BATON ROUGE, La. — Even though it won’t be legally binding, Mayor Pro Tempore Lorri Burgess got a Metro Council committee Wednesday to endorse a resolution banning remote-controlled locomotives from Baton Rouge railroads, the Baton Rouge Advocate reported.
The full council takes up the issue next week. Burgess told the Finance and Executive Committee that one of the two railroads operating in her district, the Kansas City Southern line, uses unmanned locomotives. Burgess’ district is the area generally bound by the Mississippi River, Gourrier Street, Foster Drive and Chippewa Street.
One unmanned train derailed Aug. 20, Burgess said, and she passed around photos of the cleanup. She said she proposed the resolution to send a message to the railroad that the city-parish does not like its practice.
She also wants the city-parish to be more aware of unmanned locomotives moving sometimes toxic materials and to prepare adequate safety measures, calling the discovery “disturbing.”
“I found out when you grow up you get to play with train sets, too,” Burgess told the committee.
No one from Kansas City Southern or any other rail line was at the meeting.
Burgess’ proposal hit one snag when Councilman Pat Culbertson said the council should know the full extent of how remote-controlled locomotives are used before attempting even symbolic legislation.
Noting that he did some work on train lines while in college, Culbertson said the use of unmanned locomotives in train-switching yards might deserve special consideration.
“I don’t know where the switching yards are, but if they’re in the city of Baton Rouge, I don’t want to tell the railroads they can’t use remote controls to (assemble) their trains,” Culbertson said.
Burgess had been discussing how Kansas City Southern’s railroad line cuts through residential areas of her district, but Culbertson’s queries changed the discussion. Burgess said she will research how the trains are used in switching yards versus on main lines and revise her resolution accordingly before next week’s council meeting.
Measures that need revising usually leave committees with no recommendation, but three members of the Finance and Executive Committee voted unopposed to recommend that the full council pass the proposal after it’s revised. Culbertson abstained.
No one from Kansas City Southern returned telephone calls after the late-afternoon meeting.
However, Rodney Stutes, a Texas-based representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, said unmanned locomotives are exclusively used in switching yards for now. Stutes, an engineer for 32 years, negotiates for his union with Kansas City Southern over the use of unmanned trains, which are also used in Shreveport and Beaumont, Texas.
Stutes said safety concerns have kept Canadian National, which operates lines in Baton Rouge and which pioneered remote-controlled locomotives a decade ago in Canada, from using unmanned trains in the United States.
He said other train lines, including Union Pacific and Burlington Northern, are beginning to use remote controls in their switching yards.
“It is one of those situations where railroads have gone carte blanche to this technology before they’ve really given due consideration to the safety aspects,” Stutes said.
In other action Wednesday, the Finance and Executive Committee unanimously recommended that the full council approve paying a court verdict of more than $5 million in damages and interest resulting from an accident on Sullivan Road in 1993. Two people were killed and two others were seriously injured in the accident.