(The following article by David Patch appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
TOLEDO — Roughly a year after introducing remote-control yard switching to their systems, major railroads are declaring the technology to be a success, saying it has cut accidents and made those accidents that have occurred less costly.
“In addition to the safety benefits, we are seeing virtually 100 percent reliability of this proven technology,” said Alan F. Crown, executive vice president and chief operating officer of CSX Transportation, which last May began using remote control at its Stanley Yard in Lake Township and later expanded it to neighboring Walbridge Yard.
“The results have met our expectations,” said Rudy Husband, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern Corp., whose switching yards in Oregon and Bellevue have some remote-control operations as well. “The introduction of remote control has not only improved safety, it has improved yard efficiency.”
But the labor union representing train engineers, who currently stand to lose the most jobs to remote-control operations, continues to assert safety misgivings, arguing that training and supervision are inadequate.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers maintains that a recent arbitration ruling that upheld a rival union’s agreement to operate remote-control engines was misguided. Its Web site cites a scattering of 40 accidents across the country involving remotely controlled trains that it says demonstrate the safety problems.
The engineers’ union is planning a rally Tuesday afternoon at the Federal Railroad Administration’s Washington headquarters “to shed further light on the numerous safety issues associated with the operation of remote control technology by employees who are not locomotive engineers.”
No accidents involving remotely controlled equipment have been reported at any northwest Ohio rail yards, but Dan Knorek, a regional BLE official who before Feb. 1 was a CSX engineer in Walbridge with 36 years’ railroad experience, said the greenness of some workers using the remotes worries him.
“These guys aren’t used to handling such big cuts of cars, doubling [coupling] up trains,” said Mr. Knorek, the union’s second vice general chairman for CSX’s Northern Lines. “They’re not always looking out for crossings.”
Mr. Knorek also said that remote-controlled switching is slowing down operations at the local CSX yards, and questioned whether any reduction in accident rates is attributable to less work being done.
Gary Sease, a CSX spokesman, said accident rates are based on a standard formula, and that safety, not productivity, was the leading factor in the railroad’s decision to introduce remote control.
“We’ve gotten mixed results on that [productivity],” Mr. Sease said. “There might be some getting-used-to, but we felt that would even out in the future.”
CSX, Norfolk Southern, and other major United States railroads began using remote-controlled locomotives for switching at certain yards early last year after signing an agreement in 2001 with the United Transportation Union to pilot the technology. CSX now uses such equipment at 60 locations across its system, while NS has introduced it at 36 yards.
Under its agreement, the UTU, which represents trainmen, conductors, and some engineers, secured the exclusive right to operate remote control devices.
The BLE objected, saying that long-standing labor agreements require an engineer to be aboard all locomotives moving cars. But early this year, a four-member arbitration panel sided with the UTU’s assertion that microprocessors inside locomotive remote-control receivers perform the functions formerly required of the engineer, who in switching service primarily responds to instructions from a crewman on the ground.
Frank Wilner, a UTU spokesman, said his union was “not anxious to see this implemented” but could see the writing on the wall after the FRA issued guidelines for remote-control operation in early 2001.
Mr. Knorek and Don Menefee, the engineers’ union’s Northern Lines general chairman, said that while it “can’t deny that job loss exists,” the union’s leading concern is for the safety of employees and of the general public near rail yards where remote control is in use.
While yard switching may not be the most complicated job in railroading, Mr. Menefee said, the dynamics of moving long strings of cars of varying weights in and out of various tracks can still create powerful physical forces that experienced train-handlers anticipate.
“We’re our own worst enemies,” Mr. Menefee said. “We’ve done our jobs so well that it makes it look elementary.”
At the engineers’ union’s urging, several cities’ municipal councils – including Cleveland and Detroit, but not Toledo – have adopted resolutions opposing the use of remote-controlled locomotives to move cars containing hazardous materials or on tracks crossing public streets.
While nonbinding, these resolutions show “that the general public has a lot of concerns about it, that they’re not real comfortable wit the idea of trains running without anybody in the cab,” said John Bentley, a spokesman at the engineers’ union’s Cleveland headquarters.
CSX’s Mr. Sease said the railroad has responded to those city actions by offering presentations on how remote control works.
“When we do that, a lot of the concerns go away,” Mr. Sease said.
Remotely controlled engines sometimes cross public streets at the north ends of Walbridge and Stanley yards. Signs posted at those crossings alert motorists to that possibility. Danny LaDuke, the Walbridge police chief, said last summer that he had worried about remote-control safety at the crossings before meeting with CSX representatives to discuss it – and the discussion relieved his worry.
Warren Flatau, an FRA spokesman, said agency inspectors routinely perform unannounced observations and inspections at rail yards where remote control is in use to ensure safe procedures are being followed.
“We have not found anything, to this date, that justifies proceeding with a formal rulemaking,” Mr. Flatau said. “We have not seen any specific issues that we believe we have not addressed with the guidelines.”
And of the remote-control incidents listed on the BLE Web site, Mr. Flatau said, only one, in which a crewman fell from an engine he was controlling with a remote device, can be attributed even indirectly to the use of remote control.