What remote control is doing in a big way for Canadian railroads and in many smaller U.S. applications is a great success story. What it could do—but isn't doing—for major U.S. railroads is another story.

By Luther S. Miller, Editor

he operation of yard locomotives by remote control is a well-established practice in Canada, but prospects for U.S. railroads adopting it on any big scale are—well, remote.

It isn't for lack of technology

Vectran has sold more than 850 units of its VR10 and other remote control products, including several to regionals and short lines.

The major suppliers—Montreal-based CANAC and its recent U.S. acquisition Vectran, Cattron, Telemotive, and Theimeg—have invested thousands of R&D; hours and millions of dollars to develop proven products that range from the sophisticated to the merely complex. They're finding a growing market in the U.S. in industrial applications and on a handful of smaller railroads. But the rewards that their Class I neighbors to the north are reaping remain tantalizingly out of reach for big U.S. railroads.

It isn't a question of safety.

Canadian National has put 70% of its flat-yard switching operations and all of its hump yard engines under remote control. That translates to 115 locomotives equipped with CANAC's Beltpack remote control system, with 18 more scheduled to be converted this year. After more than one million engine hours of remote control, CN has seen its accident rate drop 47.9%—from 0.71 accidents per 1,000 engine hours of conventional operation to 0.37 under remote control. A more striking statistic is that no accidents attributable to Beltpack operation have been reported.

It certainly isn't a question of productivity. CN estimates its savings with remote control operation at $20 million a year. Canadian Pacific, looking for similar benefits, has now equipped 38 locomotives with the Beltpack system.

All of this is not lost on major U.S. railroads, which are hungrily eyeing the safety and productivity benefits that are being enjoyed in Canada.

But before the CANAC technology can travel south—and this is the technology specifically developed for big-railroad needs—there must be a thaw in a climate that is now distinctly chilly. What happened on Wisconsin Central, the biggest U.S. regional, is all too vivid in the memories of U.S. operators.

A little over two years ago, a Wisconsin Central initiative to extend remote control operations and one-person crews caused the United Transportation Union to demand that the FRA ban remote control on WC and all other U.S. railroads and suspend one-person crew operations. A series of unrelated accidents that it had been investigating for several months gave FRA a good reason to forge a "safety compliance agreement" with WC which ordered the railroad to spend millions on maintenance and suspended the initiatives that had so roiled organized labor. Subsequently, the Wisconsin legislature enacted a two-person crew law that was upheld in the courts.

The safety compliance agreement that WC entered into in February 1997 was renewed in February 1998. It was not clear late last month whether it would be renewed this year. Wisconsin Central Transportation Corp. Chairman, President, and CEO Ed Burkhardt thought it unlikely. FRA Administrator Jolene M. Molitoris said only, "Wisconsin Central has done everything we asked them to do. Our field staff says they've made a sincere effort."

As for FRA's position on remote control, Molitoris said, "We haven't sat down internally to talk about it and take all elements into consideration."

As for the industry-wide picture on the use of remote control, it can be best described as murky.

"There was a misconception that because of what happened at Wisconsin Central, the FRA was banning remote control nationwide," says Vectran's Jeff McCann. "That was, of course, not the case."

Whatever happens now at WC, the railroads are not in a mood to mount a national remote control initiative.

"We don't want to start a premature effort that would antagonize the unions, the state legislators, and the regulators, which is what happened in Wisconsin, and then be precluded from implementing this technology, because it shows great promise," says one senior U.S. railroad officer. "This is a big one, but the moon and the stars aren't aligned right now to suggest that we would have any probability of success."

For the moon, read the FRA. For the stars, read the single operating craft that will emerge when, if all goes as expected, the United Transportation Union and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers merge about a year from now. Three to five years after that, a national agreement for the use of remote control in yards could come about. An agreement extending remote control to road operations could take a little longer. That is the timing currently seen by industry leaders who are monitoring the situation.

The Canadian technology

By far the most sophisticated remote control technology is that developed by CANAC. The Beltpack permits a yard operator to control driverless, microprocessor-equipped switching locomotives using an Operator Control Unit (OCU). There are seven speed settings and five brake settings. It works like this:

The operator selects a speed and Beltpack supplies just enough power or brake to maintain that speed. It automatically accounts for such variables as train mass and track grade. A pitch-and-catch system permits control to be transferred between operators at opposite ends of the train, ensuring that the operator with control is always at the leading end. A kind of "black box" memory stores three days of data that can be used for maintenance diagnostics or event reconstruction. A single OCU can be assigned to different Beltpack-equipped engines, reducing the need for spares.

CANAC has no illusions about the U.S. market for Beltpack under present conditions.

"U.S. Class I's are well aware of the situation with respect to the FRA and their individual collective bargaining agreements," says CANAC President and CEO Frank Trotter. "They're the ones that are going to dictate if, and at what speed, any changes take place.

"Our purpose in acquiring Vectran," adds Trotter, "is to enter the U.S. market, and the big market we're looking at for the Vectran product is the industrial market—that's everything from mine sites to steel plants to petrochemical plants."

Vectran says it has sold more than 850 units of its VR10 and other remote control products, including a number to regionals and short lines. And it recently received an inquiry from a Class I.

The vendors keep busy

While they wait for a bigger railroad market to open up, other remote control suppliers are also staying busy.

"While the most obvious application is the control of shunting locomotives and railcar movers, such as Trackmobiles, Shuttlewagons, and Rail King Car Movers, there are many other applications to which portable radio remote controls can be applied," says Cattron's Nora Songer. "One area is within the maintenance shops where overhead cranes are used to lift large pieces of equipment. In such cases, PRRCs can be used to control the crane instead of pendant controls. With pendants, operators are more or less attached to the crane, and have to walk right alongside the load that they are moving. When PRRCs are used, the operators can position themselves from the best vantage point and have a clear line of sight. Other areas include control of track switches, ballast car doors, and maintenance-of-way equipment."

Cattron is a worldwide supplier of PRRCs, and its units are currently being used by railroads in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Britain, South Africa, and Canada.

An old-timer in the business, Telemotive has been supplying wireless remote controls for heavy industrial use for 40 years. Most of its products are used in the control of overhead cranes, hoist/monorail systems, and locomotives or car spotters on industrial railroads. They're found in most of the major locomotive and car shops of the big railroads, many short lines, and car and locomotive builders. Telemotive also supplies systems to railroads for use on intermodal cranes, side-loaders, and for ballast car gate control.

All of the remote control suppliers emphasize the ability of their products to reduce injuries at the same time that they improve efficiency. "One major example," says Telemotive's Ken Bird, "is the use of wireless controls to open ballast car gates while the train is in motion. The old system of using manual controls required an employee to walk with the train while opening and closing the hopper car gates. This manual method can result in fall injuries and long-term health problems by exposure to the ballast dust. Wireless control enables the gates to open from a safe distance, and train speed can be increased, resulting in higher productivity from the ballast train crew." Telemotive's system, says Bird, has been adapted to a variety of gate types and air hydraulic/control systems.

A smaller supplier of remote controls in the U.S. but one that's growing fast is Theimeg, Inc., a German company that has 6,000 remote control units working around the world.

A new feature that Theimeg is working on is a wheel slip monitor that would be integrated into the remote control package.

"This would allow the equipping of older locomotives without this technology to have a radio remote control coupled with wheel slip monitoring from one vendor," says Sales Manager Gary Sausman. "Another feature in the planning stages would incorporate an Operation Center Monitor (OCM) that could interface into the locomotive event recorder and gather data. Once this data is collected and analyzed, it could be used by the customer to view various information. Instead of showing all the information, the OCM would limit the information to events where certain parameters have registered outside the specified limits.

Theimeg views radio remote control as a tool that railroad operators of the future can't afford to ignore: "Increased competition and rising costs are forcing companies to implement cost saving measures in their rail facilities—without compromising safety. Radio remote control gives the operator the flexibility to work in a location that is optimum for safety and productivity."

Are we protecting jobs, or protecting workers?

The Federal Railroad Administration says, and no one who knows Jolene Molitoris can doubt it, that its own first priority is safety. The unions also claim it as theirs. When this concern overtakes and overrides the politics of job protection, U.S. railroads will be able to take full advantage of one of modern technology's greatest safety tools.