On May 15, Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) signed Assembly Bill 337 into law, just two months after Colorado’s governor signed a similar law. Similar legislation has been passed in California, Arizona, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.
Matt Parker, Nevada State Legislative Board Chairman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, says the bill will improve safety for both railroaders and communities.
“We let legislators know that A.B. 337 should be passed so when things go wrong, two trained and experienced crew members are in the train cab to help, no matter what,” Parker says. “This is about the safety of the communities we travel through – not just for the train crews, but more importantly for the residents of those communities.”
Nevada previously had a crew size law that dates back to 1909 and required at least five people aboard the train. That was repealed back in the 1980s.
Two-person crew bills have been introduced in more than a dozen state legislatures this year as groups like BLET and SMART Transportation Division push for crew size protections across the county. Despite push back from the industry, Colorado enacted a crew law back in March, Other states have not been as successful. Wyoming’s House of Representatives passed a two-person crew bill this spring but it died in the state Senate.
John Risch, national legislative director for SMART Transportation Division, tells his members at the time not to be discouraged when two-person crew legislation fails.
“Even when we come up a tad short in a state, it should not be viewed as a failure, but instead the building block to the next legislative session,” Risch writes.
The railroad industry, including the Association of American Railroads, has long argued that multiple people on a train does not improve safety.
A co-worker of mine tells the story of when his Engineer began choking on his sandwich. The conductor was there to provide the heimlech maneuver which not only saved the Engineer’s life, but prevented a derailment which could have cost the life’s of others.
One man crew idea is insane. Yet, I have made many runs with just me running the train.
What will kill the driverless car will be a legal law making the designer of the software libel if the car hits and kill someone. The computer failure traced back to the computer manufacturer and designer.
Don’t shoot the messenger, but here’s what railroads will soon be competing against:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-einride-autonomous-sweden/driverless-electric-truck-starts-deliveries-on-swedish-public-road-idUSKCN1SL0NC
This is a fight the railroads will likely lose. Just as over-regulations from the 1920’s nearly killed the industry in the 60’s and 70’s.
Chris Thompson, you got that right.
Sweden…smaller than California….may work there. …pipe dream by anti employee corporations in the US
I look forward to the governor signing the one driver per truck legislation too.
Meanwhile, trucks are steadily moving toward driverless, electric operations.
I believe some countries have one man crew on their freight trains for distances under a certain mileage or time of operation. Haven’t heard about any problems with it. Obviously its not good for long freight operations but I can see where it would work for shorter trips, particularly when its the only train operating over that line at the time.
FWIW, about 20 years ago I was talking to a recently retired Risk Manager of a Class 1 and he told me the general rule was the more humans involved in the operation of a train the more chances something would go wrong. If he’s still alive, I wonder what he thinks about driverless vehicles.
The first time a driverless truck, or train for that matter, crashes and causes the deaths of innocent people that’ll be the end of it. I for one don’t want any part of driverless anything sharing the road with me or my friends and family. No way it will ever be safe.
With the recent wrecks of driverless cars I can’t see where any one would want to go that way.
How many of your, not in our lifetime, driverless electric trucks will be required to handle all the containers on just a single, two or one man, train? Hundreds? They aren’t going to be cheap. How many trucking companies are going to buy tens of thousands of these dream trucks rather than load the containers on a train and have a few hundred trucks at the end points to make the final deliveries?