(The following story by John O’Connell appeared on the Idaho State Journal website on April 12.)
RIVERDALE, Utah — A 38-year-old Union Pacific Railroad switchman was killed early Monday after he apparently fell under a freight car being pushed by a remotely-controlled locomotive.
Union Pacific officials have not released the employee’s name, pending notification of members of the family.
But according to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, whose members have voiced safety concerns about the use of remotely-controlled traincar switching, it was the victim’s second day of work at the Riverdale switch yard after a transfer from Salt Lake City. Riverdale is located about 30 miles north of Salt Lake City.
The man had eight months of total experience with the railroad and was not wearing the appropriate safety gear to assist with remotely-controlled switching, according to the BLET.
UP has been implementing remotely-controlled operations at switch yards throughout its system for the past few years. The technology arrived in Pocatello in February, making the Gate City the first yard in Idaho to start switching cars without engineers.
It now takes only a foreman and helper working remote control belt packs to switch cars and make up trains, sometimes up to a half mile away from the locomotive. When anyone wearing a belt pack falls, a safety mechanism shuts off the train. Engineers in the switch yards who have been displaced by remote control trains have been moved to long-haul trains.
Monday’s victim was believed to have been riding on the freight car and there were no witnesses who saw the 3:50 a.m. accident, Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley said.
Bromley said he was not wearing a belt pack at the time, so the locomotive did not stop when he fell. When his co-workers lost radio contact with the man, they searched for him, Bromley said.
“There were no witnesses. But apparently, he fell under the car,” Bromley said, adding UP is conducting an investigation to determine what happened. “It’s kind of hard to determine if an engineer could have seen him or not. It’s hard to say. There’s no way I could guess (if an engineer could have prevented the accident).”
Detective Nolan Geilmann, of the Riverdale Police Department, said he’s in the midst of an investigation, and he doesn’t believe there was any criminal wrongdoing behind the accident.
“Speculatively, we think he slipped off the train. He was there alone,” Geilmann said.
The Federal Railroad Administration is also investigating the accident, according to spokesman Warren Flatau. Flatau said the FRA’s Region 7 inspector has already started the investigation, which will entail inspecting equipment and infrastructure.
Flatau said investigations usually take upwards of seven months.
He said switching is usually conducted at slow speeds, and statistics have shown remote control switching to be safe.
“We are investigating it as we do with all employee fatalities,” Flatau said. “I know there was switching going on, but they haven’t given me anything definitive yet.”
Flatau said it is too early to determine if the presence of an engineer on the train would have made a difference.
In their lobbying against remote control trains, BLET leaders have said the switchmen who operate them have much less experience than the engineers had, an extra set of eyes is always a good thing and additional workers have been brought in to make up for inefficiencies of the technology.
To become an operator, an employee with eight months of experience, such as the victim of the Riverdale accident, is required to have six days of classroom training and 15 days of training on the job with an instructor.
“He’s one of the people we were worried about who may or may not have been properly trained,” said Mike Hysell, the BLET’s legislative representative for southern Idaho and a locomotive engineer on a train from Pocatello to Nampa. “The amount of time he was employed with the railroad and the experience (in the Riverdale yard) is definitely a factor.”
Jim Lance, chairman of the local BLET, said at this point, it’s unclear if the presence of an engineer could have prevented the accident. However, he agrees the inexperience of the switchmen UP is allowing to operate remote control trains is a factor in it.
“He should have had a belt pack on in order to protect him,” Lance said. “It drives right at the heart of the issue. We have a concern about lack of training and lack of safety.”