(The following report appeared at KCRA.com on May 2. Tim Smith is Chairman of the BLET’s California State Legislative Board.)
ROSEVILLE, Calif. — Remote-control locomotives are a fairly new technology that’s become more common across Northern California.
But the trains have strong critics who consider them unsafe, including some former engineers.
“I call it robot railroad. You’ve got a railroad that used to manned by personnel who would be looking out for not only their welfare but the public’s welfare,” Tim Smith with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers said.
Union Pacific has 24 licensed remote control operators working around the clock inside the Roseville yard.
“It’s a little more safer because they are in control. If they had to get in between cars or in between when everthing stops, of course, they are in control. They don’t have to worry about anybody else moving it on them,” Kevin Proscal from Union Pacific said.
The technology also saves money because one or two operators are doing what a three-person crew used to do.
According to federal reports of remote control locomotive-involved derailments and collisions in Roseville, there have been 32 in the past five years, resulting in $1.1 million in total damages to trains and equipment.
Union Pacific said the accidents reflect operator errors, not equipment failure.
In the Roseville yard, there are warning signs posted to alert railroad workers.
The same warning signs that are posted in the Roseville yard have popped up in Davis and Woodland — the locomotives are operating over public grade crossings in those towns.
The Federal Railroad Administration said the signs mean people should have no expectation that a locomotive can stop.
“A lot of times the people controlling the front end of that train where the locomotive is can be upwards of a mile away from the controlling locomotive. So there’s nobody around to see you get run over and it has happened before all across this nation,” Smith said.