Canadian Railroads Fight New Crew Fatigue Rules

Wait a minute. This article seems like an example of that American expression – talking out of both sides of your mouth. Teamsters of Canada, representing the train drivers seems to want predictable working (& resting) hours for their members but recently a similar association called BLET in the USA passed a resolution demanding 2-man crews for all trains, even the ones running in PTC territory of the future. Sure that proposed lone driver in PTC territory could still be subjected to these unpredictable working schedule but at least the consequence of sleeping in PTC territory don’t seem to be as catastrophic (in theory) if this driver’s authority can be easily overruled by the PTC system. Maybe partial automation with PTC would lead the way to fully autonomous train operations in the US as currently in Western Australia. I know someone, likely a train operator on this forum opposed me on an earlier post on PTC highlighting the non-similarity between operating in the barren Western Australian territory to the populated North American operating environment but the autonomous technology used in Western Australia was developed & applied by engineers right here in the US & I don’t see why they cannot apply the best practices learnt from Western Australia for autonomous trains here in their home country.

Maybe completely separating the railroad right-of-way & combining it with fully autonomous (not remote) train operations would reduce fatigue for railroad employees while greatly improving safety.

These are just my opinion.

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

While I think PTC is a good backup system for dispatching and crew safety, I highly doubt anyone is going to be going the route of full automation as the upfront capital costs would be astronomical, as well as the potential issues of hacking the system as this is a concern for the electrical grid, airport traffic controls as well as financial systems.

I would think if there was any improvement to be done on Class One's it would be the equally astronomical project of electrifying heavily trafficked main lines which is a subject thats been looked at for decades off and on.

Wyhog's experience is far from unique in railroading according to my own acquaintances and I think exhaustion and sleep deprivation has been swept under the rug for too long...a situation I doubt would be tolerated in another business. 

Wyhog's experience is far from unique in railroading according to my own acquaintances and I think exhaustion and sleep deprivation has been swept under the rug for too long...a situation I doubt would be tolerated in another business. 

Construction will work ones butt off as I've run cranes on many a midwest power plant jobs where we work 16 hours a day 7 days a week for months on end. No big deal and if I didn't like that career I could always quit.

But one of these days someone's body is going to say "No mas", at the wrong time, and many people are going to get killed.

 Have yet to read the article,but when it comes to crew rest cycles and being rested,anything that's a positive for crews is a positive for the public.

 I don't know how many times that I've woke up either at home or away from home not even realizing if it was day or night and even wondering sometimes where I was at home or away just because it seems I was running into myself because of lack of proper rest.

 Call windows in my opinion would fix a lot of the rest problems,already tried on our territory in Williamson,WV and the crews loved it,the company didn't.

 I'll have to take the time to read up on Canada's answer .

Wyhog is right try working different hours everyday. never knowing when you will be called or worse postponed. Drove truck most my working days and road driving was the worst same schedule as RR crews.Usually start at sundown or three AM. Sleeping during the daytime is not good sleep.   And we had better regulations, the company always as a way around things. A good night of driving meant you had a boring trip, if it wasn't boring that means something didn't go right.

Clem

A future competitor that does not sleep? Supposedly a decade out.

Kind of a scary possibility..sharing the road with these things. 

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/m...nge-future-shipping/

Yep, Wyhog is unfortunately right.  You could end your run and be 8 out for your next trip.  After 4 of those ahead of you call in sick, one guy bumps into another job, the next guy transfers to another yard, and the next guy gets called right out, guess what???  All of a sudden you are first out and you haven't even left the yard office.  It does happen.

Rick