SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — David Fry manned the controls of a CSX switch engine, sending a tanker car coasting down a track at the South Charleston assembly yard, the Charleston Gazette reported.
The maneuver, known as car-kicking, has to be done with a precise touch. The locomotive has to push the tanker car fast enough to coast several hundred feet to the assembly area, but slow enough not to damage the cars it is being connected to.
Car-kicking is performed hundreds of times a day at the South Charleston yard, one of the busiest in the state. But Fry and Pleaze Workman, the other half of his two-man crew, are learning to do it a whole new way — by remote control.
After a week of classroom training, Fry and Workman are getting hands-on operating experience in the South Charleston yard, under the supervision of trainer Sam Shadd. They will receive a total of 80 hours of instruction before they are certified as remote control operators.
Within a few months, all switching activity at the South Charleston yard will be done via remote control.
“We’ll be using remote control in 60 yards by the end of the year,” said CSX Transportation spokesman Bob Sullivan.
Sullivan said remote control technology has been in use by other railroads, most notably the Canadian National Railroad, for more than a decade and has substantially reduced switchyard accident rates.
“It’s a great tool for work in the yards,” he said. “It reduces the potential for miscommunications between the people doing the work.”
Since the two-person, remote-control-armed yard crew members can move about the tracks, “their field of vision is better than that of an engineer sitting in the cab of a locomotive, with its blind spots,” Sullivan said.
Fry and Workman wear 3.4-pound remote control units strapped to their chests, which send radio signals to a computer in the cab of the switch engine locomotive. The onboard computer operates the locomotive, based on signals received from the team on the ground.
If radio contact between the onboard computer and the chest-mounted control unit should be lost, a fail-safe device automatically stops the train. If the operator falls down, causing the remote control unit to tilt more than 45 degrees for more than one second, the locomotive automatically stops.
One radio control operator can “pitch” control of the locomotive to another, so that a train being assembled can be controlled by an operator at either end. Only one operator has control of the locomotive at any one time, but at all times, either operator can stop the train.
According to CSX, the remote control technology is being used to handle more than half of all yard activity on the Canadian National Railroad. The rate of yard accidents has consistently been lower for remote control operations than for conventional operations, and no accidents have been attributed to the remote technology itself.
“By not having conductors radioing directions to engineers in the locomotive cabs, it saves time,” said Sullivan.
Sullivan said the move to remote control technology in switchyards and terminals could force a few locomotive engineers to accept other assignments, but otherwise have no effect on the employment picture.
The introduction of remote control technology coincides with new legislation allowing engineers to retire at age 60 with full benefits, a move expected to accelerate the retirement rate.
CSX Transportation plans to hire 1,100 new trainmen and train almost 400 new engineers in 2002.
Most major rail lines have begun using remote control technology at their switchyards and terminals. The South Charleston yard is CSX’s first use of the technology in West Virginia.
Sullivan said there are currently no plans to use remote control technology on trains operating on main roads.
John Bentley, a spokesman at the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers’ national office in Cleveland, said his union opposes use of the remote system mainly because it makes use of rail workers who are not engineers — usually switchmen, brakemen and yard foremen.
Engineers whose jobs are eliminated must accept posts such as conductors or brakemen in order to remain employed, he said.
“It’s also a safety issue,” he said. “The remote control operators have 80 hours of training. Engineers have 8 months. I suspect the people in South Charleston may not feel comfortable with a person with 80 hours of training running a train carrying hydrochloric acid or other hazardous materials.”
He said the reduced rate of accidents that followed the Canadian National Railroad’s adoption of remote technology had a lot to do with the fact that fewer people were involved in switchyard operations. “Of course you’ll have fewer injuries with fewer people,” he said.
Sullivan said improved safety was the main reason CSX was making the switch to remote control technology.
While CSX has not had time to develop a meaningful track record on the use of remote technology, since it has only been in limited use for a few months, yard accidents have declined 70 percent on the Canadian Pacific Railroad since remote operators began working their switchyards in 1994, he said.