(The following report by Dan Marries appeared on Tucson television station KOLD’s website on January 11.)
TUCSON, Ariz. — Remote controlled trains aren’t just toys anymore. New technology has moved into the Tucson rail yard and some worry that could be a disaster waiting to happen. The Tucson Rail yard runs parallel to Aviation Highway. Trains are constantly on the move there but some are doing so without an engineer.
A locomotive without an engineer. It’s called a remote control locomotives, or RCL, and they’re being used more and more to move train cars and even dangerous chemicals at times. Some fear that’s putting the public at risk, “the difference is, when you are riding the locomotive and operating it you are going to be concerned at what you hit or run into,” says Robert Svob an engineer with 31 years experience. He’s also the chairman and legislative representative for the local Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. He goes on to say, “the people on the ground have no feel for the tonnage they are hauling, shoving or pulling.”
Using remote control technology, Union Pacific has reduced its three man yard crew down to two. The men use small radio control boxes to send trains up and down the tracks within the yard. Svob feels having one less set of eyes and ears is a safety risk and he uses an accident that happened in the Tucson yard over the summer when an RCL sideswiped another train, “tank cars were just two cars away from the where the impact occurred in fact they sustained damage but luckily they did not rupture.”
Despite these kind of accidents, Scott Hinckley from Union Pacific’s Safety Department says RCLs are safer, “by having the control in the hands of the person on the ground you cut out miscommunication by radio and you cut out the inability of an engineer to see the yardmen on the ground so those two factors help reduce injuries and accidents.” But now the rail road company is expanding the use of these remote controlled locomotives outside the yard by making short trips to the industrial areas of Tucson. Svob is worried about the potential dangers that poses when the RCLs cross through a busy intersection, “we’re concerned they’re going to be shoving blind across public crossings or that there will be no one on the locomotive when it crosses the crossing and we feel a 200 ton locomotive is a rolling bomb if you will it’s loaded with 2-3 thousand gallons of fuel.”
But Hinckley says there’s no need to worry because the same rules apply to RCLs as to traditional locomotives when it comes to railroad crossings, “a person on the ground or on the engine has to be able to see the gates come down and the lights flashing before they make a movement. So you would see a ground man at that point watching the operation before a movement would be made across.” Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, the local union, say safety is their top priority but they’re also concerned with jobs being lost due to the scaled back crews. Union Pacific says they are not eliminating any jobs because of remote control technology but rather they are aggressively hiring more people in 23 states.