"Once you have remote control television, you don't want to get by without it," says Scott Ambler, director-railroad products and services for Control Chief. "And once people get used to [locomotive remote control], they feel the same way -- they become dependent on it."

Remote control technology has been used in industrial and crane applications for decades, and, with Canada leading the way, it has slowly penetrated rail yards and terminals. Now, two years after arbitration awarded the United Transportation Union the right to operate locomotives using remote control, there are an estimated 1,500 systems in use by North American carriers, including 23 U.S. railroads. And the numbers continue to grow. Why? Because the technology is helping to improve safety and efficiency.

According to the Federal Railroad Administration's interim remote control locomotive (RCL) report issued last June at Congress' request, usage in and around rail yards offers "significant" safety benefits. From May 1, 2003, through Nov. 30, 2003, the RCL train accident rate was 13.5 percent lower than that of conventional switching operations during the same period, and the employee injury rate was 57.1 percent lower.

FRA analysis also found that human error was the cause of nearly all accidents/injuries involving RCL operations to date, and RCL technology malfunctions resulted in "virtually no" accidents or incidents. The final report is slated for release this May.

"Remote control continues to develop and evolve -- and like your home computer, it's getting lighter and smaller and offers even more functionality," says Scott Hinckley, general director-TE&Y training for Union Pacific, a three-year RCL operator with 500-plus systems installed. The railroad expects to implement the technology at all of its terminals by year-end, and most recently ordered 113 systems from Cattron-Theimeg (which purchased CN's Beltpack business late last year's). Safety was a driver of the conversion program, according to Tom Connors, UP's general director-field operations. "It's a safer environment when you have a person at the point of movement, in control of that movement," he explains.

"Remote control equipment is very reliable with redundant, failsafe features," maintains Rick Marceau, assistant president of the United Transportation Union and a veteran locomotive engineer. "If a component of the remote control equipment malfunctions, by default, it shuts the locomotive down and applies the brakes."

Kansas City Southern and Belt Railway of Chicago are among those that choose RCL for safety reasons.

The benefits to KCS are clear: "enhanced safety, reduced risk of injury, and the economic benefit of smaller crews," says Doniele Kane, director-corporate communications and community affairs at KCS. Since commencing RCL operations in January 2002, the railroad hasn't experienced any safety incidents related to failures of its 50 RCL systems, and continues to handle "record" freight volumes using the technology. "The causes of incidents while using the technology are the same as convention operations: track, human factor, or mechanical," Kane points out.

For BRC, deployment of RCL technology over the last 19 months has been almost seamless," according to Timothy E. Coffey, general counsel, secretary, and director-human resources for the railroad, which handles switching and interchange for most of the Class I's. "It was better than we could have anticipated."

At first, BRC didn't see a reduction in switching incidents, which was attributed to increased business levels and employee learning curves, but now the numbers are dipping, Coffey reports, adding that no personal injuries have been attributed to the technology.

To achieve these safety results, the railroads, working closely with FRA and labor, have developed special operating rules and training programs for employees using RCL technology.

BRC's 180 employees were trained over a nine-month period, with one week each of field and classroom training. The UTU played a critical role in the training effort. Union representatives served as mentors, answering questions and addressing concerns, Coffey says. "Those who desired more training, and those our trainers determined needed more, received it," he adds. "We wanted to provide as much training as necessary."

UP also teamed up with UTU before beginning its conversion process. It created an oversight committee, including local management and union reps, and worked with locomotive engineers to get their feedback.

"We found that when remote control is implemented, experienced switchmen have little difficulty adapting," says UTU's Marceau. "But someone who has never worked on a railroad has, in my opinion, difficulty correlating the requirements of remote control rules to the application." The union is working with railroads to address this issue, he says.

Once operators have sufficient experience with the equipment, railroads so far are finding productivity levels similar to those of conventional switching operations. "In a switching terminal, once all technological and process improvements are realized, productivity is only limited by infrastructure," BRC's Coffey explains.

Initial productivity problems stemmed from applying RCL equipment to older switching locomotives. "Remote control was designed so that a slight malfunction in the locomotive circuitry would shut it down," says Marceau. "So railroaders were constantly resetting equipment, replacing parts."

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, now part of the Teamsters, is still skeptical of remote control. "Our position has always been that the safest type of switching is conventional switching with the engineer in the cab," says BLET spokesman John Bentley. "That vantage point is lost when switching takes place on the ground." BLET continues to monitor remote control operations and awaits results of FRA's final report. Whatever the findings, though, the union is not likely to "put much stock" in them, Bentley says, because it believes FRA's methodology is "flawed" -- the railroads using RCL systems are providing FRA data for analysis.

Another sore point is job cutbacks. "The people I talk to indicate that they like to run the machinery and work with engineers," maintains UTU's Marceau. "The only concern has been job loss over the implementation of the technology and we regret that."

Not all railroads are trimming their workforces, however. An employee shortage helped prompt UP to use RCL technology. And due to increased business and attrition, BRC is retaining its current staff. "But it's no surprise that the main savings financially will be the need to hire fewer people down the road," Coffey acknowledges.

Catton-Theimeg, Control Chief and Magnetek (which owns Telemotive Industrial Controls remote control product line) continue to advance the technology. Their recent improvements include:

Frequency upgrades. C-T and UP are developing a "Common Air Interface" to allow different manufacturers' RCL systems to operate safely in the same location. "The trend is going away from the original frequency, which was 450 spread spectrum where you had an overabundance of interference, to frequency-hopping spread spectrum," says Jim Kingerski, C-T's senior vice president-railroad operations.

Positive stop protection. C-T has developed a positive stop protection system using GPS and a series of transponders to adjust train speed in or out of the yard for safety purposes. "With it, there is no way that a remotely controlled train could enter a zone that is prohibited," says Kingerski.

Portability. Suppliers now offer portable RCL systems for temporary use on any locomotive. In the past, a locomotive had to be modified and remote control equipment permanently mounted. If that locomotive was scheduled for maintenance, remote control was unavailable. The new multiple-unit system can be moved to another locomotive. "It's relatively easy to move around the yard, and railroads don't have to invest in a unit that mounts to every locomotive," says Ben Stoller, radio products manager for Magnetek. This product has more limited functionality, however.

Ease of maintenance. "People are looking for more reliability and easy fixes when something does go wrong," says Control Chief's Ambler. "We are modularizing everything. For example, our self-diagnostic tells the user if module five has a problem so he or she can plug in a new module and go. The problem module can be repaired in-house or sent to our service center."

More information. "The people in the cab are used to seeing a lot of gauges and instrumentation," says Ambler. "So we are coming out with transmitters with more displays. Right now, we're providing text messages -- brake pressure is this, oil temperature is that -- and in the future we will be able to get into more of that when the technology shrinks."

Where do we go from here?

KCS is among the carriers that will continue taking advantage of deployment opportunities. "Remote control is in use in major KCS yards where it makes sense for the business level," says Kane. "Other locations are reviewed periodically to assess the possibility of implementing the technology.

While currently limited to yard operations, C-T's Kingerski is optimistic that industrial, engineering, and maintenance of way companies will use remote control to automate operations in the near future. And main line operations could follow. But they will be much further off. FRA stated in its RCL interim report that it "does not believe the current state of RCL technology and the current level of RCL operator training are sufficient to support the use of RCLs for heavy-haul train operations on the general rail system."

But remote control is here to stay, and it's expanding into other traditional rail operations. "RCL technology allows ground operators to move a train, but how do they get the train to move where they want it to go?" questions Joe Denny, president and CEO of RailComm. "People throw switches manually. So we offer wireless remote control for power switches." Installations of panel-based control systems at UP's Butler Yard North and Butler Yard South will provide the railroad with advanced train control features, including stacked routing, which allows users to program up to four routes on the panel. RailComm also provides a server-based system to operate switches via computer. "We replicate the yard layout on the display, so the operator can click on the graphic and line routes," says Denny. In the future, it may be interfaced with the car management system to line routes automatically.

(The preceding story was written by Mary Beth Luczak, executive editor of Railway Age magazine.)