(The following story by John O’Connell appeared on the Idaho State Journal website on April 10.)
POCATELLO, Idaho — It’s a brave new world on the Union Pacific Railroad tracks through Pocatello, where train engineers are a vanishing breed.
In Canada, the technology has been in place since 1985. Nonetheless, to retired railroader and former State Sen. Lin Whitworth, it’s like something straight from the pages of a science fiction novel: Flashing orange strobe lights mark moving trains with no crew members on board. A sign on Pocatello Avenue near the tracks warns the public of remotely operated trains.
“That was a little bit like Buck Rogers. He was a comic book character who went to the moon with rocket ships and all of that kind of stuff,” Whitworth said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable switching cars that way without someone on that engine.”
When Whitworth started work, Union Pacific’s equipment included steam locomotives with five-man crews. In February, the railroad implemented remote control operations in the Pocatello yard – 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.
All 11 switch jobs in the yard are now done remotely, or will be soon.
Befitting its railroad history, Pocatello’s is the first yard in Idaho to go to remote control.
Several railroaders share Whitworth’s opinion, especially members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. Most engineers have been moved
from switch jobs onto long-haul trains, which union leaders complain requires workers to spend time on the road, away from their families. Due to a shortage in engineers within UP’s ranks, the switch to remote control trains cost no employees their jobs.
Switchmen with the United Transportation Union now have one more task on their job descriptions – operating the remote controls.
Not surprisingly, the BLET opposes remote control trains, arguing they pose a safety threat in rail yards. The UTU has accepted, if not embraced, the technology and cites statistics that show a reduction in accidents where it has been used.
One of the current problems with remote control trains, BLET leaders say, is the Federal Railroad Administration has made recommendations on their use but has not issued binding regulations. BLET is lobbying the Idaho Legislature to enact a resolution asking the FRA to adopt strict standards.
“We’re concerned about the citizens of a city like Pocatello where hazardous shipments are being handled by remote control,” said Mike Hysell, the BLET’s legislative representative for southern Idaho and a locomotive engineer on a train from Pocatello to Nampa.
UP spokesman John Bromley said the FRA already approves of the company’s operating and training policies, and new requirements are not needed. Since the technology was implemented, Bromley said UP has modified its training program and has also started training managers in remote control capabilities.
As soon as Pocatello implemented remote control trains, UP hung wind socks to indicate the direction of the breeze. Hysell said the socks are intended to alert workers which way to run in case of a hazardous waste spill.
“There are some real holes in the technology,” Hysell said. “These guidelines can be stretched and done away with because they aren’t binding. In all the major terminals where remote control has been used, there have been accidents involving amputations and fatalities.”
Wind socks were used as a safety precaution in various UP yards long before the advent of remote locomotives, Bromley said. He said there has been one fatality and one or two accidents resulting in amputations in remote control yards. Still, UP has had fatalities in yards where engineers operate switch engines, he said.
There has been tension in the railyard ever since the arrival of remote control technology, according to BLET conductor Shane Adams.
“Everybody is way more nervous,” Adams said.
Adams, who has 30 years of experience, said he’s seen engineers save lives countless times when unpredictable problems have arisen.
When remote control trains were first proposed for the Pocatello yard, Adams said the railroad promised to build secure fences to keep the public out. That hasn’t happened. Contractors, people and vehicles who aren’t supposed to be on the tracks come in all the time, Adams said.
“There are company vehicles going in and out of the yard. If people are walking through the yards – I just saw two little girls doing it today – that’s just one more set of eyes,” Adams said. “Everybody is just waiting for someone to get killed or hurt or some hazardous material spilled. We’re talking guys who have been here 30 to 35 years, just waiting.”
The BLET succeeded in getting 43 cities, 19 counties and 21 AFL-CIO state federations to pass resolutions asking the FRA to adopt enforceable regulations for remote control trains as of September 2004.
After hearing presentations by the BLET and UP a few years ago, the Pocatello City Council, however, opted against passing such a resolution.
Mayor Roger Chase said the issue is a fight between two unions and is outside the realm of the city’s jurisdiction.
“It’s the federal people who make that decision,” Chase said. “I personally have some concerns on it, but it’s not a city issue.”
Chase worries about the possibility of accidents in the local yards without people on the locomotives, and he said Union Pacific has not specified to the city where remote switching is taking place.
“Where I used to work in an industry where we had a lot of automation, generally anything that you automate breaks,” said Chase, a former J.R. Simplot employee. “Union Pacific hasn’t spent a lot of time, other than that one meeting, to reassure us how it’s going to work.”
Mechanical failure with a remote control box was to blame when a railroad worker in Hinkle, Ore., lost his arm, Hysell said.
Hysell explained the boxes have a tilt feature – should an employee wearing a control belt pack fall, the locomotive is supposed to shut down. Nonetheless, the train struck the worker and severed his arm just below the shoulder.
According to Bromley, the unit did not fail. Although the man was not the one operating the train, the locomotive did shut down when he fell because he was wearing a belt pack, Bromley said. But there wasn’t time for the train to come to a complete stop, Bromley said.
Statistics seem to show use of remote control trains has actually reduced accidents, according to UP, the FRA and leaders with the UTU.
Even if the UTU opposed remote control use, leaders believe it would change nothing. The more unions have fought new technology, the more jobs they have lost, according to Frank Willner, public relations director with the UTU in Lakewood, Ohio.
“Throughout history, unions have failed in their efforts to thwart technology. It was obvious they were going to implement it in the U.S. whether the unions liked it or not,” Willner said. “The UTU took the position that we would rather explain to our members why we have the new technology than why we lost the jobs.”
Union Pacific has had virtually no accidents due to failure of the technology, according to Bromley. Overall, Bromley said remote control switching has reduced accidents by a third.
“Injuries have certainly dropped dramatically,” Bromley said. “The switchman is in control of his own train. That’s where you get the safety advantage. It eliminates any chance of misunderstanding each other.”
The person with the controls must always be able to see his train, Bromley said. Remote trains have a governor with a top speed of 15 mph and have devices that stop the engine if they pass out of designated zones.
UP first implemented the technology two years ago in Des Moines, Iowa, and plans to have it systemwide by the end of this year.
Still, Whitworth believes time will tell how effective and safe the technology truly is. With fewer eyes on the tracks and experienced engineers removed from the equation, Whitworth believes accidents are bound to be the result.
“I don’t think they have done enough to make that determination (that it’s safer),” Whitworth said. “Even if it is safer, it is not efficient. I think the railroad should feel some obligation to provide a transportation system to the nation. I just think it’s another thing that corporate America is wanting to do whether it’s a good idea or not because you can cut that one person.”
One of the remote control operators, who asked not be named, is concerned he and the other operators have received far too little training and now have too many responsibilities to safely switch trains.
To become an operator, a railroad worker with less than six months of experience must receive six days of classroom training and work 30 days on the job with an instructor. An employee with between six months and a year of experience must train six days in the classroom and 15 days on the job with an instructor. Employees with more than a year of experience must train six days in the classroom and five days with an instructor.
According to the local operator, UP has added the engineer’s job, usually held by someone with years of experience, to workers who are still learning basics.
The local operator believes a derailment in the Pocatello yard on a recent Saturday illustrates the problem.
A train was being switched to another track, but a fellow remote control operator didn’t line the switch up properly, he said. The train ran through the switch while pulling forward. When the operator reversed the train, four cars derailed. Nobody was hurt.
“An engineer couldn’t have prevented this necessarily,” the operator said. “But someone who has been out there seven months is still learning their job as far as making sure switches are properly thrown, and now they’re doing something on top of this. At least before, we could look at the engineer and say, ‘What? Explain this.’ They took out the most experienced members and left us.”
John Bentley, a spokesman for BLET’s national division in Cleveland, agrees with the local operator’s assessment that the inexperience of remote control operators will lead to problems.
“It’s not by any means the safest way to operate a train. The people who are handling these jobs are some of the newest employees,” Bentley said. “They’ve lowered the bar as far as safety is concerned when it comes to experience and training of the people who are running these remote control trains.”
To become an engineer, Hysell had a year of classroom training and six months working on the job with another engineer before he was allowed to control a train.
The amount of training for remote control operators has also been cause of concern for the Federal Railroad Administration, according to FRA spokesman Warren Flatau.
Flatau said the FRA has addressed the training issue with “great resolve,” and the carriers themselves are “renewing focus on training qualifications.”
As far as the safety of the technology is concerned, the FRA concluded in a May 2004 report on remote control switching the technology has worked well.
Between May 1, 2003, and Nov. 30, 2003, remote control accidents were 13.5 percent lower than train accident rates involving conventional switching, according to the report. The report also found employee injury rates were 57.1 percent lower for remote control trains.
The agency is neutral on the issue, according to Flatau.
“Our bottom line is with any new technology, we want to proceed cautiously. We take seriously any of the concerns that have been raised,” Flatau said. “The fact remains, we have not seen any serious safety issues related to remote control.”
The FRA is required by Congress to release a follow-up report this May.
UTU leaders said they are also working with the major railroads to get more stringent training requirements enacted.
The remote control operator attributes the apparent reduction in accidents to the corresponding reduction in the UP work force, and corporate pressure to under-report accidents.
“If the managers are under-reporting some of these remote control accidents, they’re making up their own statistics here,” the operator said.
Adams, the UP conductor, said, “They’re calling the accidents training incidents, so it’s almost nonreportable.”
In addition, the time period in which the FRA study gathered data is too short to be significant, according to Hysell.
Bromley responded, “We’re very careful about documenting any accidents related to remote control.”
Flatau, too, disagrees statistics have misrepresented.
In addition to voicing safety concerns, opponents of the technology say it also reduces productivity.
Jim Lance, chairman of the local BLET, has started documenting how often UP must send in for additional locomotives to keep remote control operations on pace.
“They can’t get enough done with just that RCO on the yard, so they call in extra jobs to handle the backlog,” Lance said.
According to Hysell, in remotely operated train yards, between 60 and 100 cars can be switched in a shift. With an engineer, he said between 200 and 300 cars can be moved.
Willner, of the UTU, said the results in Canada speak for themselves. Statistics show accidents have gone down, and the technology is still in use there.
“You can come up with 100 examples of new technology replacing old technology and workers not being particularly happy with it, but you can’t stop it,” Willner said.
In Canada, there is no rift between switchmen and engineers. Teamsters Canada Rail Conference represents them both.
George Hucker, national legislative representative with Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, said Canadian National Railway, the first railroad to start using remote control trains in 1985, has stopped expanding the technology and, in many yards, has gone back to conventional yard assignments.
For every shift saved by remote control belt packs, Hucker believes Canadian National Railway has added an extra shift to “clean up what the belt pack can’t handle.” He also has his doubts about improved safety – he said Canadian National Railway doesn’t separate remote control and traditional accidents in its statistics.
“It’s not productive,” Hucker said. “I think it’s cheaper, but I don’t think it’s any more efficient. They’ve just got rid of the most expensive man on the crew.”
In time, Hucker believes UP and other railroads will move away from remote control switching.
Bromley agrees productivity dips during the initial months after implementation. After a while, when operators get used to it, he said productivity returns to levels from when engineers ran the switch trains. Comparing levels of efficiency between the methods is also complicated by the fact that UP hired 5,500 new employees last year, Bromley said.
“We think overall, the benefits are very good to us in terms of better use of our manpower and for safety,” Bromley said. “It’s been very successful. That kind of reflects the experience they’ve had with it in Canada.”