(The Houston Chronicle published the following story by L.M. Sixel on its website on September 18.)
HOUSTON — Remote-controlled trains aren’t just a hobby anymore. The full-sized versions of Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends may be rolling through your neighborhood soon — minus the engineer in his striped cap.
Thanks to innovations in engineering, engineers are being replaced by a remote-control box that’s operated by a switchman who may not be riding in the cab. That means that trains are now chugging through rail yards as well as some some city intersections near industrial plants without a driver at the controls.
The railroads claim remote-control locomotive technology is just as safe as having an engineer in the front controlling the starting, stopping and speed of a locomotive, said Herb Yambra, president and legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Division 194 in Houston.
But it takes time for the person walking alongside the tracks to see a problem and then radio back to the person with the controls to stop the train, he said.
It’s like sitting in the back seat and directing the driver to stop when a child runs in front of a car, said Yambra. It’s a lot faster if the driver just hits the brakes himself.
The new remote-control trains made their debut in Houston earlier this summer, and Yambra said there has already been an accident at the Strang train yard in La Porte, where most of the locally manufactured chemicals are loaded.
On Labor Day, a rail car rolled off one track and hit a string of moving rail cars owned by Union Pacific Railroad, derailing 22 of them, said Yambra. There wasn’t anyone in the front to feel the impact and stop the engine, he said.
Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said he wasn’t familiar with the accident but based on the description, the Omaha, Neb.-based spokesman said human error was to blame and not technology.
Davis said all the railroads are using the remote-control technology, which was developed in Canada a decade ago and has contributed to a reduction in the number of rail yard accidents there. Union Pacific began phasing in the remote-control technology last year and hopes to have it in place companywide next year.
The number of people injured when a train begins moving as they’re hooking up the air line has declined where the remote-control technology is used, Davis said. Now the hooking is done by the same person running the remote control.
Davis argues that it isn’t necessary for a person to sit in the cab of a locomotive when trains are switched from one track to another in the rail yard. Nor it is necessary when cars are moved inside a plant or between plants.
Davis said that when a remote-control locomotive goes through a railroad crossing, there is someone controlling a horn who is either sitting in front, standing on a platform or walking alongside the train.
The new technology has boosted productivity and requires fewer workers in the rail yard, he said. The switching engineers are now being shifted to road-engineering jobs.
While the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers contends that engineers have indeed lost jobs because of the new technology, union officers also realize that arguing the need to protect jobs isn’t going to garner sympathy from the public.
So it’s focusing on the safety aspect of the driverless trains, and so far it appears the public is becoming concerned.
Thirty cities and nine counties — none in Texas — have passed resolutions on remote-control trains ranging from an outright ban to the addition of specific safety measures, said Yambra.
He and others in the union hope that the Federal Railroad Administration, which issued guidelines on the remote-control technology in 2001, will take notice of the mounting concern and put more stringent rules and regulations in place.
Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Warren Flatau said the agency is collecting data and observing the safety of the remote-control locomotives and will decide later on whether to make formal rules.
However, he said the agency hasn’t reached any final conclusions and, so far, hasn’t uncovered evidence showing the remote-control locomotives are less safe. He said there is no plan to expand the technology to main-line tracks such as the tracks between two cities.
But the potential safety problems of the the remote-control trains have caught the attention of Houston Councilwoman Carol Alvarado, who represents a district that includes the East End, downtown, the Third Ward and the Hobby Airport area.
After studying the matter, the city’s Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee asked the city attorney to draft a resolution that would ban the use of remote-control locomotives in Houston, Alvarado said.
A lot of rail lines run through Alvarado’s district, and many carry hazardous chemicals.
“I’d feel safer knowing there is a live body operating the train rather than someone with a remote control,” she said. “Remote controls are for TVs and stereos.”
During the last legislative session, there was also a statewide effort to regulate remote-control locomotives.
State Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston, authored a bill to regulate the use of remote-control locomotives, particularly when the trains are carrying hazardous chemicals through public intersections.
The bill didn’t pass, but Alvarado hopes that the widespread community efforts to regulate the remote-control trains will force the federal authorities to pay attention.