Has anyone heard about the UP’s remote control collision last week in North Platte? I saw pictures of it from a friend, but haven’t seen any info on how it happened. Hoping someone here heard something. Seems their keeping it hush hush…
If it is minor, I doubt that you will hear anything. I have seen several minor derailments and several cars sitting on the RIP track that had damage to the corners that I have never heard anything about. I think the most common type of derailment I have seen is a train entering or leaving the yard that derailed, I have heard nothing on any of these.
It was “minor” only in the sense that the car behind the engine that was torn in half was an empty autorack, and not a tank car of chlorine or LP gas. I’ve seen numerous other “minor” accidents just like this…It’s only a matter of time. In the meantime…hush hush, keep it down down, voices carry!!
Every minor or moderate accident could have been worse had something been different. It looks like you are under the impression that UP is dealing with this accident in a different manner than they normally deal with accidents. If this is the case, what gives you that impression?
I have seen a few derailments of a similar nature in other yards in the past which included having an engineer in the cab since they predated the use of remotes. As has been pointed out above, I don’t think that UP is handling this particular occurence any differently. Beyond an internal investigation by management and labor and a report to the NTSB, how else should it be handled?
Just about every accident I’ve seen in which an RCO was involved (and we’ve had them for many, many years now) would have had a similar outcome with an engineer in the crew. The cause, if it’s a human failure, is usually a rule violation that the process cannot be blamed for. We have also found out that you don’t make a good RCO out of a klutzy switchman.
Failures have happened, and could have led to disastrous results under the proper circumstances. Most of our crews are capable of thinking their way out of rough situations, however.
As for always being out walking, I believe we used to have a rule prohibiting RCO access to the cab. That was rescinded in short order. An RCO still has to be right at the joint when he’s making a coupling, but for other purposes, anywhere on the leading unit (or within an engine-length of the leading end) is adequate for point protection.
The implication here is that UP has invested a lot of money into remotes, under the claim they are safer than conventional switching, and the carriers have pushed that fact religiously to the FRA and the media. I agree, most RCO accidents are “human factor” incidents not the fault of the technology…but if you have the same type/number if incidents with remotes vs. conventional switching (because of “human error”), than are they really safer?? Downplaying remote accidents saves them from facing the fact they MIGHT have been wrong with their whole “safe” premise, hmmm? The UP has been accused of not reporting accidents as remote accidents to the NTSB in the past, so it’s happened before. Food for thought…
Sorry, Razzy, we’ve not put much stock in the “safer” line out here. “As safe” is more like what we’ve heard. I’m not qalified to operate them myself, but haven’t heard too many negative comments from those who are. Used to be a lot of notices about changes and “fixes”, but I guess enough has been changed and fixed so we don’t see those as much now. True, an extra set of eyes would be good (the engineer’s), but beyond that, you’ll find some sort of rule violation at the base of those sideswipe accidents or nearly (I’m being safe here) every other incident.
Maybe my operation is just one of those where it works really well. In my job, I appreciate the RCOs because the humping speed is far more consistent than it ever was with engineers (at least since the older guys left). But others have had more experience with operations that would be more normal than ours, so I shall say no more on this subject.