Freight trains struggle between technology, manpower and security

Jun 30, 2006 10:42 AM

           

Freight trains hauling thousands of tons of toxic materials -- including chlorine, ammonia and radioactive waste -- may be reducing their crews to just one man, with high technology moving into its place.
Critics who point to the deadly bombings of passenger trains in London and Madrid, Spain, call the lone crewman proposal "a prescription for disaster," arguing that not enough has been done since Sept. 11, 2001, to safeguard the nation's rail system from terrorist attacks, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.
"Even one tank car of chlorine, if it derails and opens, has the potential of killing hundreds of people through a deadly cloud," said Frank Wilner, a spokesman for the United Transportation Union, which represents conductors who probably would lose their jobs.
Rail officials, however, counter that the sophisticated satellite technology behind their proposal -- called Positive Train Control -- would actually improve rail safety.
"One person with the technology is safer than two people without the technology," Peggy Wilhide, a spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads told the newspaper.
Wilhide adds that railroads want the flexibility to decide how many people are in the locomotive depending on the route, the length of the trip and what they are hauling. "So it isn't automatically one person in every cab," she said.
But engineers and conductors argue that one person is not enough if the train encounters mechanical problems and the lone crewmember must check them out, leaving the engine idling and the controls unattended.
More than 64 percent of the chemicals that are toxic when inhaled are currently transported by rail, Kip Hawley, assistant secretary of the Homeland Security Department, told a congressional committee in October. Each tank car carries an average of 90 tons of chlorine or 30,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia.
The big fear is that terrorists could take over a train and turn those tankers into weapons of mass destruction. A terrorist attack on just one chlorine car passing through Washington, D.C., could kill 100,000 in just 20 minutes, a scientist for the Naval Research Laboratory told officials in 2004.
Such concerns aren't unfounded. Between 1998 and 2003, trains, depots, ticket stations and rail bridges were the targets of about 180 terrorist attacks worldwide, according to the Rand Corp., a consulting firm that advises U.S. government agencies. Those attacks resulted in more than 400 deaths and thousands of injuries.
But it's not just terrorists who are a concern to critics of the single-person crew proposal. Derailments and train wrecks can release toxic chemicals, as well.
Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Positive Train Control systems could have prevented some of the fatal accidents that the board investigated during his tenure.
"So I think that it's a road that certainly both union and management ought to explore," Hall said.
But because trains are potential targets of terrorists, he added, when it comes to single-person crews, "You may want to have a different set of rules for trains that carry hazardous materials."
The Transportation Security Administration says it has no position on one-person crews or Positive Train Control.
"However, if the rail industry chooses to implement it, we don't consider Positive Train Control a security risk," spokeswoman Carrie Harmon told the newspaper.
But railway officials are publicly touting their Positive Train Control technology under which a single-person crew would operate a train. Positive Train Control allows the train to run without a conductor.
Using the Global Positioning System-based technology, if a train is going too fast or is exceeding its approved area of travel and the engineer fails to respond to warnings, the system can automatically slow or stop the train. Railway officials contend that this would cut down on human error -- the most common cause of train accidents -- and reduce collisions and derailments.
They also say the new system could prevent someone from hijacking a train.
"With this system, if somebody were to get on, they wouldn't be able to move the train," said Patrick Hiatte, a spokesman for BNSF Railway, formerly the Burlington Northern Santa Fe. "If that train didn't have authority, it wouldn't move."
Railroads are testing the system. Since October 2004, BNSF has operated a pilot program involving 50 trains traveling 135 miles between Beardstown and Centralia in Illinois.
"We have run more than 1,700 trips," Hiatte said. "So far, it has stopped every train that it was supposed to stop, and it has not stopped any train that it should not have stopped."

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