Third train wreck in Rockview in past 4 months.....

Tom, I am glad I read all the posts (including yours) before I responded because as a retired engineer, I was very offended by the remark of REAL engineers, implying that there are none now. I can assure you that there have been, unfortunately, train wrecks all through railroading history even when they still had REAL engineers. Some of them are the crew's fault and some are not. I agree wholeheartedly with your comment "unless you have lived the life and worked on your rest, it is difficult to understand the fatigue factor". There are many factors to consider before blanket comments are made. I am just glad that no one was killed (at least as far as I have been able to find out), and hope that the issue can be settled to prevent future issues like this one.

I would echo your comment about signal failure which does happen periodically. We had an incident in Tulsa when the signal department had been testing signals just east of the depot, and a jumper wire was accidentally left in place. This caused the signal to display green constantly irregardless of track condition. A yard crew had left the main and left the switch open which should have caused the signal to display red, but it didn't. A train westbound ran through the switch. Fortunately, the yard crew were clear of the main, and no collision occured. Signal malfunction is rare, I agree, but it does happen.

As far as Keith's explanation is concerned, he is partially mistaken about the dark signal. You must stop short of a dark signal if you are proceeding at approach or running at restricted speed. Stopping as soon as possible with good train handling procedures is required if the dark signal followed a signal that allowed a speed greater than approach. Officials remove light bulbs to perform the dark signal test all the time, and no one has violated the rule of stopping before any part of the leading wheels passes the signal under those conditions. I would certainly place the train in emergency if I was approaching an interlocking at greater than approach only to find the interlocking signal dark. I did that once east bound at Pierce City when I had a green approaching the interlocking but a red signal at the interlocking itself. The conductor and rear brakement on the caboose were not happy with that, but I told them that the head end crew not the caboose crew was in danger from some one running an oppossing red signal.

Terry Jankowski

 

Tom, I laughed out loud when I read your post. I wonder how the officials explained that screw up to their superiors.

Terry Jankowski

 

The NTSB will find out what the cause is, I would guess they already know. It is impossible to know how difficult the life is until you have lived and walked the walk so to speak. I have tried, to explain, with little success, its not possible to know. I have worked many derailments where lives were lost. Seems like the 80's was the worst, human failure, all of them. As to the contributing cause, most all is crew management. It might help me, what kind of interlocking is at this location?
Manual or Automatic?
William Jackson

 

Chris, It is interesting to me that you mentioned the BN rest program as I was on the Tulsa Safety Committee at the time and was sent to Ft. Worth for a two day seminar on teaching proper rest as part of the biannual rules classes. While I did learn a lot about sleep, the fly in the ointment was that a crew could be called eight hours (short rest) after tying up. In Tulsa we had an hour and a half call time, so the call could come six and one half hours after tying up. By the time an engineer or conductor got home (or the hotel if on the other end end of the run) and did what ever needed to be done before going to bed, the actual available sleep time was four hours or less. If you have ever tried to go to sleep in the middle of the afternoon, or still wound up from your day, then you know how hard it is to get to sleep sometimes. During certain times of the year the extra board workers could be called for multiple short rest tours of duty. I remember knowing on multiple occasions that, according to the lineup, I stood for a train around midnight. When the call time would come, and no call, I would start to wonder if I had missed a call. This made dropping off to sleep even more difficult. Naturally, when I finally did drop off, it wouldn't be long before I would get the call. The last few years I worked, I worked an evening road switcher with a regular call time of 6:00pm. I have been called as late as 2:30am which made for a tour, and this would also throw off the subsequent day's schedules. While that call time was the worst, we had many nights when we would be called several hours after the normal call time. Irregular sleep patterns are very hard on the body physically, mentally, and emotionally, and yet, the railroad expected the crews working on short rest to perform to their optimum. Remember, that the hours of service law allowed for crews to work twelve hours at a time. If a crew died on the road, by the time the crew hauler picked them up and got them to the tie up point, the time on duty would be extended. There was discussion about the time I retired to change the law so that a crew would get eight hours of undisturbed sleep. I don't know if this was ever implemented or not.

I hope this information is helpful to understand a little better what Tom and Bill referred to earlier about living the life and walking the walk. Maintenance of way employees did not come under the hours of service and could be required to work even longer when the need arose.

I enjoyed, for the most part, my career on the railroad, but the rest issue was one aspect that has had a negative long term effect on me. Now that I have retired, it seems that my body is trying to catch up on all the missed sleep.

Terry Jankowski

 

I wouldn't trade the life and liked most all my assignments. The dollars were really good, the standard of living. The retirement is the absolute kicker.
Actually, a lot of the time, you are putting in the hours of two people. With MOW most of my life 12 hrs was almost a daily occurrence. Lots of 24's many 36's and several 48 hour tours. Derailments, patrolling after storms, broken rail's, snow, washouts and the list goes on. I too feel the long term effect. It's a little strange, I didn't think I would have that in retirement. Guess you get the retirement for a reason, you not good for much of anything else. I loved it, but am shot after 40 years.
William Jackson

I hope this information is helpful to understand a little better what Tom and Bill referred to earlier about living the life and walking the walk. Maintenance of way employees did not come under the hours of service and could be required to work even longer when the need arose.

I enjoyed, for the most part, my career on the railroad, but the rest issue was one aspect that has had a negative long term effect on me. Now that I have retired, it seems that my body is trying to catch up on all the missed sleep.

 

Terry,
I didn't mean to offend you with my comment REAL engineers. What I meant to imply was that so many of the operations today are computer driven and IMHO a locomotive requires a human with their hand on the throttle and not on a computer key. Computers are great when they work but they're no replacement for a human being. Just my two cents....George

 

George, I agree with your post and know exactly what you were referencing.
I have known a few pilots who were gung-ho with the computers - but not what I would consider real pilots ... thus allowing the computer to get them into trouble by not monitoring the computer close enough.
Nuff said, I have probably offended too many already.

P.S. I could write a novel about "lack of crew rest". The FAA's minimum of 8 hrs off block to block encompassed travel time to-fro the hotel and a one hr report time reducing the actual rest time down to 4.5 to 5.5 hrs max.

 

Roger, the change in the rest is good to know. That should certainly help. I agree with you that the lineups probably will never be what they should be, and this contributes to fatigue and family life issues.

Chris, thanks for your response. I really feel for today's engineers because they are constantly being monitored for rules compliances (mainly for fuel consumption purposes), and, yet they must still be prepared to handle the train if need be. In the old days, we could use which ever method of train handling/braking we wanted to (stretch braking). After stretch braking was outlawed, I was told the story of an engineer who was handling a business car on the rear of his train out of Springfield using dynamic brakes. After a short while, the official in the business car instructed the engineer to stop using dynamics and start using stretch braking. Double standard, I guess, because if the engineer had used stretch braking on his own, he would have been in trouble. I am just glad I am retired now.


Terry Jankowski