Aaron Ratledge, BNSF’s general director of operating practices, explained the practice during a seminar at the Railway Supply Institute conference last week.
Ratledge said that on an average day the railroad runs about 2,500 train trips with PTC and experiences about 100 penalty brake applications. This number includes penalties caused in error as the technology is tested and refined.
BNSF investigates all heavy braking incidents, which includes PTC penalties as well as emergency brake applications initiated by the crew.
When this investigation involves a PTC application, Ratledge said the question naturally arises: what was the crew doing? BNSF¹s approximately 1,600 inward-facing cameras often hold the answer. Ratledge said that contrary to the sleep or inattention one might assume, the majority of investigations showed the crew to be awake and engaged doing their jobs. He said that this discovery softened some of the resistance the railroad faced to the cameras.
Even if the crew was paying attention, they may still face repercussions. Discipline is based on the engineer¹s actions leading up to the penalty application. Ratledge gave a hypothetical situation of a crew approaching a slow order exceeding the speed allowed by the PTC system. If the engineer had applied the brake and was slowing the train, just not quickly enough, the railroad would be more lenient than if no brake application had been made. Consequences may include revoking the engineer if a certain threshold is met.
According to the federal regulations governing locomotive engineers, these decertifiable events include passing a stop signal, exceeding the speed limit by at least 10 mph, occupying main track without authority, failing to conduct proper brake tests, or tampering with locomotive safer devices like deadmen¹s pedals or alerters.
Ratledge said that Trip Optimizer, a cruise control-like system, helps reduce speeding events.
PTC penalty applications are typically service brake applications. The system only applies the emergency brakes if it calculates that a service application won¹t stop the train within a safe distance. On BNSF, the train must make a complete stop before the brakes can be reset to continue.
An audience member at the presentation in Nashville asked how many wrecks PTC had already prevented. Ratledge said that any of the decertifiable events could have resulted in a wreck, but it¹s impossible to say what would have happened without PTC intervention.
Amy Casas, spokesperson for BNSF, says PTC-related investigations offer a “learning opportunity” for everyone involved.
“We use all these instances as learning opportunities and try to better understand why the PTC system didn’t engage properly,” Casas tells Trains News Wire. “In instances when the crew’s actions contribute to the issue, we take the opportunity to have a discussion on why it occurred so we can all learn from the experience.”
Unions however are less than thrilled with the prospects of additional investigations. John Risch, national legislative director for SMART, says railroads are using new technology to punish crews.
“The freight railroad industry is using all these new technologies to dramatically increase the surveillance of our operating crew members. PTC, inward cameras, trip optimizer, leader and drones. All of it is being used for the extreme surveillance of our members and with it they are issuing petty discipline to crews that are working 60 hour work weeks at all hours of the day and night and the vast majority have no set work schedules,” he says.
It seems to me that the Union is saying that “yes, rules are being broken, but it’s because the crews are overworked and don’t have set schedules”. So is there a correlation between these emergency brake applications and the condition of the crew? If so, then that sounds like a significant safety issue that needs to be corrected. If not, then that excuse goes out the window.
Matthew: An emergency brake application could result from an obstruction appearing as the train approached, say a rockslide which trips a slide detector or breaks a rail, or a runaway freight car coming out of an industry spur.
Just because PTC initiated a penalty brake application doesn’t mean the engineer was breaking any rules or would have experienced a decertifiable event. Every train brakes differently. When Amtrak installed PTC on the NEC between Boston and New Haven 18 years ago, many engineers had to adjust their braking points because the PTC would get nervous before the brake actually needed to be applied.
Having worked through freight service for 15 years, some of the best and safest engineers ran their trains aggressively without endangering anybody. Before passing judgement on the engineer, I would advise these supervisors to get out and ride with some of the crews instead of assessing guilt or innocence from an event data recorder. This is a new system, and operating crews are still getting used to it. PTC doesn’t know the weight of your train, rail conditions, or how effective the train’s air and dynamic brakes are. We all like backup systems, but management can’t paint every incident with the same broad brush.
Curious in what instance PTC would require a emergency brake application? PTC should have been way ahead of the game, by going into suppression long before a emergency application was necessary.
“There are lies. Damned lies. And statistics.” Benjamin Disraeli.
Let’s see actual numbers of “inattentive” crew incidences before we can make conclusions. Like all statistics, these events each require details before conclusions can be drawn.