WASHINGTON – The Federal Railroad Administration has issued a safety bulletin after a CSX Transportation conductor trainee was killed during a shove movement in Baltimore.
The FRA is investigating the June 26 accident at the Seagirt Marine Terminal at the Port of Baltimore [see “NTSB investigating CSX employee death …,” Trains News Wire, June 27, 2023].
“Based on FRA’s preliminary investigation, a conductor and a conductor trainee (CT) were riding the point on an empty intermodal well car during a shoving move of a train consisting of two locomotives and 43 intermodal well cars,” according to the bulletin issued Thursday. “The CT was using a portable radio with a speaker-microphone attached to his vest to communicate to the locomotive engineer. Preliminary findings suggest that, although the CT may have maintained three-point contact, his posture and position on the car were not stable enough to withstand the forces when the train slowed down and slack ran out. The CT lost his balance and fell forward into the gauge of the rail. The CT was subsequently struck by the rolling equipment, resulting in a fatality.”
The bulletin requests that railroads increase awareness of the dangers of riding moving equipment. And it asks railroads to take four steps:
— Review training programs to ensure they adequately prepare employees to safely and properly ride moving equipment, including the handling of unexpected forces.
— Employees should only ride equipment when necessary for job duties and only after the process for doing so is covered in a job briefing.
— Employees should always face the equipment and maintain at least three point contact to brace for changes in speed and slack action, ensuring their positioning is stable.
— Railroads should review with employees Switching Operations Fatality Analysis recommendation No. 5: Mentor less experienced employees so that they can perform safely.
This is the second FRA bulletin this year involving shove moves. The agency issued an advisory in March following the death of a Norfolk Southern conductor in a grade crossing accident in Cleveland [see “FRA issues safety bulletin …,” News Wire, March 17, 2023].
I imagine it’s hard to ride these well cars because they’re so short so you have to position yourself differently.
Is it possible that the cars were be moved with the air bled off ? Also, the railroads frown on using air for anything. Precious fuel consumption. When I was a conductor I was prepared for slack on shove moves. As an engineer I did my best to provide as smooth a ride as I could. As a CT they probably weren’t prepared for what was coming.
No mention of train handling techniques? In my experience only the best engineers use air these days to control slack on shoving moves. There should have been at least a minimum set on the cars. Then you control the speed with the throttle. But that also leads to the other problem as these high horsepower modern locomotives are not easy to switch with. Especially with the GE/Wabtec units. The electronic controls cause a delayed reaction. The 8 notch throttle has far too big of a powerband between notches. When switching you only use the first two or three. You have to go back and forth between too little power or too much. Then it surges or drops the load causing the slack to run in and out. Which sounds like what caused this tragic accident. I suspect that the high adhesion package that CSX has on most of these locomotives makes the problem worse. A lot of the old EMD’s had a road/switch mode and of course they responded instantly and were fun to run. I miss running the old equipment. But not the new junk.
I personally believe slack should be eliminated in intermodal equipment anyway.
The GE/Wabtec units pull like crazy and are very effective over the road. Switching duty, not so much.
Perhaps the removal of hand-holds and other employee-riding features on freight cars over the years may also be at fault here. New Hampshire North Coast’s latest gravel-train hoppers have riding shelves at the car ends; I myself have avoided the temptation to hop on for a ride at Anderson–I already have the trackage anyways.