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Railways condemn federal ban on one-man trains while unions applaud

US RAIL industry associations have condemned federal regulators' ban on one-man trains that have been gaining favour in the face of the US$$22 billion railways must pay for new safety measures under the state-imposed Positive Train Control (PTC) scheme.

Not surprisingly, unions have defended the new two-man train rule, and applaud the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for "closing the loophole", arguing that it is safer for all, reported American Shipper.

But the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) joined bigger railways in the Association of American Railroads (AAR) in urging the FRA regulator abandon its call to require two-man trains.

The short line group said Washington had not considered the economic impact to its small business members in the implementation of a rule with "no proven safety benefit".

"There is no evidence that the proposed Train Crew Staffing Rule will address safety challenges in a way that is meaningful and operationally sustainable for our small businesses," said ASLRRA president Linda Bauer Darr.

She noted that the cost impact to short lines was based on inaccurate assessments of operations, including reliance on the Class I railways' average speed, which is much higher than the average short line speed.

"We are concerned that the burden of additional regulated labour cost, without an offset of improved safety, will lead to the diversion of scarce financial resources in our small businesses away from capital investments making rail transport less competitive," she said.

Said AAR president Edward Hamberger: "With no evidence that one-person operations are less safe, there is simply no basis for enacting a general prohibition on crew size reductions."

He said the FRA lacks any data to support its assertion that two-man crews are safer than one-man crews and accused the administration of ignoring studies that quantify the strong safety record of single-person operations.

"This is a textbook example of unnecessary regulation, and, if implemented, would have a chilling effect on the development of new technologies that could make the world's safest transportation network even safer," he said.

"While the Department of Transportation is throwing its full support behind the development of autonomous vehicles as a way to improve safety on our roadways, it is doing the opposite with our railroads," said Mr Hamberger.

But unions defended the new two-man minimum. "Operating freight trains with one-person train crews is unsafe and must be prohibited. That is the message we delivered yesterday in comments filed with federal rail safety regulators," said the joint statement from John Previsich, president of SMART Transportation Division, and Dennis Pierce, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.

"Our comments provide a clear rationale for the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to finalise a rule this year and to close loopholes included in the agency's initial proposed rule that could permit the limited use of one-person crew freight operations."

Mr Previsich and Mr Pierce went on to suggest that railways are looking to cut costs by going to one-person train crew to help pay for Positive train control (PTC) implementation.

PTC is a federally mandated and much delayed scheme of monitoring and controlling train movements. The cost of implementing PTC on up to 25 commuter lines alone is $2 billion and because of these costs, several services are having to cancel, says Wikipedia.