(The following article by Joan Kent was posted on the LaCrosse Tribune’s website on June 12.)
LACROSSE, Wisc. — It looked like Burlington Northern Santa Fe switch foreman Wayne Storlie was just walking alongside the locomotive in the train yard on Oak Street. Until you got up close and saw that he was pushing buttons on the bright yellow operator control unit he wore on his chest.
Through the unit, Storlie sent messages to the mobile control unit mounted in the locomotive to switch train cars between tracks in the yard.
In the conventional switching method, switchmen communicated with an engineer in the locomotive. With the remote technology, there is no engineer aboard the locomotive.
“I feel very safe with it,” Storlie said of the remote unit. “I felt comfortable with the conventional, but this gives me more control when I’m kicking cars and making joints.”
If anything happens to the remote, such as the switchman falling with it, Storlie said an alarm sounds and the locomotive automatically stops.
The remote control technology has been controversial, with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers claiming it is dangerous but the United Transportation Union supporting it.
In May, the La Crosse Common Council rejected a proposal to hold public hearings on the issue. The Federal Railroad Administration has control over trains. But the BLE is asking communities to send resolutions asking the FRA to stop the use of the remote controls until the FRA puts more regulations on them.
Engineer worries
In the past, the crewmen on the ground used hand signals to communicate with the engineer in the locomotive, said Steve Forsberg, general director of Burlington Northern public affairs corporate relations. “Sometimes there was miscommunication, and the crew on the ground would get hurt. This gives control to the people on the ground.
“Anytime you introduce a new technology, people feel threatened,” he said of the BLE’s opposition. “They are not losing jobs. BLE engineers (who worked in the locomotives) are going to over-the-ground jobs. We have gone out of our way to ensure that no one loses a job.”
The engineers are making as much money in the over-the-ground jobs, he said. But he said they might be spending more time away from their hometowns than when they worked in local train yards.
“BLE is still very concerned about the safety issues,” said BLE member James Kinsman of Bangor, Wis., who supported public hearings on the issue. “They have not implemented any barrier in case these things get away. BLE is dedicated to making sure all technology introduced to the railroads is done in the safest way possible.”
In La Crosse, he said it is less than 300 feet from where the trains operate in the yard to the Canadian Pacific main line.
Yard only
Bright green signs at a crossing on Oak Street announce, “Attention. Remote control locomotives operate in this area. Locomotive cabs may be unoccupied.”
About 40 trains go through the yard each day, said Bob Kremer, train master of the La Crosse yard. Of those, he said the yard crew members do switches on about seven trains, moving between 400 and 500 train cars every 24 hours.
BNSF uses the remote technology on about three dozen of its yards, including the major processing centers such as Kansas City, Forsberg said. The railroad uses the portable locomotive control technology in the rail yards only, and not on over-ground runs, he said, because they cannot move train cars at speeds of more than 10 mph.
In addition, switchman John Hogan said the operator control units only give messages for up to two miles, with the use of the transmitter at the train yard.
“It would take forever to transfer goods,” Kremer said of using the system for over-ground runs.
When trains pull out of the yard, he said they are manned by a engineer and conductor, even if they are only going to downtown La Crosse.