Railroads petitioning for single-person crews

[C855B]

www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/12/22/us/ap-us-solo-train-crews.html

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Good lord... what's next? Half person crews? One engineer remotely operating two or three trains simultaneously?

[peteski]

One engineer remotely operating two or three trains simultaneously?

That's the ticket!
Next will be drone trains. They fly those in the military - why not run trains that way. 


Another good idea would be to "import" bunch of Chinese (or even South of the border) engineers to run trains at 1/10 the salary of the U.S. crew.   

[CodyO]

Good lord... what's next? Half person crews? One engineer remotely operating two or three trains simultaneously?

I read about them talking about having the trains remotely operated using all the new CTC equipment

[basementcalling]

If ya can play Train Dispatcher on the computer, why not in real life?   

Sheesh.  Being the only person on 100 tons of coal or oil in a rolling collection of metal cars sounds like that one person better be DAMN good at what he does and know EVERYTHING.

[Baronjutter]

How would you ever go to the bathroom on a 1 person train??

[mu26aeh]

How would you ever go to the bathroom on a 1 person train??

The windows open don't they ? 

[GaryHinshaw]

I'm surprised that Lac-Mégantic was not specifically called out in that story.  The TSB report did not specifically fault single-person crews, but it was considered to be risk factor.

More generally, I can't count how many times I've heard on the scanner that a train either went into emergency or got caught by the defect detector, and that the conductor was out walking the train.   Leaving a loco unattended on a defective train has to be risky, but that risk could be mitigated by having a staff of rapid responders on call (partially defeating the purpose).

[pjm20]

For me its simple: what happens if the one crew member is incapacitated? This is why planes have two pilots, you need two crew members in order to have a safe guard in an emergency involving the one crew member. This ensures the safety of the operating vehicle, and the other crew member can help the one thats in trouble, even if its to call emergency services.

[learmoia]

That's the ticket!
Next will be drone trains. They fly those in the military - why not run trains that way. 

With In Cab-Camera's, GPS, and RC technology.. This is totally do-able (Especially in Unit Trains and long distance manifest trains..)

Carmen preform an Airtest at the origin.
Lead Unit equipped with High Def Video camera, and GPS/Satellite Remote Control
Setup the engineer in an office with controls, video and audio with an equipped lead locomotive...
And your good to go..

.. Then have a mobile 2 man utility crew with a vehicle within each ### Mile territory to handle 'problems' with all 'drone' Trains..(Broken knuckle, air hose, bad order set out.. Ect.)

And a room full of engineers running drone style operation would cover the 'incapacitated' issue.

With drone style operation you also get into lifestyle improvement for crew members because you take out the 'away from home terminal' aspect of railroading for that operation... Hotel and Taxi costs are reduced..

Not saying it's a good idea (Lac-Mégantic).... But it's do-able... and under the right circumstances, I could see unions being ok with it.

Until...


~Ian

[Puddington]

Just like in a military campaign; all the technology in the world doesn't get it done without boots on the ground. The "reward vs. risk" calculation to the accountants may look in favour of one person crews.... right until the disaster (al la Lac Megantic) and then the calculation goes to hell in a hand cart..... In real world terms however; there is no justification when one considers the scope and size of the environmental damage, property damage and loss of life that is more likely when we place financial gain before common sense risk management.

[learmoia]

Just like in a military campaign; all the technology in the world doesn't get it done without boots on the ground. The "reward vs. risk" calculation to the accountants may look in favour of one person crews.... right until the disaster (al la Lac Megantic) and then the calculation goes to hell in a hand cart..... In real world terms however; there is no justification when one considers the scope and size of the environmental damage, property damage and loss of life that is more likely when we place financial gain before common sense risk management.

True.. Any and All Savings you gained by all single person crew used would be wiped out by the first 'accident'...

I'm guessing they had the same 'concerns' when they went from 5 to 4 person crews.. then 4 to 3 and nixed cabooses, and 3 to 2..   

~Ian

[Scottl]

I'm sure this is a step towards crew-less trains.  Railroading is a dangerous job and I think automation is not a bad thing to take people out of harms way,  There would still need to be a driver of some sort, even remotely.  Many accidents (like Lac Megantic) involve crew error, which on balance may be more of the issue here than a simple salary savings (which is probably trivial in the big picture). 

I suspect a properly designed differential load sensing system could identify many issues with trains automatically (dragging equipment, etc.) and GPS will be a superior accident avoidance mechanism when fully implemented with appropriate checks.

Sad to see the human dimension of railroading disappearing, but it is inevitable I suspect.

[victor miranda]

once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
thats not my department.

accidents are easy to handle... stop the train... dispatch a rep/lawyer.
the 'drone tech' will have a recording of the accident.

I can think that a train is assembled and sent to the next yard.
with a crew ready to handle the train once it arrives.

I am not sure crewless is a good idea, however, I can see it could work.
ooof.

[eric220]

I think automation is really what they're looking toward. If they follow the model of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system, the sole crew member is the conductor. The engineer is a computer, and there's some guy far away monitoring several computer engineers at once. BART has run successfully on that system for over forty years. They carry around 400,000 passengers a day, and have never had a passenger fatality.