GREENUP, Ky. — The Greenup County Fiscal Court adopted a resolution Tuesday asking CSX Transportation to stop operating its recently assigned remote-controlled locomotives, the Huntington (W.Va.) Herald-Dispatch reported.
“Railroad equipment is known to present significant danger to persons and property from collision, derailment and possible release of hazardous materials,” said the order, signed by Greenup County Judge Executive Robert W. Carpenter.
The resolution asks that the company operate no locomotive by remote control anywhere in the county — which includes CSX’s sprawling Russell, Ky., terminal — until it notifies Carpenter’s office beforehand.
It further stipulates the railroad:
— Cannot move or switch cars containing hazardous materials or work near tracks occupied by cars carrying hazardous materials.
— Cannot operate remote-controlled engines over highway crossings without having a person in the cab who can stop the locomotive.
— Must provide “effective and reliable protection” for remote-controlled movements at any location accessible to the public.
Carpenter emphasized that the resolution is in the form of a request, but added that Michael Wilson, the county’s attorney, is drawing up an ordinance scheduled for a first reading at the fiscal court’s Nov. 22 meeting that may require the stipulations to be followed.
“There are two schools — Raceland High School and Campbell Elementary School — right square in front of the Russell yard,” Carpenter said. “With the cargoes the railroad is carrying, they need live engineers on their locomotives.”
CSX spokesman David Hall is convinced his company can make the court see the light.
“We don’t think the fiscal court wants us to stop our progress in making CSX a safer railroad,” Hall said. “We think we deserve a full airing of this issue and the resolution that was passed today will certainly speed up that process. We look forward to sitting down and talking with the members of the court to make sure they understand all the points to this issue. In the meantime, we have customers who are depending on these products, and we don’t want to do anything that will slow down commerce.”
John Bentley, a spokesman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in Cleveland, said the union is concerned about the potential loss of jobs, but more worried about safety.
“Yard jobs are desirable positions to have and are usually held by engineers with 25 or 30 years’ seniority,” Bentley said. “Now, younger, less senior employees who are not engineers are being allowed to move locomotives. We believe that moving a train — whether manually or by remote control — is the work of a trained engineer.”
Mark Elkins of Greenup, a CSXT engineer, and six of his colleagues expressed their concerns at Tuesday’s meeting.
“Russell yard has four yard jobs per shift, and one of those jobs on each shift is already operating by remote control,” Elkins said. “As BofLE members, we are concerned for our safety and the safety of the community. We want the public to be aware of what’s going on in their back door.”
Elkins said he heard that an incident occurred at Russell last week in which at least one remote-control box being worn by a person in a training class at the west end of the yard got a reading that it had been given control of a working engine at the east end of the yard. No one had relinquished that control.
Hall countered that the railroad has no record of such an occurrence in Russell or anywhere else on the system.