(The following story by Bob Scott appeared on the Journal and Courier website on February 7, 2010.)
LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A reader called the Journal & Courier recently with a comment about signs recently posted at Norfolk Southern railroad crossings on the southside of Lafayette.
“A sign just went up warning people that robots are driving the locomotives,” he said.
Well, not quite.
Remote-control locomotives are operated by people — just not from inside the locomotive. Instead, the operator controls the locomotive by means of a radio transmitter that sends and receives signals from a microprocessor in the locomotive.
According to the Federal Railway Administration, radio controlled operations, or RCOs, are designed to be “fail-safe.” If communication is lost, the locomotive is brought to a stop automatically.
Remote control locomotives have been around nationally since the 1980s, used mainly in switching yards.
More recently, however, some railroad companies have been implementing them on a wider scale.
“The Federal Railroad Administration is assessing the operations, with the first priority to ensure that they pose no threat to railroad workers or to the public,” according to a statement on its Web site.
Norfolk Southern erected warning signs at seven public railroad crossings between Lafayette and Dayton. The signs draw drivers’ and pedestrians’ attention to the fact that “locomotive cabs may be unoccupied.”
The signs are on tracks that intersect some heavily-traveled city streets, including 18th Street, Ninth Street and Concord Road.
“We have two remote control assignments in Lafayette,” said Rudy Husband, a Norfolk Southern corporate spokesman. “We have been using RCL in Lafayette since 2002.”
The CSX railroad has no remote control locomotives in Lafayette.
Melody Anderson of Lafayette said she wondered what those signs were near the Eagles Lodge on South 18th Street.
“I haven’t really noticed what the signs said. I cross that 18th Street track every night,” said the veteran bartender. “That’s kind of scary. Unless you really stop to read the sign, it’s hard to tell.”
Husband said the signs are meant to give drivers an extra warning to be alert.
“The message you should be sending to drivers is that they should exercise caution when approaching at-grade railroad crossings, regardless of how the locomotive is being operated,” he said.
According to the Association of American Railroads, a major purpose of RCL is to reduce accidents in rail yards.
Railroad unions, however, have looked at remote control operations as a threat to worker safety and job security.
Walter Flatau, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration, said RCL is just one more advancement in technology.
“Technology goes forward,” he said. “You know, there are no cabooses anymore because there is end-of-train technology,” he said.
“The larger issue is the future of railroads. Unions say the companies are moving to a one-man crew. My agency as no involvement with collective bargaining. They have to comply with our regulations.”
He said the federal government is monitoring the use of radio controlled operations.
“We have studied RCO technology and found that it didn’t pose any safety hazard if it is used properly and other safety protocols are observed,” he said.
“What we found is that where there had been incidents, there was a failure to observe basic railroad safety rules. The same accident would have happened whether there was an RCO or not.”