CLEVELAND, June 14 — The National Transportation Safety Board has issued a report implicating the use of remote control locomotives in a fatal switching accident that occurred in San Antonio, Texas, on Dec. 7, 2003.
A Union Pacific switching foreman was assigned to work alone on a remote control job the night of his death.
While the NTSB considered the Union Pacific’s improper installation of power-assisted switches in the area of the yard where the accident occurred to be a major cause of the accident, NTSB Board Member Deborah A.P. Helman issued a dissent that focused more on remote control.
In her dissent, Board Member Helman raised many concerns shared by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen regarding potential dangers related to remote control train operations.
Among those are the loss of situational awareness, in which employees becomes so overwhelmed with too much work that they lose track of what is happening in their immediate surroundings. Another concern shared by BLET and Board Member Helman is the lack of proper training for remote control operators.
Helman indicated that loss of situational awareness in the single-person operation may have contributed to the fatality. She wrote: “In a report to Congress issued April 11, 2006, FRA acknowledged that remote control operations lend themselves to ‘task overload, and resultant loss of situational awareness or errors, due to increase in tasks and responsibilities that come with remote control locomotive (RCL) operations….’
“The report further discusses the risk that remote control operations may promote ‘channelized attention,’ when a worker trying to manage a large number of tasks focuses only on one or a few tasks while ignoring all the others, a phenomenon that can lead to a loss of situational awareness.”
Board Member Helman also questioned the lack of training that remote control operators receive and the role it may have played in the fatality.
“FRA’s report further discusses the importance of proper training because ‘inadequacies in RCO training and preparation have the potential to be problematic and may lead to RCO errors, as well as accidents/ incidents due to a lack of knowledge or understanding of RCL operations, including switching operations.’”
Helman was critical of the NTSB itself for missing an opportunity to promote safety in remote control operations.
“I believe the Safety Board has missed an opportunity with this first report on a fatal RCL accident to discuss the differences between traditional operations and RCL operations and any safety concerns or safety benefits that may exist. Further, we should have used this report to articulate our support of FRA’s effort or provided comments about areas of interest stemming from our investigation. The report was silent with respect to encouraging the railroads to find better ways to properly train RCOs, particularly if they are working alone, and thus ensure that remote control operations are conducted as safely as possible.”