(The following story by Bev Chapman appeared on the KMBC website on April 24. Visit the KMBC website for a video of this story.)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — They haul tons of cargo right through the middle of town, and some of it is hazardous. But some of the people driving those trains said they are literally asleep at the switch.
KMBC’s Bev Chapman reported that the people who straddle the tracks are on call seven days a week. They work 10- to 12-hour days, and often don’t know exactly when their next shift will begin.
A camera mounted in a train cab captured a collision between a train and stopped train on a sidetrack in California in 2005.
“It’s just a matter of time before it happens here in Kansas City. We carry so much hazardous material, dangerous cars. We carry everything by train,” said a veteran engineer for Union Pacific, who asked not to be identified.
Chapman reported that it did happen here. Last year, a freight train hit a stopped coal train near U.S. Highway 40 and Noland Road. No one was seriously hurt. A Union Pacific spokesman said the engineer on the train failed to heed a series of warning signals, telling him the track ahead was blocked.
“It happens so fast. One minute, you’re sitting there and the next, you know, you’re asleep,” the veteran engineer told Chapman.
Although the work routine is similar on other railroads, he told Chapman that the people who occupy the cabs spend far too much time in them.
“There have been weeks when I worked every single day of the week. I know there are guys out there working every day of the month,” the engineer said. “You’ve got a big diesel engine behind you humming. You’re rocking back and forth. You’ve got the clickety clack of the rails. It’s just like a sleep machine. Sometimes you just nod off,” the engineer said.
“Are we perfect yet? No. Are we doing the best with the science that’s out there in the world? Yes,” said Denny Holland, who is an occupational health psychologist.
It is a problem government, railroads and labor unions have investigated for years. A spokesman for Union Pacific said the company helps employees manage fatigue by providing education, diagnosing sleep disorders, and giving employees what they consider adequate time off. There are also devices installed on the trains designed to keep people from dozing off.
“Union Pacific leads the transportation industry in North America, if not internationally, with our efforts on looking at fatigue,” said Mark Davis of Union Pacific.
But the people running the engines said it is not enough.
“I’m putting myself at risk. The public’s being put at risk every day. If you add it all up, you’ve got bad track conditions,” the engineer said. “Then you add crew-fatigue factors, it’s a time bomb.”
Chapman said the train engineer was not identified to protect his job. The man said he is well-paid, has great benefits and loves what he does for a living.
Train engineers can take vacation and there is a pool of 30 days, what is called undisturbed leave, that they can take if there are enough people to cover the shifts. It’s this engineer’s and his union’s belief that those fill-in pools are not big enough. Chapman reported that the union has 74 cases tied to absentee policies pending arbitration with Union Pacific in the Midwest — some date back seven years.