UTU Local 426   Spokane, WA

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In what may be a first for rail labor, a major shipper organization told Congress it shares with train and engine service employees an urgent safety concern.

Specifically, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) told the House Railroad Subcommittee that “proposals to permit one-person train crews should not be considered until proven technology solutions are in place to allow for safe operations with a single crew member.”

Recently, officials of the ACC met with UTU International President Paul Thompson, who provided a primer on rail safety and efforts by the carriers to compromise that safety by reducing crew size in an effort to boost profits.

Thompson provided evidence from federal regulatory agency hearings and other sources where carrier officials admitted that so-called positive train control technology is still in the experimental stage and its reliability is far from a level that would permit computers to take over from conductors and engineers the safe operation of freight trains.

In fact, the FBI has warned that the rail network is a likely target of al Qaeda, yet there has been no federal study into the public safety and national security implications of operating trains with just a single crew member. Even a medical emergency or grade-crossing accident could result in a disaster where just a single crew member is aboard.

Nonetheless, carriers have been lobbying Congress not only to permit crew-size reduction, but to pass the increased dangers from such operations onto chemical shippers, whom carriers want to shoulder the liability cost of hazardous materials accidents and spills.

In addition to warning of the dangers to the public and national security of one-person train operations, the ACC urged Congress to support adequate training for crews as well as train-crew fatigue abatement measures, and to help ensure there are sufficient well-trained and adequately rested crew members “to safely transport hazardous materials.”

Rail labor unions, backed by the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition, have been delivering this message to Congress, federal regulatory agencies, state lawmakers and the media since the carriers last year began a push to eliminate the conductor and operate freight trains with a single so-called transportation operator.

The UTU successfully sued the carriers in federal court, preventing them from pressing those demands during this current round of national negotiations. But the railroads have not given up the fight.

The American Chemistry Council is the trade association representing companies that manufacture the chemicals that make modern life possible. Many of those chemicals are classified as hazardous materials and are essential in manufacturing, agriculture, energy, transportation, technology, communications, health care and national defense.

The ACC said rail transportation is “critical” to its members and industries depending on the safe and timely delivery of chemicals. “Rail remains a remarkably safe way to ship hazardous materials,” the ACC said. Those shippers want rail transportation to remain safe.

The chemical shippers cautioned that safe train operations “can be compromised when hazardous materials are left on un-crewed trains for lengthy periods of time and transported by tired and inadequately trained crews.”

The ACC cited Federal Railroad Administration data that “the train accident rate has not shown substantive improvement in recent years,” and that the accident rate was higher in 2004 than in 1995.

While not ruling out mechanical failure, the news fueled speculation that human factors — such as employee fatigue — may have caused the wreck that injured five people, scattered rail cars and shut down one of the state's main rail lines Wednesday.

A spokesman for the rail employees union said Thursday that crew members may have been too tired or distracted to prevent the collision.

Railroad workers can work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with schedules changing at a moment's notice, said Tim Smith, state chairman of the legislative board of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen in Auburn.

"You don't know when to work or when to sleep," said Smith, an engineer for 34 years for Southern Pacific, now Union Pacific Railroad.

BNSF Railway spokeswoman Lena Kent would not say whether human error played a role in the crash.

A railroad safety expert said the northbound train had the right of way because it was already moving onto side tracks to allow the southbound train to pass.

The southbound train should have stopped to allow the northbound train to finish its maneuver, said William Keppen, a retired railroad engineer living in Maryland and a former consultant for BNSF.

The crews of both trains have been drug-tested, Kent said.

The collision happened near Avenue 19 and Road 26, west of the Madera Golf and Country Club, at 5:54 a.m. Wednesday, shutting down one of the state's main rail lines.

The tracks were cleared Thursday, allowing freight trains and Amtrak to resume operations.

The BNSF tracks and side tracks are used by freight trains and Amtrak. Trains are controlled by railroad signals stationed along the tracks that are similar to traffic signals — green means go, yellow means slow down and red means stop. The train crew also has access to a dispatcher via radio.

Kent said investigators were trying to determine whether a mechanical failure aboard a train or a track failure contributed to the crash.

Two crew members who stayed on the northbound train as it collided with the southbound train remained hospitalized at University Medical Center in Fresno. They are talking, coherent and their injuries are not life-threatening, Kent said.

Three crew members who leapt from the southbound train right before impact have been treated and released.

Kent declined to identify the five railroad workers, specify their injuries or say how fast the trains were traveling before the collision.

Though the railroad released some findings, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration said it's too early in the investigation to determine the official cause of the collision.

Seven experts were dispatched to the crash site to determine whether the two train crews followed the railroad's operating procedures and to inspect the locomotives, as well as the signal and train controls along the tracks, said spokesman Steve Kulm.

The federal investigators also will also conduct extensive interviews with the two crews and the BNSF dispatcher who was in control of the trains' movements, Kulm said.

Train accidents and derailments have declined nationwide, but train collisions — major and minor — increased from 237 in 2004 to 261 a year later, Kulm said.

There's no simple answer why this is happening, Kulm said, but one explanation could be that "the demand for freight rail service is at record levels, and the industry is currently going through a significant wave of retirements."

Smith, the rail employees union spokesman, said most collisions typically occur because of railroad equipment failure or fatigue among crew members.

After working a 12-hour shift, a crew member gets 10 hours of rest time, Smith said. Rest time, however, is affected by family obligation, meals, sleep and getting ready for work, he said.

Kent said the southbound train originated in Richmond and was headed to Barstow. The engineer had 85 hours of rest time before his shift; the conductor had 48 1/2; and the brakeman had 12 1/2 hours.

The northbound train was headed from San Bernardino to Polk near Sacramento. The engineer had 16 hours of rest time before his shift, and the conductor had 54 hours, Kent said.

Keppen said his research showed that humans play a major role in a vast majority of railroad collisions. He called it "a performance lapse" when a railroad worker fails to follow procedure.

A performance lapse could result from being on a cell phone or from a lack of sleep. Fatigue is a fact of life among railroad workers, given their long and often unpredictable work hours, Keppen said.

Kent, however, said railroad workers are compensated for their long hours and have plenty of time to rest and prepare for the next shift. "It's an accountability issue," she said.

But Keppen, who once did a fatigue study on BNSF crews, including those operating between Fresno and Bakersfield, said a crew member's rest time could be misleading.

Though the southbound train's engineer had 85 hours off, Keppen said it's likely the engineer had returned to a normal sleep pattern of being awake in the daytime and sleeping at night. That means the engineer got up in the middle of the night to begin the Richmond-to-Barstow trek, when he might have been sleepier.

Keppen speculated that the southbound train crew could have been distracted. "But by what? They were alert enough to jump off before impact?" he said. "It doesn't make sense."