About the Author J. D. Santucci (a.k.a. "Tuch") began his railroading career in 1978 as a trainman on the Missouri Pacific. After a round of lay-offs in 1985, Tuch embarked on a railroad odyssey, working in many different situations for different roads. This column tries to explain some of the nuts and bolts of the job and also demonstrates what we have to deal with on a regular basis within and without the industry. Tuch currently works through freights out of Chicago for Canadian National/Illinois Central. ©1999, 2003-2007 JD Santucci. Logo ©2002 The Railroad Network. By J.D. Santucci

September 17, 2007
Before we roll into this month’s feature attraction, we have a few words of note. First off, I am again, dreadfully late in getting this one out. This was supposed to be the August edition. Unfortunately, August was tough month here in Northwest Indiana. Three straight weeks, on my day off, we had major storms roll through the region. And in all three cases, we lost electricity for an extended period of time robbing me of valuable writing time. Two of the weeks had incredibly intense storms that wreaked havoc on me and thousands of others. One of them caused considerable damage around here. We were fortunate that the damage to our home was minor in nature compared to some of my friends and neighbors. Some of them wound up with damage in the thousands of dollars. Mine was only around $800. The last storm, owing to a tremendous volume of rain coupled to some eleven straight hours of no power caused our basement to flood. So I had to take a couple of days off and clear stuff out and then thoroughly clean and disinfect the floor and walls. Tons of fun to say the least. 

I know, you’re asking why I didn’t have a back up for my sump pump. In the fifteen plus years we have lived here we almost never lost power for any extended period of time. A generator was never an issue. The result of these intense storms has since changed my philosophy and I now have an automatic back up generator that will power the entire house, not just a few accessories.

The weather guessers have stated this last wave of storms were five-hundred year storms. I believe they made the same claim in 1993 when the Mississippi flooded whipping out entire towns along its winding path. So that makes two of these so-called storms in the past fourteen years. Five hundred years really flies by when you’re having fun I guess. So now I am prepared for the next one. Perhaps that might be a one thousand year model. All I know is, I am ready for it when it hits. As long as I don’t see one of the neighbors beginning construction on an ark, I should be able to survive what gets thrown at us; should be.

“If it isn’t one thing it’s another. If it isn’t another thing it’s something else.”

And now, on with the show.

Today’s topic might have you wondering if I am going to call upon that great western swing band from Texas with the same name to perform some background music for this piece. As great as that might sound, I’m not. Instead, we are going to look at what the lack of sufficient sleep can do to railroad crews.

As I have mentioned on many occasions over the years, Locomotive Engineers, Conductors and Brakemen work under the hours of service act (HOS). A few years ago I wrote in depth on how HOS works so I won’t get into that all again here, but will touch upon one of the key segments; off duty or rest time. Under HOS, the above mentioned railroaders (along with a few other groups such as Signal Maintainers) can only work twelve total hours. Once tied up, we are entitled to, by law, a whopping eight or ten hours off duty. We get eight if we work eleven hours, fifty-nine minutes or less; ten hours if we hit that magic number of twelve hours. Once we hit twelve and go dead on the hours, we must stop working. We are now in “limbo time” as mandated by the courts. We are neither on nor off duty as far as HOS goes. We are still on the clock for pay purposes; we are just sort of out there as it were.

“I’m out there and I’m loving it!”

We are sort of the undead; not alive to work, but while dead on the hours, just sort of un-alive. Railroaders everywhere owe a debt of gratitude to the Seventh Circuit Court and US Supreme Court for their brilliant, visionary decisions. We can sit there for hours on the train, dead on the HOS, but in limbo time. We can’t do anything but wait. And trust me; there are times we have waited for hours, almost days for a ride. But we are not on the hours, we are in limbo time. What this means is there is absolutely no penalty against the railroads for failing to get us off the train within a reasonable period of time after we go dead. It also means there is also no additional off duty time for us once we finally do get into our final terminal to tie up. We still only get ten hours. I have sat and waited for three and four hours for a ride to come for us after going dead and then having to ride for sometimes in excess of two hours to the off duty point. This makes for a seventeen or eighteen hour day. And I have stories from fellow rails telling of waiting for eight, ten and even twelve hours just for the ride to show up and then ride for awhile to their tie up locations. And again, everybody only gets ten hours off duty.

To refresh your memories, the eight or ten hours off duty are not eight or ten hours at home or in the hotel. If I tie up at 1030am after working twelve or more hours, I can be called to go back on duty at 830pm. That means I tie up before leaving the office or depot and then be on the property and ready to go to work at 830, not get out of bed, get prepared and then travel to work. All the traveling to an from is on my so-called rest time.

There are no restrictions to how many hours per week or month we are allowed to work other than the total number of hours in a week (168) or month (672 for February, 696 for leap year months, 720 for 30 day months or 744 for 31 day months) and how many times they can cycle us working eight hours or more on and eight off, or twelve (or more) on and ten off. It is entirely possible to put in 96 hours in one week. You cannot do this in successive weeks, only every other week. The in between week would allow for only 84 hours.

Now with all of these numbers in mind it all adds up to one thing; we frequently and routinely do not get enough sleep, sufficient rest in railroad parlance in between many of our starts. We often report for work tired. It has been stated that coming to work with insufficient rest is akin to coming to work drunk. Your reaction time is impaired by lack of sleep; your concentration is impaired by lack of sleep. At certain times of the day, based upon the natural circadian rhythms of the body you want to fall asleep. When sleep deprived, you often succumb to the desire to fall asleep. It is not a choice to sleep; it is a demand from the body. You are fighting a battle that you often cannot win. All of the sugar and all of the caffeine in the world can not always work as a deterrent.

Today, we are going to look at what happens when you fall asleep at the wheel.

Way back in the early days of this little diatribe I discussed a crew I knew that fell asleep on their moving train and ran three stop signals. I won’t recount that entire affair for you here but will summarize it briefly. They all fell asleep while rolling along at speeds that reached 72 MPH. They didn’t whistle crossings, pick up orders en route as required and of course, didn’t stop at those stop signals. Fortunately, they didn’t collide with any motor vehicles and didn’t rear end a train ahead of them or plow head on into a train coming at them. And one of the crew members finally woke up and got the train stopped. Needless to say, they all got fired and were off some two plus years.

These situations are by no means rare or unusual. I can recount literally hundreds of stories I have been told or read about over the years of crews falling asleep. In one case in 1986 up in Canada, a crew on a freight train fell asleep, ran past a stop signal at the end of double track, rolled out onto the single and plowed head on into an opposing passenger train. There were fatalities to crew and passengers. And at that time there was no hours of service law in Canada. That has since changed and the Canadian HOS law was enacted and has been modified slightly since. It also brought about the requirement for crew vigilance systems on locomotives operating as lead units in Canada.

The crew vigilance system has several different names and can be one of several types of systems. The oldest one is the dead man’s pedal. This is a very crude system by today’s high tech standards. It requires that the Engineer must keep his foot on a pedal and keep that pedal depressed at all times whenever the brakes are in the release mode on the locomotive. If you fail to do so, a whistle alarm will sound. On some locomotives there is only the sound of air blowing that you have to hear above all the rest of the noise in the cab. If you don’t quickly depress that pedal, a penalty reduction of the train brakes is made automatically to stop the train. If you drop dead at the throttle (which too, has happened over the years to some Engineers) your foot should come off the pedal (more than likely to occur) the train will not run away.

More modern vigilance systems are electronic in nature. They are called by such titles as safety reset control, crew call, crew monitor and the most generic, alertor. With these systems the Engineer must perform a function within a certain period of time that coincides with train speed. There are predetermined functions; operation of throttle, reverser, air brakes, whistle and bell on most units. Or you can just hit the acknowledger button or wand. If you don’t use one of these functions during the time out period the alertor will activate. First a light or lights will begin to flash. If you don’t acknowledge this by use of the reset or acknowledger button or wand, an audio alarm will begin to sound, first softly but then picking up in volume and frequency. If you still fail to acknowledge the alarm, a loud whistle will sound and then the air brakes on the train will begin to be applied automatically at what is called “penalty” reduction. It will stop the train. It won’t be smooth, it may not be pretty, but it will stop.

Such systems are required on passenger trains but are not required on freight trains operated in the US. Most new power being delivered to US railroads comes equipped with alertors but there are still many older locomotives operating out there that are not equipped. In some cases the railroads have actually removed such equipment from older locomotives, particularly those used primarily in yard or local service. It provides a cost savings as there is no maintenance on them if they are not on the locomotive.

Studies conducted in the mid-1990’s observing sleep deprivation and its effect on Locomotive Engineers clearly demonstrated all sorts of problems that are the result of the uncertainty of when you will actually go to work, irregular sleep schedules and lack of sleep based upon the structure of HOS. One of the problems noted was what happens when an Engineer is overtired and operating with an alertor equipped locomotive.  In numerous cases when the Engineer was badly sleep deprived and began to doze off, the alertor would sound. In some instances, the Engineer treated the alertor like a snooze button on an alarm clock; they hit the acknowledger to reset the alarm and then dozed back off.

While I fully understand the industry is in the business to make money, I have often, throughout my entire career witnessed firsthand, the treatment of employees as nothing more than warm bodies in hot spots. They don’t want to hear that you are dog tired after putting in a huge amount of hours of work over a short period of time. I actually had one Trainmaster tell me, “You had ten hours off, what did you do with all that time?” And worst part was he was serious as a heart attack.

So in many instances, crews come to work short of truly sufficient rest.

There was an instance where and Engineer was only off duty nine hours prior to taking his train. He fell asleep while entering a siding and got passed the stop signal at the other end. He didn’t plow into anybody as he awoke just before passing the signal and did manage to get the train stopped, only a little too late. He was given time off without pay for bad behavior.

Another Engineer I know fell asleep while working a yard job. They were pulling a cut of cars out of a track while a train was coming into the yard on a track along side them. The track the sleepy Engineer was operating on ended and connected to the track the inbound train was pulling in on. They plowed right into the side of the train entering the yard resulting in a serious derailment. As it would happen, this particular Engineer had attempted to mark off earlier that day and was not allowed to as they were, get this, “short on Engineers.”

In my days at the CCP we were seemingly always dreadfully short of Engineers at Hawthorne Yard during 1987. We constantly complained about this fact to the Area Manager. He said he knew and was trying to do something about it. Trying and doing are two different creatures. It was routine to work 80 or more hours per week while on the extra board there, as I was. Two different problems were developing in my world at the same time as a result of all this work and little time off. Living about an hour away from the yard was exacerbating the problem as I lost no less than two hours of rest time per day commuting back and forth, often more depending upon traffic. And no, moving closer was not a viable option.

I was noticing my performance quality beginning to suffer. I was making mistakes at the throttle. Fortunately for me, I became quite conservative as opposed to reckless. One evening while bringing an empty coal train back from Plaines (near Joliet) to Hawthorne Yard, I had to make the required stop at a junction in Chicago known as “The Panhandle.” This was a manual crossing at grade that was not interlocked. The Illinois Central Gulf (whose trackage the CCP used between Bridgeport in Chicago and Joliet) crossed two Conrail lines and the CSX’s Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal at the Panhandle. On Conrail and the B&OCT, this line was called Brighton Park. All trains operating over the ICG and Conrail tracks had to stop at the Panhandle irregardless of the signal indication. Once stopped, if we had a proceed signal, we could then proceed after acknowledging the stop sign and the proceed signal by two blasts of the whistle.

So here I come north with 100+ empty coal hoppers in tow approaching the Panhandle. Empty coal trains generally brake very well and this one was no exception. But remember, I was very tired, tired to the point I was beginning to fight sleep. I rolled over the crossing with the Santa Fe called Corwith, which is almost 1¼ miles from the stop sign at the Panhandle. I then began to brake the train shortly thereafter. I was moving at 25 MPH at the time. I started braking too soon, far too soon and stopped over half a mile from the stop sign at the Panhandle. The Conductor looked at me like I was nuts and asked me what I was doing. I sat there and thought about it for a moment and said, “I’m so damned tired I really don’t know.”

It only got worse. Over the next few weeks I started developing serious sleep issues. I would go home and dream that I was at work, falling asleep at the wheel. I would actually wake myself up, look around and realize I was at home and in bed and then have to fall asleep all over again. The beautiful bride, who was brand new to marriage and the railroad lifestyle, told me that I was routinely talking in my sleep about the job. Then one evening I really scared her. I suddenly and without warning, jumped up in bed and yelled out, “Holy shit, the engine isn’t going to clear!” Then a laid back down and went to back sleep. Sure scared the daylights out of her.

As the sleep issues became worse, I started to feel sickly. I had a hard time falling asleep while home and in bed. During the same time period I was fighting sleep at work. One morning while I was driving home from work I became disoriented. Suddenly I could not remember if I was coming or going and pulled off to the shoulder of the interstate to sit there for a few moments and think about it. I then began to drive slowly on the shoulder until I spotted one of the signs that tell you the number of the interstate and the direction you are going. When I read “SOUTH,” I realized I was heading home. 

My head hurt constantly with a dull sort of ache. I was having trouble eating and started losing weight. I was on edge constantly. I finally made an appointment with the doctor. After telling him my symptoms he ran all sorts of tests. He found no physical ailments. He never asked and for whatever reason, I never mentioned the sleep deprivation. Finally, after several more tests that revealed nothing, he asked about my sleep and he commented that I looked really tired. I laughed and told him that sleep was something the “civilians” get. He thought about it and then asked what I do for a living. When I told him I worked on the railroad he immediately asked in what capacity and I told him I was an Engineer.

“Extra Board Engineer?”

“Uh, ya, why?”

“Let me guess, you are short on people and being worked constantly with little time off and getting run into the ground with little time off?”

“Yaa…..”

He extended his hand out and shook mine and said, “Former railroader; Brakeman, Norfolk & Western Railway, Decatur, Illinois for five years. It’s how I put myself through college. I know exactly what is going on, you are seriously sleep deprived and suffering from exhaustion. You are about to collapse from it.”

He went on to tell me that I had to take some serious time off or I was going to collapse and wind up in the hospital, or worse. He didn’t suggest, he ordered me to take some time off. Not one day mind you, but several, in a row to recharge and recover. I followed his advice and took four days off. Doing so got pretty ugly too as they did not want to let me off at all yet alone four straight days. While I never actually said it, the word got spread that I threatened to quit if they didn’t allow me the urgently needed respite. What I actually told them was to if I didn’t get the time off they should just put me down for four solid days of missed calls because I was not going to be answering my phone at all for that duration. I also said that if they want to discipline me for them, so be it. I got my time off beginning Thursday morning when I tied up and came back to work on Monday.

What a difference those four days made, especially knowing I didn’t have to expect a phone call to order me work. We went away for three of those days and I slept like a dead guy for all of them. When I returned to work the batteries for fully recharged and I was ready to go. I also refused to run myself ragged for the rest of my duration at the CCP. I began to jump on temporary vacancies of regular Engineers that took vacation time so that I could have regular hours and days off. What a difference that made. 

I did have an interesting, but incredibly scary event occur way back in my days at the Wisconsin Central. Again the year was 1987 and the WC was still in its infancy, only having been in business for a couple of months. I jumped to the WC and was a day one employee there abandoning the sinking ship that the CCP became during the latter portion of the summer of that year. The WC was dreadfully short of help, the place was jammed full of cars and there were sidings full of dead trains or cuts of cars being held out as there was no room at Shops Yard in North Fond du Lac. You pretty much were never making it across the road without dying on the HOS. To compound matters, they were putting us up at a hotel next to O’Hare Airport in Chicago. Inevitably, I kept getting rooms on the airport side of the building. There was a constant drone of jets revving up and taking off. This continuous noise was killing my sleep. Between the lack of sufficient sleep account the noise and the working every ten hours after twelve or more on duty for days on end was taking its toll. And what was worse, we often were not getting home for days at a time. I did three straight trips out of the hotel where we went to dog catch a dead train coming to Chicago and then was tied up at the hotel again instead of being cabbed home. At least one crew that I know of got stuck like that for a solid week.

We finally get called for a trip home out of the hotel. We are on a westbound train and heading for Fond du Lac. I can recall fighting sleep for much of the way. My Conductor was also beat and suffering the same effects as I was from too much work, not enough rest and being forced to stay next to one of the world’s busiest airports.

The Conductor had nodded off as we were rolling west. I can remember whistling the crossings at Silver Lake, WI and seeing the clear (green) indication on the signal at Silver Lake West. Next thing I remember was suddenly opening my eyes and having absolutely no idea where I was. This is terrifying. Being that we were all still new here, we were all still learning the place. I didn’t have a great deal of landmarks stored away in my head yet to refer to when working in inclement weather such as fog or heavy snow. I’m looking all around and nothing is even remotely familiar. I immediately began to set the brakes on the train, setting a lot of air which was blowing like crazy in the cab.  The train started to slow down. My Conductor jumped up and asked what was the matter and why were we slowing down.

“Where in the hell are we?” was my response.

He looked around and said that he didn’t know. 

We must’ve just passed a milepost right before I opened my eyes because I didn’t see one for what seemed to be forever. The train was slowing quickly and we were scanning everything we saw trying desperately to jog our memories. We came upon a switch to an industry and suddenly realized where we were; coming into Burlington, WI. The very next signal we would encounter would be a controlled or absolute signal; one controlled by the Dispatcher and one that if it was red, required a stop before passing it, and then only passing it with permission from that very Dispatcher who controlled it. Fortunately for us, that signal was clear, so it most likely meant we didn’t miss any other restricting signals behind us. It was also at that signal that the timetable speed dropped from 40 to 20 MPH so we had to be down to 20 MPH at that signal. If that signal was displaying a stop aspect and we rolled past it, we would’ve been fired for sure, if we survived the episode.

Our train had operated nearly eleven miles with both of us in the grasp of Morpheus. I missed whistling several road crossings. We missed the aspects displayed on two block signals.

The adrenaline rush from that little affair was incredible. I was so wide awake after that I don’t think I could have paid for sleep for hours. We discussed the ramifications of what just transpired. We were sound asleep, out cold. There was no alertor to wake us up, we were just rolling along, “rolling free” to coin the words of a Johnny Cash song. We very easily could have been the lead story on CNN. It would not have been hard to miss a stop signal and plow into another train. Another train could have been coming toward us and a “cornfield meet” (head on collision between two trains) could have occurred. We could have struck an automobile or a pedestrian; encountered an improperly lined switch and derailed. There were all sorts of things that could have gone wrong, but didn’t. We were lucky. I guess the Good Lord was looking out for us that evening. Over the years I have known personally and also heard about many others that didn’t have our good fortune and wound up dead or survived major episodes, only to get dismissed. One guy I used to know and who used to subscribe to this little diatribe was killed a few years ago when it was “suspected” that somebody fell asleep and two trains collided head on, killing all on board both trains.

When I got in from that trip, I marked off sick. I needed to get some rest, badly needed rest and took a couple of days off to do just that. While there was a foul in our episode, there was no harm. Needless to say though, we didn’t disclose the foul as we did not want to give ourselves up. I may be crazy, but I’m not nuts.

Whenever I have been asked that age old question over the years “Would you rather be good or lucky?” I always respond, “I’ll take the luck every time.”

And so it goes.

Tuch

Hot Times on the High Iron and the HTOTHI initials, ©2005 by JD Santucci.