The CSX employee who saw his friend run over by two remote-controlled locomotives in a rail yard last year sees a simple solution to prevent similar deaths in the future: two-man crews.
But that idea will not go down well with railroads, which have come to rely heavily on one person controlling trains in the yard with a remote control while they take the trains apart and reassemble them. The tactic, first approved in 2005, began with two people watching for hazards, but today remote control operations by one person are common.
The use of remote-control operators helps limit costs by allowing less experienced workers to move locomotives that help assemble trains – a job that once required licensed engineers, who are among the highest-paid railroad workers. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Trainmen and Engineers and other unions have recently raised concerns about the practice, particularly because remote-control trains are now also being used outside of stations to make local trips to pick up and drop off rail cars.
Railroad companies are confident this method is safe because they have years of experience with it. However, Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Warren Flatau said the agency is taking a close look at the use of remote controls after this death and several other recent incidents. The increasing use of remote-controlled trains outside of stations is also attracting attention.
The National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday issued an update on its investigation into the death of Fred Anderson, releasing transcripts of its interviews with the workers involved and other information. Anderson was killed on September 17, 2023, when he stepped in front of two locomotives at the CSX rail depot in Walbridge, Ohio.
Rail safety has been in the spotlight since last year’s devastating Norfolk Southern rail derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The accident forced evacuations and left residents with lingering health fears after a cocktail of toxic chemicals spilled and burned.
When Anderson died, the remote control operator was sitting on a ladder on the back of the second locomotive and had no view of the front of the train. This practice is perfectly acceptable under federal and railroad regulations because the remote control operator had cleared the area around the tracks he was working on at the beginning of the shift.
Anderson and the other engineer he was working with, George Oliger, had radioed ahead for permission to enter the area, but Anderson was hit by the train anyway. Oliger later told investigators that he believed Anderson’s death would have been prevented if the remote control operator had been at the front of the locomotives or if a conductor or engineer had controlled them from the cab. He said a conventional crew would likely have seen Anderson and rung the bell to alert him to the danger.
“What does an engineer cost for the night? $350? If we had two people on each crew, we would have to spend $350 to save someone’s life or make our yard a little safer. Like I said, if there had only been two people on the crew that night, we wouldn’t be talking,” Oliger said, according to a transcript of his interview.
It’s not clear if anyone could have stopped the locomotives in time before they hit Anderson, but if someone driving the train saw him step onto the tracks, they might have been able to warn him. The locomotives were traveling at 10 mph (16 km/h) when they hit Anderson, and the remote control operator told investigators he believed it would have taken the entire length of a locomotive to stop them at that speed.
But Randy Fannon, chairman of the train drivers’ union’s safety working group, says: “This tragic incident in Ohio involving a remote-controlled train being blindly controlled from behind would not have happened if a train driver had been in the cab.”
Fannon said workers at the rail yard were aware of the risks posed by remote-controlled trains, but the union was “strongly opposed to remote-controlled trains being operated outside fenced-in areas where there could be contact between pedestrians and vehicles at level crossings.”
CSX and any unions directly involved are not permitted to discuss Anderson’s death until the NTSB completes its investigation. The agency said the investigation is focused on training and raising awareness at CSX about Carmen safety procedures.
Both the Federal Railroad Administration and CSX issued warnings after Anderson’s death, reminding all railroad workers to be careful when crossing tracks and to always be aware that a train could be on the tracks at any time. CSX had its managers instruct all maintenance workers to look both ways before ever crossing tracks.
The railroad said last year that it had no plans to make any changes to its remote control operations following Anderson’s death because it appeared all federal and CSX rules had been followed at the time.
Safety statistics on railroad accidents do not indicate how safe this procedure is, since the Federal Railroad Administration (FEMA) reports do not distinguish between incidents involving remote-controlled trains and incidents involving trains controlled by train drivers and conductors.
The railway workers’ union “Brotherhood Carmen” announced that three of its members had died in incidents involving remote-controlled trains since 2015.
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