President-elect Donald Trump has promised to reduce government regulations. But elections don’t change the FRA’s mission of improving safety, Robert Lauby, the FRA’s chief safety officer, said at a conference on Friday morning.
“Safety isn’t a partisan issue,” Lauby says.
This week, BNSF Railway Executive Chairman Matt Rose told Trains that if the FRA imposes a rule requiring trains to be staffed by two crew members, the railway will sue the Department of Transportation – and win.
“The drafts we’ve seen on the rule don’t meet the giggle test of cost-benefit analysis,” Rose says.
The FRA “has a basic disagreement with where Matt’s coming from,” Lauby says in an interview.
The two-person mandate would not prohibit railroads from seeking exemptions if they want to reduce crew size to one person — or eventually to full automation without a crew aboard, Lauby says.
“We want to be ahead of the curve as railroads move toward one and zero” people in the cab, Lauby says.
The proposed rule would allow the FRA to have a seat at the table when railroads negotiate crew size with labor unions. The agency wants to be able to address any safety issues that may arise from one-person crews, such as how a railroad would respond to blocked grade crossings or other issues, Lauby says.
The FRA could rule on exemption requests within 120 days, he added.
Ed Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads, told Trains that he questioned whether the FRA would be able to meet a self-imposed 120-day deadline. The AAR hopes to be able to kill the proposal when the Office of Management and Budget takes up the matter as part of the review process.
Railroads say the FRA lacks the data to support its conclusion that having two people in the cab is safer than having just one person in the locomotive.
“We’ll work with the current White House to show that the cost-benefit analysis won’t work,” Rose told Trains. “And if the rule goes through anyway, we have the right to sue. And we will win.”
The proposed rule comes at the same time that the transportation department is encouraging the development of self-driving trucks. Technology is also under development that would allow the “platooning” of trucks. In this scenario, one driver would control several self-driving rigs that would follow closely behind the lead truck, saving both fuel and labor costs.
BNSF in 2015 hoped to win labor concessions in the Pacific Northwest that would have permitted just one person in the cab on certain through trains, with a master conductor supervising several trains simultaneously from a company vehicle. Labor unions squashed the idea.
In 2017, the FRA will continue to focus on the deployment of positive train control, crew sleep/rest issues, and its proposed rule requiring electronic braking systems, Lauby says.
Lauby was an invited speaker at the 2016 Rail Trends conference in New York City hosted by Anthony B. Hatch of ABH Consulting and Progressive Railroading magazine.
Mr. Herald, my gut sympathises with your opinion. Sadly, Mr. Dickey’s comment probably resonates with a whole bunch of NJT rail users these days. And if it turns out the head-on at Citric, FL was caused by a crew nodding off there’s gonna be a whole lot more in the general populace thinking crew-less trains are the way to go.
Not to sound like a broken record but the future is not good for train crews if the federal government hugely promotes autonomous//platooning trucks. It’s very clear to me that at least this administration thinks it’s been getting something valuable from being allied with the auto/truck industry. It sees no value coming from the rail side.
The only thing that might save train crew jobs, and indeed the entire freight rail industry, is for federal, state, and local governments to refuse to allow the deployment of autonomous/platooning trucks on their roads and highways. Fat chance of that, disgracefully, since the auto/trucking industries wield huge power over them.
I’ve had that happen on a transcontinental flight in a c130
As a retired BNSF engineer I agree that a one person crew is not safe. It doesn’t matter how rested I was, there were times with 2 and 3 people in the cab, with an alerter everyone fell asleep. It took a rough crossing to wake us up on a Thanksgiving morning in the early 1980’s that prevented a collision with a train stopped ahead of us. We had been talking the whole trip. When we saw the red intermediate signal we thought it was signal trouble until we saw the caboose ahead of us. Luckily we were on an empty coal train and made stop well short of the train ahead. One person in the cab is just asking for trouble.
I’ll say it again–show me the science. Both sides of this argument are relying on anecdotes–which are important but do not tell the whole story. I don’t actually know which option is better, which is truly safer.
In the 1980’s while flying In P-3 aircraft, short of bodies, on a split Japan/Diego Garcia deployment, over the Indian Ocean, in transit between Cubi Point, RP and Dodge, I woke up from a nap, called the flight station about some weather I spotted ahead of us. No response. Went to the cockpit, Both Pilots, and the Flight Engineer were asleep. I hit the engine Fire Warning Test button. It took around 1 minute 30 seconds for the flight deck crew to get it together.
Let the computers run the trains. They will be safer than humans. They don’t get sleep apnea – see Hoboken crash.
I wonder what it says about our future when there are those out there who are demanding more artificial intelligence rather than relying on our own natural intelligence.
The thought of a platoon of trucks on the highway should scare anyone. Can you imagine having to pass four to eight semi’s under the control of one driver. All of this “driverless” technology is plain crazy in my book. As soon as some gets killed or maimed in or by a driverless vehicle, whether highway or rail, and the lawsuits start, just who or whom will be responsible. In addition, there will be the devil to pay the first time a driverless train derails, particularly if it happens in an urban area. There has to be someone to take responsibility and that person must be in the vehicle, be it locomotive or semi-tractor in order to maintain control.
Mr. Price:
While as a retired railroader (35 years as a tower op and train dispatcher) I sympathise with your arguments and concerns, what of the fact, as stated in the article, that USDOT has gone all out to encourage the development and deployment of autonomous trucks/platooning trucks? How the hell does SecTrans Anthony Foxx and his minions (and presumably Pres. Obama) tell the rail industry they cannot reduce labor expenses and then encourage the technology to let the truckers reduce labor expenses to practically zero? As I understand it, Foxx pledged some $4b to the automakers and the techies for autonomous vehicles, presumably including tractor trailers.
Something is seriously wrong with this picture of USDOT giving massive support to rail freight’s arch competitor. Talk about government picking winners and losers. If there is widespread deployment of driverless trucks you will be out of a job no matter what rail management does because the trucking industry will put the rail freight industry out of business.
It isn’t freight rail management causing the problem of how many crew members a freight train needs to operate safely.
Any of you out there think 1 man on a train is a good idea has never been on a train. I’ve been a class one employee over 12 years and the thought of being on a SD 70 or GE C44 or what ever the power is of the day by myself scares the Daylights out of me. Especially at night out in the middle of nowhere. Yes im a big boy but If something happens this so called Master conductor in some Cases may not be able to help at all. Can you really see the carriers spending the money on the right of Ways to make this happen. I DONT!!!
Its greed vs. safety plain and simple. If you don’t buy the safety argument its just greed.
Is this a no brainer or is this rocket science?