(The following article by Lisa Sandberg was posted on the San Antonio Express-News website on December 9.)
SAN ANTONIO — Operating trains by remote control doesn’t appear to be any more dangerous — and could be safer — than running them using the conventional two-man teams, an official with a government regulatory agency said Monday.
“There is no evidence to suggest that remote-control technology is unsafe,” said Warren Flatau, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration, which enforces rail safety regulations.
Flatau spoke just a day after Jody Herstine, a Union Pacific Railroad worker and married father of two, was killed in a near East Side rail yard by one of the two trains he was operating via a waist-strapped remote-control device. A switchman for five years, he was working alone at the time.
The death of the 37-year-old switchman has reignited the debate over whether the cost-saving technology will lead to profits for railroad companies at the expense of worker safety.
Flatau said his agency has investigated about 100 reports of injuries that purportedly were caused by the remote-control devices and hasn’t been able to substantiate a single one. The FRA has so far seen no reason to require that two employees be on the ground when the remote device is employed.
The technology eliminates the need for a train’s engineer, who once sat in the cab and communicated with the switchman on the ground. Now, there’s only the switchman, who communicates with an on-board computer. The devices are only used while the trains are in the rail yards.
American rail companies began embracing remote technology to sort cars in rail yards about two years ago, railroad experts said, and about 1,000 of the devices now are in operation in the United States.
The technology has been in place in Canada since the late 1980s, and data there show a 56 percent drop in railroad accidents and $20 million in savings for rail companies.
“There’s never been a fatality due to the technology,” said Mark Hallman, a spokesman for Canada National, one of that country’s two major privately owned rail companies.
But those who believe the remote technology endangers American railroad workers point out that Canada requires two-worker teams to guide the trains.
“Here, the way the system’s been implemented, there are no enforceable federal regulatory policies,” said John Bentley, spokesman for Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, which has been critical of the technology.
The FRA is expected to release the results of an audit sometime next year. In the meantime, the controversy doesn’t seem likely to go away.
Scant details of Herstine’s death Sunday have been released. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating, wouldn’t comment. It is expected to take about six months to complete its report.
Meanwhile, Herstine’s family, which declined comment, made funeral arrangements Monday.