ST. LOUIS — Imagine moving a huge locomotive through a rail yard via remote control, without an engineer in the cab, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
It’s a prospect that railroads say will save them money, that unions fear will be unsafe and cost them jobs — and that Norfolk Southern is set to begin testing Monday in St. Louis.
Rudy Husband, a spokesman for the railroad, confirmed that Norfolk Southern will begin a pilot program in the Luther Rail Yard in north St. Louis along the Mississippi River. The user controls the locomotive’s engine through a remote-control box that hangs around his neck.
“It’s been used widely in Canada for a decade,” Husband said. “From a safety standpoint, it’s been proven to increase safety in yards.”
But Jack Russell, a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers from Columbia, Ill., isn’t so sure.
“Engineers have to be certified by the Federal Railroad Administration,” he said. “The people who are going to be running these boxes are not certified. After two weeks of training, they’re going to turn these people loose running trains.”
John Bentley Jr., a spokesman for the national Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in Cleveland, said the union fears railroads will replace engineers in rail yards with employees who run the remote controls.
“That person is generally paid less than an engineer, and that goes back to safety,” he said. “You’re replacing an engineer with 20 or 25 years experience with someone with two weeks of training who’s never operated a train before. It’s an accident waiting to happen.”
Bentley had no specifics on the number of engineers affected nationwide, but he believed dozens had either been transferred or eliminated.
Husband declined to say how employees’ jobs would be affected, referring the question to another Norfolk Southern spokesman. That person could not be reached Friday.
But others, particularly the Canadian railroads, have said that remote-control devices have cut costs and increased safety within rail yards. The railroads made that point last November in a publication of another rail workers’ organization, the United Transportation Union.
Canadian National said it saves $20 million (Canadian) a year through the use of remote control. It has reduced crew size from as many as five in 1989 to one or two in 2001. And, based on 2.5 million hours of operation, the accident rate with remote control is about half that of yards without it.
Bentley is among those union members who have doubts.
“Our experience has told us that the statistics they’re citing come from the company that’s selling the devices,” he said. “We think those statistics are biased. To be honest, we don’t know what the statistics are.”
According to the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration, of 583 accidents in Missouri involving railroad employees on duty from 1999-2001, 156 occurred in yards. In Illinois, 925 of 2,255 accidents occurred in yards during the three-year period.
For Russell, an engineer for 27 years, remote control just doesn’t feel right.
“You operate a train by the seat of your pants, you operate it by feel,” he said. “How are you going to operate it from distance away, standing with this thing around your shoulders?”