LRC-Remote Control

Anybody out there in choo choo land been through remote control training yet? I am a relative New Hire (just under 5 years as a trainman and about half that as Engineer) and I am being told to get ready for the LRC training. The older guys are either retiring or trying to refuse based upon the lack of a current agreement. I think there is an agreement with UTU for the pilot so I and others are stuck (we are set back to Conductor at the moment).

All they have told us is it is 2 weeks. One week classroom and one on the ground in the yard with the instructor and a train...

All input appreciated.

Rick

 

Yea, That's how it is here on Conrail in Detroit. Nobody with any type of seniority bid the job in so the youngest guys are being trained on the "beltpacks", a lot of ill will acc't older engr's are going to be displaced by fairly new hires. One week of classroom followed by one week of training with the remote control eng. It is a thing of the future, more T&E jobs will fall by the wayside, glad I'm a yardmaster.

 

Hey Fred-

Thaks for the input. I am prior rights Conrail and I sure wish there was part of the SAA around here. Went to Engine School in Conway right after split with some of the SAA guys from Philly and Joisey. As you say, I doubt those of us new hires will get much choice. A lot of the old heads who stayed in this area are taking 30/60 and we have enough road jobs so very few older Engineers will be displaced anyhow. Be interesting to see if they put the R/C on some decent switch engines though. We have been switching with Dash 8s and 9s which I HATE. Wish I went with CSX when I had the chance.

Hang in there brother...

Rick

 

As usual, lots of confusion and rumors flying around. Nobody around here knows when or if we'll see remote operation. No mention yet of anybody going for the training. Most of our switching is done up against main line signals or off mains anyway so how do you protect that? And as you say, who's going to put a remote box in a Dash 9 when that's all you've got in the yard to switch with? They tried that dedicated engine idea where units would stay in one place except when it had to go for MI but that went out the window when the first road train lacked for power. So how are they going to keep the remotes where they need them? It's gonna be nothing if not interesting to watch how this all shakes out.

 

Interesting thought. One of our terminals is like that too. The west end lead heads directly out on the mainline. The difference is it has a switching indication on the signal, but what condolence that will be the first time a rookie RCO runs through the signal and headons a through freight.

 

Back when we were designing those remotes, we also had a model that would plug into the MU cables on any engine so as many as eight under power could be handled by the back pack, (now a belt pack). Sorry guys, it was my job at the time. My only choice was design what I was told, or quit, and I had a family to feed, like the whole engineering dept.

Phase One was a small single engine unit that would be tested for yard switching.

Phase Two was a back pack that would plug into the MU of any engine and make it a remote ground controlled unit to make up strings and deploy onto ready tracks.

Phase Three ( local area short line or city operations) was a radio package that would handle several trains per schedule out onto the main line from a central control computer screen where each would be turned over to a computer program to run the route doing set-outs, pickups and go to destination and shut down upon arrival.

Phase Four was to be a fully automated Main Line system to control whole trains between towns, and or destinations. These would operate like expresses, no stops, no one on board.

Phase Five was in the works when I retired. It was to be the high speed passenger only automated, integrated, computer controlled passenger transporters that could set out a passenger module on the fly and re-make the train to continue to trip, all without stopping.

We were told there would eventually be NO human on board any train, except passengers, and that "train" was different than the freight "transport modules". There will be no rail crossings on any of the future "Trains".

Diesel engines as you know them today, wil be gone the way of the steam engine. A few Diesels might be preserved as antiquest in museums. Rails, wheels and axels will be melted down and made into something useful.

You better get good at playing computer games, because that is who will be operating the trains of the future.

I'm goin' back to the roundhouse! These thoughts are killin' me.

 

When you think of this it pains you and me both.
They honestly think they can safetly run trains over the road "unmanned". Pure and simple fact: What happens when something goes wrong, ie air hose, knuckle, air leakage uncontrollable, drawbar, small derailment, hot box detected so on. No matter how much the railroad says they do, you can't stop those things from happening.

Some say that shortlines and grain terminals have made this work, Ya they have, but ON A SMALL SCALE. We are now talking about large scale yards and so on. Fact is, railroads that have RCU's in there major yards are calling back engineers in masses to work because the RCO's can't keep up. No matter what the training is, you can't replace the seat of the pants feeling the engineer has. RCU's are a major pain in the butt, maybe the railroads will see this soon.

 

THey're using RCU SD9s at the Balmer hump yard in Seattle WA.

To me it seems that RCU has a place, but a limited one. Where I can see them being useful is in applications like hump yards where the engineer can't really see whats going on and is relying on instructions from someone on the ground. if the engineer were at the hump tower then he or she could immediatly see what was happening with the process and coule respond instantly.

Imagine this for a moment. Each train is equipped with RCU gear and has a beltpack. When operating over the road the train is operated much as trains are today, but when the train stops to switch cars the engineer and conductor dismount and both work from the ground. the "improved beltpak" in this vision has integrated radio communications with the dispatcher and integrated cab signals if needed. Such a device would allow an engineer to do everything he can from the cab of the locomnotive, without being restricted to the cab. It would also allow him or her to assist the condustor, as well as see the end of the train when switching, shoving, etc. One consistent comment I've heard from engineers I've met is that "Three to the joint" can mean anything from 10 car lengths to 10 yards, depending on who you're working with.

I see the value of RC technology as allowing the engineer to control his or her train from someplece other than the cab. I don't think it's going to be realistically feasable to eliminate the crew from the train, even if it is technically possible.

 

Maybe the engineer could go to the diner across the stree for coffee and donuts while switching the cars around

 

Anybody remember something about one of the western roads trying to run road trains by remote control sometime back? In my fuzzy memory I think I recall a tale of that not working out too well when the train went into tunnels and such and the remote operator lost contact with the train.
Since it's near impossible sometimes to even keep a marker in communication with an HOTD less than a mile away, I wonder how you'd keep a much more distant remote control transmitter talking to a train out in the boonies. Hope there's better coverage than my cell phone or the rr radio towers. Satellite perhaps? Hmmmmm.