With safety in mind because of rail lines through town, members of the Hampshire Village Board approved a resolution to keep two-person train crews in the face of technology that could reduce crews to one.
“They want to eliminate one person in the cab,” said Trustee George Brust. “They are claiming they have the technology to control the train with just one crew member. This is a life safety issue. They need that second person.”
“We need to keep the minimum staffing to two,” said Village President Jeffrey Magnussen. “We want to be on record with other municipalities to keep the current staffing.”
The Chicago metropolitan region, according to the Federal Railroad Administration, is one of the nation’s largest and most significant rail hubs, which makes rail safety a major concern for counties and municipalities, such as Hampshire. The Chicago area is home to some 1,500 public at-grade highway-rail crossings.
FRA officials have said the industry standard has long been two-person or more crews. But “with the advent of mandated technology advances, like Positive Train Control, the FRA is learning that railroads are increasingly seeking to substitute technology for a second trained ‘failsafe’ crew member aboard the nation’s freight and passenger trains.
“Because there are many cognitive and manual functions undertaken by two crew members that cannot be accomplished by a combination of one crew member with the assistance of technology, the FRA is seeking to address any potential risk proactively before public safety is endangered by the widespread railroad adoption of one-crew member train operations that fail to achieve the same level of safety that is achieved through the use of two-person crews.”
Hampshire’s resolution states that polling across the nation showed 83 to 87 percent of respondents favored mandating that trains be operated by a crew of at least two qualified individuals.
Denise Moran is a freelance reporter.
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