ATLANTA — Five railcars derailed at CSX Transportation’s Tilford switching yard in Atlanta after a remote-controlled locomotive ran into a train being assembled by workers using another remote-controlled engine, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
It was the third collision at a CSX facility involving remote-controlled engines since the railroad began using the technology at its switching yards this year.
The other two incidents were at CSX’s switching yard in Montgomery.
No one was injured in the Atlanta collision Thursday morning, said Gary Sease, a spokesman for the Jacksonville-based railroad.
Sease said the incident remains under investigation. He said the findings so far indicated one of the locomotives was being used by a trainee who didn’t see that a rail switch was set to divert the engine onto a parallel track, which was occupied by the other locomotive and a string of railcars.
The collision derailed three railcars loaded with cement and two empty cars, toppling one, he said.
“There were no problems with the remote technology,” said Sease. “It would have happened whether it was conventional or remote-controlled.”
However, a union official with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers called the technology unsafe as currently used. The union opposes the use of remote-controlled locomotives because they reduce engineer jobs.
“If there had been an engineer on (the locomotive), it wouldn’t have happened,” said Bob Love, chairman of the union’s local division, which represents 103 CSX engineers.
Company representatives have said the new technology reduces accidents by eliminating miscommunication among workers. At present, employees coupling and uncoupling railcars use radios and hand signals to communicate with the train engineer.