. Yes most mechanical systems can fail but…(keep in mind that the entire Airbus A320 aircraft fleet (A318,319,329) is flown strictly by wired remote control (agreed that it is NOT wireless) as in there is no mechanical connection from the pilots controls to the engines or and flight surfaces.