Western Railroad Discussion > What Did the Railroads Do To Deserve This?

"They can't be steered. They take up to a mile to stop. Their drivers often work 60 to 100 hour a week. They transport millions of tons of hazardous material. They are America's trains, and more and more often, they are running off the tracks."
" Survivors and victims recall the terror and pain of their tragic encounters with trains. And in exclusive interviews, legislators, high-ranking government officials and railroad personnel detail the many safety problems the industry faces."

So starts the description of The History Channels Investigative Reports: Danger on the Rails. How can one of the safer transportation modes get this bad a rap? I personally feel a heck of a lot better with things moving on the rails as opposed to trucks on I-95 here in Philadelphia. Has any rail emplyee on this board actually worked a hundred hour week? What's the longeest week you've put in? Are these safety problems real or percieved?

I'm guessing that the shock value of a freight train de-railing, or plastering a mini-van at a crossing is what drives these things.

John R
http://www.trainweb.org/phllocal

chessie-2117 wrote:


> " Survivors and victims recall the terror and pain of their
> tragic encounters with trains.

For the most part there is a simple solution:
Stop, Look, and Listen.

LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've never been hurt by a train because I know enough not to get in front of one.

Welcome to the truth. 100 hours a week? How about 120 hours a week. Not just one week here and there- week after week, after week. I have worked 90 straight days 12 hours a day more than once. But, 7 times 12 is only 84 hours, you say. True- but we worked 11 hours and 59 minutes on duty, and 8 hours off. Factor that into the equation. Also factor in hogging out and waiting 3-4 hours to be removed from the train.

When I finally had enough, I was averaging 5,000 hours a year working for the UP. Most of my coworkers are still doing that.

I was lucky- I never ran into another train when I dozed off at the throttle, but I did get rear-ended by someone that fell asleep.

You must be new to this board if you have never heard some of us talk about the long hours working on the railroad. It is not the exception- it is the rule.

As Jack Nicholson's character said, "The truth? You can't handle the truth!"

And it was uphill both ways in the snow, too.

The last two weeks of June, I work 164 hours. The first two weeks of July I worked 133 hours. FOr the five days starting June 16th I have worked 61 hours and 15 minutes. My point being is that yes railroad workers work long hours.

Report on Accidents and defered maintenance are not new, FRA knows, Union knows, Newspapers know, Railroads know but nobody is doing anything about it as you can see in following article.

By SETH BORENSTEIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Train accidents have increased 15 percent in the past three years, and federal rail safety experts suspect that lax maintenance is a factor.

Derailments caused by faulty tracks -- suspected in the recent Amtrak Auto Train derailment in Florida -- have increased sharply. The Florida accident, the recent fatal collision of two trains in California, and plans to ship nuclear waste by rail to Yucca Mountain, Nev., are focusing attention on rail safety.

According to federal figures analyzed by Knight Ridder Newspapers, the number of train derailments in 2001 was the highest since 1985.

The figures also show that Kansas ranked ninth in the number of train accidents, not including highway grade crossings, from 1995 through 2001, with 545. Missouri ranked 12th, with 503.

Historically, Kansas has a high amount of rail activity because it has thousands of miles of track, more than most states.

Overall, 2001 was the worst safety year in at least a decade in 14 categories, including rear-end collisions, accidents caused by faulty equipment, and crashes with automobiles. The year 2000 was the worst in five categories.

"Is it a concern to this industry? Of course it is," said Charles E. Dettmann, executive vice president for safety of the Association of American Railroads, the industry's Washington lobbying organization.

Dettmann described the recent accident increases as small compared with dramatic declines in rail accidents over the past 25 years.

"Yes, we have inched up (in accidents and derailments), albeit from the lowest point in history from 1996 to 1997," Dettmann said. "Three or four innings doesn't make a game."

Dramatic increases in rail traffic help explain the recent surge in accidents, especially derailments, which are up 32 percent since 1998. But after adjusting for added traffic, derailments are still up sharply. Accidents -- a category that comprises collisions, explosions, auto crashes and other problems -- are up, too.

To explain the increases, Warren Flatau, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration in Washington, and others suggested maintenance problems.

"We've seen evidence in some cases that some railroads have done exactly that -- that they have deferred maintenance," Flatau said. He concurred with Dettmann that there had been improvement in rail safety since the 1970s.

Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant for Nevada, which is fighting the nuclear waste shipments, also noted economic squeezes.

"The railroads have tried to put the pressure on their unions," he said. "They've cut back personnel. They've basically overloaded people."

Unions say the number of union rail maintenance workers is half what it was 20 years ago.

"The reality is that our forces are stretched pretty thin," said Rick Inclima, director of safety for the Brotherhood of Maintenance Way Employees, a national union based in Southfield, Mich.

Workers are being replaced by high-tech sensors and equipment that do the job better, Dettmann said.

Most accidents are minor, he said, and occur in side yards and at slow speeds. Statistics show, however, that accidents on main lines and at higher speeds in 2001 were the worst in a decade.

The big safety improvements in the 1980s followed deregulations that made owning railroads more profitable. That freed the industry to invest more money in new track, training, equipment and technology, Dettmann said.

Now there are no easy safety improvements left, he said, no "low-hanging fruit."

Accidents by states

States with the most train accidents (not including highway grade crossings) from 1995 through 2001, according to the Federal Railroad Administration:

• Texas: 1,805

• Illinois: 1,694

• California: 992

• New York: 787

• Pennsylvania: 710

• Iowa: 604

• Ohio: 601

• Nebraska: 589

• Kansas: 556

• Minnesota: 545

• Louisiana: 510

• Missouri: 503

I think the most I worked was about 30 straight days.....sometime doubling back the same day. There was a guy I met on the UP who worked something like 56 days in a row and laid off one day just to relax.....only to be bothered at home by a trainmaster wanting to know why he took time off.


It is all about greed.....they work you to the point of exhaustion....then if one mental lapse results in an accident.....the blame is placed on your shoulders.

Then you have the bNSf which talks out of both sides of their mouths.

They say they are working on work/rest rules, then they pull the availability policy out of their hat saying you have to be available for work 75% of the week and 75% of the weekend.

You could make a big dent in the crew fatigue problem by keeping the crew on the train.

(Every time I mention this, I am cursed by some union people. But beyond their cursing, and their ludite atitude toward any change, they've never 'reasoned' against the idea.)

Tow boat crews don't take the barges 250 miles downriver, then pull over and change crews. No, they go off duty and retire to a prepared meal and a private room.

Many train crews could do the same.

For example, put a seven person crew on a coal train out of Wyoming for Texas. That would be three engineer/conductor sets and one cook. There would be a passenger car with sleeping, lounge, and dining facilities. Each crew member would have a private sleeping room with a cell phone, internet access and satalite TV.

Each engineer/conductor set would work four hours on/eight hours off on a regular schedule. Appropriate meals would be provided.

After so much time of this, maybe two weeks, the crew would be given a week off at home.

Think about it. No more unpredictable work schedules, no more being stranded in the middle of nowhere waiting hours for a relief crew, predictable no stress time at home with the wife and kids. Just think about it.

I would have liked to give rabiteer's idea a try. This was even put forth as a remedy back in the 70s. The railroads had even gone so far as to set down how it would work out. This was going to be tried on grain trains during the grain season. But the FRA said no- you can't properly obtain rest on the train.

But, if we had a lounge sleeper on the rear instead of a caboose, it would have worked. I was all for giving it a try back then. This was a deal between the Missouri Pacific, the Illinois Central, and Cargill. Too bad it fell through.

Among other things, they largely have adopted a public relations stance of trying to be as invisible as possible. If you're consistently putting your best foot forward in the public light, 'expose's like this have less of an impact. But when they appear in more or less of a vacuum, they carry a lot more weight by comparison.

Please note, this is not to say the railroads are perfect or that the 'expose' is erroneous, biased, or exaggerated. One could argue either way.

But back to the topic of the post, what the railroads have done to deserve this, they have partly done it to themselves by not maintining a higher and more positive public profile.

FWIW.