With the rash of accidents involving remotely controlled locomotves, it seems to me that the railroads are making a big mistake in using this technology as a means of job reductions, and the increased productivity the remote diesels would bring. The UTU and BLE have been sold a bill of goods that borders on a dangerous game of Russian Roulette being played with people’s lives. It seems to me that the real reason behind ramming this technology down worker’s throats is corporate greed, pure and simple. Executive Management seems to believe that the average train crew workers are expendable, when they are not. I know a few locomotive engineers and from what they tell me, the remote control operation is not as safe as its promoters claim it is. Look at all the accidents involving remote controlled locomotives on CSX , Union Pacific, and o ther railroads using them. I think it is time to raise a red flag and get rid of the remote controlled locos. The sooner the better.
Where’s your proof? Cite your sources. Show me the raw data.
Iron, the file is to big to post here. If you are willing to give me a way to send it to you I will. The source is the BNSF. It is a compiled file of the RCO incidents from March 2002 to June 16, 2003.
Didn’t an UP Engineer run herself over (fatally) just this week ?
There is no increase in productivity only loss. when a 3 man crew gets a hold of 50-100 cars and starts switching them out they are done in no time the remotes operators ( on this road i work for) are only allowed to handle 10 cars at a time. the loss of time going back and forth for more cars is loss enough. the derailments and side swipes are common. Now someone wants prof on paper sorry it cant be done. every time some one derails them or side swipes them nothing happens it is burried the carrier wants to keep these things so they dont report them. Now death on the other hand is something they cant hide and must be reported. and with this i wait like you. to read documented proof that it happened.
Well, also…
Let’s just say they do get these remote locomotives up and running, how the hell would the locomotive know if it ran someone over if they were being an idiot and walking on the tracks?
It could be jsut me not knowing what a remote control locomotive is all about… I kind of get a vision with a guy with a remote, kind of like those TYCO RC cars…
How would the locomotive itself know when it runs someone over?
What happens if the remote fails, breaks, dies… Does that mean runnaway loco?
Or does the locomotive stop moving when it stops recieveing commands… And just lies dead where it was… that could jam crossings for hours.
Kev
the remote will stop in its tracks when it loses signal with its operator. if the engine dies it sets its brakes also. but as you stated it dont know when it has run through a switch or hit someone. and yes it will block crossings for hours.
Also the remotes are regular engines with the remote device on it. It can be set up in seconds to be run like a regular engine with a lic engineer.
Hey, pfrench68:
I am curious how many incidents were listed between the dates you mentioned. What was the typical happening? Thanks.
This is the header of the 30 page compilation of RCO incidents. The incidents range from cornering equipment, run through switches (power and Hand), rough joints causing a derailment, shoves hitting occupied power or cars, running signals, kicking cars into other jobs, breaking knuckles. You name it it has been done.
The number of RCO the BNSF jobs was running is important to understand. The RCOs were started at the very end on February 2002. by June 10, 2002 there were 27 jobs. By the end of 2002 128 jobs. They haven’t updated the number of RCO jobs in 2003. If they continued to put them on at the same rate as they were in the last six months of 2002 there would have been about 228 jobs by the middle of June 2003. That would put the average number of jobs for the whole period covered in this report somewhere between 75 and 114 per day.
The full 30 page report gives details of some of the accidents.
BNSF INCIDENTS INVOLVING
REMOTE CONTROL LOCOMOTIVES
Updated- June 16, 2003
Summary of Cause Factors
Incidents- 181
Human Factor- 117- 64%
Miscellaneous - 28- 16%
Track- 23- 13%
Equipment- 7- 4%
Signal- 6- 3%
How many of the incident were from operator error?
Up here in Canada we have carman using remotes to switch B/O’S from
the shop over to a yard track for the last 15 years and we have not had one
operator error.I have operated one for many year and I feel very safe with it.
You know your the one in control.
I can tell you this when you tallk to a conductor most will tell you that they would rather have a exsperanced engineer at the controls while holding onto and switching out 3-4k tons when you say stop the engineer stops on a remote it will be many cars later it will stop. as ed if he is switching and has 75 cars does he want air on them cars and switch back and forth or a engineer who can kick them and stop on a dime.
pfrench68, you gave me enough proof, but bigedd has a point. RC locos aren’t suited for mainline action, but are a better option for places like steel mills,or small industries,where there could be harm done to people
I read about a nice accident in Canada. It happened in a hump yard. The RCO shoving the hill derailed some cars. He kept trying to get them restarted and succeeded in piling them on the track that went back to the second hump-lead. Along comes the other RCL hump job and runs into the pile of cars laying on their side in front of it. Guess who the ones in control were?
To be totally fair, we should also gather statistics concerning the number of accidents involved when a licensed engineer is in the cab.
To be fair we should count all of the RCO accidents that were covered up. I know what the BNSF procedure is after an accident. I know a 20 car pileup happened in the yard that fouled the main and was estimated by the company to cost about $300,000. That was a low figure because instead of the two cars that were estimated to be scrapped, all of the cars involved were scrapped. The RCO crew was sent home at the end of the shift without being interviewed about the accident and without taking a post-accident drug test, this is not normal BNSF post accident procedure…
Even with the uncounted accidents, the yard accidents as a percentage of all railroad accidents has been on the increase since 2001.
In 2001 there were no RCOs on the class one railroads. Starting in 2002 RCOs were phased over the course of the year to have 128 RCO jobs on the BNSF by the end of December 2002. The RCO jobs has continued to increase through 2003. I would have to believe that this would be representative of the other class one railroads.
This is a letter to Mr. Rutter of the FRA from RRESQ. The statistics quoted from the letter are from the FRA web site and derived from the accident reports the carriers DO send to the FRA.
Dear Mr. Rutter:
The arrogance of both the FRA and the Union Pacific Railroad to ignore the public outcry for stiffer regulation on remote controlled locomotives and the death of a young man on December 12 who was forced to work an RCO job exhausted and alone…will not go unchecked. Both UP and the FRA continue to spout statistics about a 40% reduction in Yard accidents with the implementation of Remote Controlled Locomotives. However the FRA website seems to contradict those statements and reports a different set of statistics.
2001 - Number of Yard Accidents: 501 - 55.92% of all train accidents.
2002 - Number of Yard Accidents: 468 - 56.80% of all train accidents
2003 (available only through Septembe
If you check your information, you’ll see that 64% were “human error”. I will accept that the 4% “equipment” might include the RCO equipment. I do not have documentation, but a gut feeling tells me that well over 50% of accidents with engineers involed are also attributible to “human error”. Show me where the equipment caused the accident.
Trainphil
You also have to remember the carriers decide the cause of the accident and they are not unbiased.
Just because the equipment didn’t fail doesn’t mean that it wasn’t caused by the procedures necessary to run the RCO. For example, if there is a signal loss the RCL sets all of the brakes including the train brakes. In some cases that is not the proper thing to do. If someone is shoving 100 cars with air in the head 15 or 20, that last thing you want to do is dump the air. It would be like riding on the end of a bull whip. Many of the accidents happen because there is no one watching the end of a movement when they hit something, quite often they hit with the locomotive. Neither of these examples were equipment failure. But the were caused by the different manner in which the job is preformed because it is an RCO.
Since I have been working on the railroad two switchman and one roadmaster have died in my terminal. The roadmaster was hit by a car rolling off the hump while he was on a track the yardmaster did not block. Both switchman were killed in the bowl on hot tracks by cars set in motion by the hump. They weren’t paying close enough attention to their surroundings. Operating the box distracts from the attention paid to the surroundings.
The whole mechanical failure statistic is a red herring meant to take away the focus from the real dangers of the RCO. They want to say the RCO is save because the equipment did not fail, nothing is further from the truth.
Is this about safety or is this about BLE jobs? Be honest with yourself.
It is about honestly. The RCO issue has never been approached by the carriers in an honest manner.
While were at it, what is your motivation?
I’m not the biggest fan of RC locos but to a point I can see their potential benefits. My only concern would be whether the gains outweigh the losses, specifically the loss of human life. In that respect, I will always be skeptical because while the loss of a machine may cost a large amount of money, the loss of a life can not be measured by ANY amount of money.
To respond to nkp587’s statement, “human error” is the cause of a lot of things. It is the cause of automobile accidents, shootings, airplane crashes, wars, etc. because more often than not the error is an error in judgement. If someone was killed in a car accident by a drunken driver, wouldn’t that be “human error” on the part of the drunken driver for getting behind the wheel in the first place. Following that logic, one could argue that it is “human error” that the locomotive isn’t advanced enough to detect the presence of a human being in the way and that someone despite knowing this let it operate. I understand your point but “human error” is going to happen no matter what so long as there are humans to make mistakes. Even if the whole system were to be automated and completely fenced off, there would still be the chance that a program writer missed a bug in the system. What would you suggest to combat the element of human error?
Anyway, I digress. My point is this: Accidents do happen, but by operating RC locos are railroads encouraging more accidents or preventing them? I’m not sure there is a clear cut answer, it probably varies from railroad to railroad. But in my opinion if having a crew on board would make the difference in saving one life, that would be enough for me, costs be damned. If the long term shows RC locos have a better record preserving human life then let them run, but personally I know I’d feel safer knowing I had someone else watching my back. Maybe its a Utopian vision, but I can dream.