(The Florida Times-Union posted the following story by Christopher Calnan on its website on April 13.)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It was a Thursday morning and train conductor Wayne Caruthers spent it pushing tons of steel around Baldwin.
Using a bright-green remote control device attached to a vest, called a belt pack, he moved railroad cars around CSX Transportation’s switching yard.
It was a job that Caruthers used to do with the help of a locomotive engineer and a switchman. The engineer’s locomotive would provide the power. Caruthers and a switchman would be on the ground throwing track switches and coupling cars.
The men communicated with hand signals or over the radio. But that was before remote-controlled locomotives were introduced at the Baldwin yard last year.
Now, it’s just Caruthers and a switchman, both with belt packs.
The change isn’t only at CSXT. It’s happened at most railroads and sent shock waves through such a tradition-filled, old-economy industry. It also pitted railroading’s two dominant labor unions against each other by assigning jobs previously done exclusively by higher-paid engineers to less experienced trainmen.
Some union officials say the devices are dangerous and threaten the jobs of the industry’s most skilled workers. Others say the devices are part of railroading’s future.
“It’s a traditional fight over job security vs. progress,” Maryland-based railroad historian Rush Loving said.
Guys like Caruthers, who has worked for the railroad 32 years, 25 of those at the Baldwin yard, got caught in the middle.
Fellow CSXT workers, whether they are engineers or trainmen working out on the tracks, are more than just fellow employees to Caruthers. They’re his fishing and hunting buddies, and they’re all being affected by the remote controls.
He knows that new technology is a sign of progress. But Caruthers also realizes that the new devices forced some engineers to relocate, probably to CSXT’s cross-town Moncrief switching yard.
He kept his job, but the displacement of co-workers left a bad taste in his mouth.
“That’s the only thing I don’t like about it,” he said. “We’re out one of our guys.” Safety concerns
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers has been raising questions about the safety of remote-controlled locomotives since it lost out to the United Transportation Union for the right to operate the devices.
Remote control was used in at least 28 serious train accidents in the United States last year, said David Lavery, chairman of the BLE’s Florida legislative board. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, U.S. railroads reported 2,652 train accidents last year.
In February, a 36-year-old trainman was killed in a CSXT yard outside Syracuse, N.Y., when a boxcar struck him. The man’s partner was operating a locomotive with a remote control while the two were coupling together boxcars, The Associated Press reported.
The Federal Railroad Administration is investigating the accident, spokesman Warren Flatau said.
The BLE says it’s dangerous for two switching yard workers to control a locomotive when the two could be separated by 50 to 100 cars.
Remote control operators need 80 hours of training to be qualify for their jobs; locomotive engineers take eight to 12 months.
Engineers receive more training and are better paid than trainmen such as switchmen and conductors, so railroads stand to save plenty of money by reducing the number of engineers.
Jim Valentine, a railroad analyst for Morgan Stanley Dean Whitter, projected in 2001 the railroads would save $250 million a year by using remote control.
CSXT spokesman Gary Sease said the training for remote control operators is different because the jobs are different. Remote control operators move trains over shorter distances at slower speeds and consistent terrain in confined areas.
Engineers need the skill to make the adjustments to a train while operating at faster speeds on constantly changing terrain on routes that run over thousands of miles.
Also, despite claims of job losses, the CSXT is hiring more engineers, Sease said. The railroad plans to hire 880 conductors or trainmen this year and qualify 230 as locomotive engineers, he said.
Remote-controlled locomotives operators have far less experience than engineers. Inexperience combined with 80 hours of training increases the risk of accidents, BLE officials said.
“It comes down to the training of the people who use these devices,” BLE spokesman John Bentley said. “We think it puts people and communities at risk.”
Last month, the Township of Woodbridge, N.J., became the 11th U.S. city to ban remote-controlled locomotives because of what they view as elevated accident risks.
But the bans are largely symbolic because federal law supercedes local ordinances, and railroads aren’t required to honor them, White said.
Barton Jennings, a professor of transportation and logistics at the University of Tennessee, said the local bans are acts of desperation by the BLE.
“It’s a last-ditch effort by a group that blew it,” he said. “They’re basically playing the last card in their hand.”
About 25 percent of all the yard locomotives operated by the nation’s seven Class-I railroads are equipped with remote control, said Tom White, spokesman for the Association of American Railroads.
CSXT is using remote-controlled locomotives in 60 of its 120 rail yards across its 23,000 network.
In February, the railroad said the number of accidents dropped by 60 percent in operations using remote control during 2002.
But the statistics aren’t credible because the railroads have reduced the size of crews working in yards, Bentley said.
“There are fewer people working, so of course there are fewer injuries,” he said. “When you get down to it, it’s a money issue. They’re trying to do the work with fewer people.”
White said belt packs eliminate the need for hand signals and reduce accidents by minimizing the chance for miscommunication between engineers and trainmen in switching yards.
“More than half of all train accidents happen in yards,” he said. “That’s why this is such an important advance from a safety standpoint.”
St. Augustine-based Florida East Coast Railway began using remote-controlled locomotives in early 2002, said Charlie Lynch, the railroad’s vice president of transportation. No FEC engineers lost their jobs because some took comparable positions with the company, he said.
Belt packs have allowed two employees to do the work of three, effectively increasing productivity by more than 30 percent, Lynch said.
“We’re always looking for increased productivity,” he said. “This is a great technological advance that allows us to do that.”
The time has come for remote-controlled locomotives, but only under certain conditions, said Robert Gallamore, director of Northwestern University’s Transportation Center in Chicago.
“Should it be used everywhere? No,” he said. “It’s a technology with a specific purpose. If it’s a good engineer, well trained and experienced and ready for work, the engineer can make the best judgment.”