Sidebar: Remote-control train expected to boost efficiency and safety

Computerworld - Burlington Northern Santa Fe has started to deploy a wireless-LAN-based Remote Control Locomotive (RCL) system to all its switch engines, in hopes of boosting efficiency and cutting accidents.
BNSF uses the switch engines to make up trains in its rail yards. This involves coupling cars to the switcher, moving them from one track to another and then coupling them to the new train. This has traditionally been managed by a conductor on the ground, communicating via radio or hand signals with an engineer in the cab -- and it's a recipe for accidents, according to BNSF CIO Jeff Campbell. The conductors can't see the engineers in the locomotives and vice versa, a situation that sometimes results in bone-crushing injuries.
BNSF started last year to replace these two-person switch crews with one-person RCL systems, which consist of a belt-pack device worn by a yard worker that mimics all locomotive controls -- including the horn -- and is hooked up by a WLAN link to a controller in the unmanned cab.
BNSF uses RCL systems from Saint-Laurent, Quebec-based CANAC Inc. and the Erie, Pa.-based GE Transportation Systems division of General Electric Co. The CANAC WLAN operates in the licensed 450-MHz band, while the GE version operates in the unlicensed 900-MHz band.
Though RCLs might seem hazardous, Campbell says that in 10 years of use on Canadian railroads -- which pioneered RCL -- yard accidents have dropped 40%. The RCL belt pack has built-in safety features, including a tilt mechanism that shuts down the locomotive if the operator bends by more than 45 degrees.
BNSF currently has 220 switch locomotives equipped with RCL. The railroad expects to have all its switch engines equipped with RCL by 2005.
Campbell says that, besides improving safety, RCL has already started to pay off on the bottom line. "We can build a train faster with one person than two, and we don't need switch engineers any longer," Campbell says. The switch engineers are all being offered jobs on long-haul freights, he adds.

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