(The Bismarck Tribune published the following story by Angie Buckley on its website on August 19.)
BISMARCK, N.D. — At the request of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Mandan City Commission will consider a resolution forbidding railroads from operating remote controlled locomotives in Mandan until “certain safety considerations are met.”
The resolution goes even further in saying that all remote control locomotive operations “cease and desist” until the Mandan emergency coordinator can study and have a plan in place for evacuation before such remote control is implemented. The railroad is regulated by the Federal Railroad Administration. If the resolution is passed, it would be a statement of how the Mandan commission feels about the issue.
Remote control locomotive operation is new to North Dakota, with the first implementation in February 2002 in Mandan. With the remote, a ground crew member electronically controls the locomotive, eliminating the need for a third engineer on the train.
Canada has been using remote control operation since the 1980s and has seen a significant decrease in incidents and accidents, said Burlington Northern and Santa Fe spokesman Gus Melonas. Thirty-two terminals in the system now use remote control.
Melonas said he thinks the local Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers is bringing the issue up now in the midst of a dispute with another union, the United Transportation Union. John Risch, state legislative director for the United Transportation Union, declined to comment. While Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers members don’t deny that there is some animosity as to how the remote technology has been implemented, they maintain their main concern is safety.
Alex Niegum, a locomotive engineer in Mandan for 23 years, says that after just a few weeks of training, workers are qualified to operate locomotives with remote control. He welcomes the technology but doesn’t see how such little experience can match his own.
“We’re down to two people on the locomotive. The technology is improving, but my feeling is that they’ve implemented it before they’ve come out with a valid training program,” he said.
Melonas said the remote is used only at slow speeds and the ground personnel has direct control of whistling, breaking and acceleration functions.
“The technology is taking the risk out of miscommunication,” he said.
He cited statistics showing that, to date, in 2003, reportable accidents declined 57 percent with the use of remote control, down one-third from conventional operation.
“Technology plays a huge part in our daily operations. Our goal is to safely and efficiently move freight, and the last thing we would do is apply technology that is dangerous to our employees and the railroad but to the communities as well,” Melonas said.
A remote control operated train was involved in a derailment in the BNSF rail yard in Mandan on Monday evening during routine track switching. According to Melonas, the derailment happened when a slow moving train struck another train that sat idle on an adjacent track. Three empty coal cars derailed, and one of the derailed cars was left standing upright.
Melonas said the derailment was not a failure of equipment, and BNSF was investigating it further. So far, the cause has been attributed to human error.
“This could have happened remote controlled or not,” Melonas said.
Melonas said there were no injuries, and the derailment had no affect on mainline operations. Crews were working to fix the derailment Monday evening, and Melonas said they expected to have everything cleaned up by midnight.
Rick Tentis, the president of the local Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, questions if the technology is reliable enough to prevent an accident from occurring. He said incidents in Mandan have gone unreported by BNSF, and action by the city commission tonight would be a symbolic victory.
Dan Ulmer, Mandan city commissioner, said he’s not sure if the city should get involved in what looks like a dispute between the two unions.
“It’s one side (Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers) raising safety concerns, on the other side they’re operating them; I think the real issue is jobs, jobs, jobs,” he said.
Tentis said that there has been difficulty in getting compensation for engineers who have been replaced by the remote control operations. While a severance settlement would usually be issued for such a situation, he said that’s not the case now.
“There’s a lot of people who feel they were wronged in the way the technology was implemented — the engineers who for so many years operated the locomotives are now left out in the cold without compensation for all their years on the job,” he said.
The commission meeting is at 5:30 p.m. today at city hall.