(The Daily Nonpareil posted the following article by Greg Jerrett on its website on March 7.)
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — If you thought playing with toy trains was fun, imagine the rush of playing with the full-size models right in the rail yard.
That is the sole providence of Union Pacific switchmen and a relatively new technology that could be safer and more productive, according to Union Pacific Director of Public Affairs John Bromley.
Bromley said that new radio-controlled devices will be used by switchmen in the Council Bluffs yard by the spring of 2004, but the Union Pacific has been using the devices with great success for the last year in other yards.
“It takes the engineer out of the locomotive in the yard and gives a radio-controlled device to a switchman when he’s switching in a switching yard,” Bromley said. “The switchman can be on the cars or on the ground watching it from a distance.”
Council Bluffs is near the end of the implementation process. By the time the local yards are ready to go remote controlled, they will inherit a kink-free system, though Bromley said the program has already yielded good results in terms of safety.
“The system is strictly for switching cars,” he said. “What we do currently is have the engineer on the train and the switchman in the yard. They pass signals back and forth by radio or by hand signals. This just eliminates the middle man.
“The technology has been in extensive use in Canada for about 10 years, and they’ve seen significant reduction in yard switching accidents. We’ve seen significant results at the Union Pacific in the yards where we are implementing it.”
Bromley said there has been a shortage of engineers in recent years and that the remote-controlled engines should not put anyone out of work.
“The engineers impacted by this will go out on the long haul trains; and because we’ve had a shortage of engineers, this shouldn’t impact anyone,” Bromley said. “In fact, we should see a gain in productivity out of it as well as seeing increased safety in switching yards.”
U.P. spokesman Bob Turner said in an Omaha World-Herald story published Feb. 27, that U.P. will be cutting some 400 administrative jobs, mostly in its Omaha office, and 600 train jobs, mostly engineers, and that the train jobs will be cut as U.P. uses more remote-control devices in its locomotives.
According to the same article, The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, a Denver-based labor union representing train engineers, has filed a lawsuit to stop U.P. from using remote-controlled locomotives without trained and certified engineers.
The union’s position is that remote-controlled locomotives will eliminate engineer jobs and pose a safety threat to rail employees and the public. It would also mean “drastic, arbitrary change in work assignments” that should be subject to negotiation between the union and the company.
BLE spokesman John Bentley said BLE is involved in several lawsuits over remote-controlled trains and that one was filed as recently as May 15, 2002.
“It is part of our argument that the railroads are taking work that had been performed by local engineers who are federally certified to operate a train, who have eight months training plus years of on-the-job training, and they are replacing them with switchmen with a couple of weeks training.”
Bromley said that accidents occur when signals between engineers and switchmen get crossed. Engineer cannot always see switchmen in the yard, but if switchmen are controlling the trains they would normally give signals to, they can make sure they are clear.
According to Bentley, several cities throughout the country have attempted to ban remote control operations including Cleveland, which asked for stronger safety measures. However, Bentley said, local communities have little to say about the matter because railroad operations are not subject to local laws.
“Railroads are governed by federal law that supersedes local regulations, but the fact that so many cities have adopted anti-remote control laws shows that the general public is not comfortable with the idea,” Bentley said.