Lori Cummings
To start off, I am giving this presentation as an individual locomotive engineer and my personal experience as a new Legislative Representative. I have worked with CN in the running trades for over 26 years, and have been a qualified locomotive engineer for almost 18 years. I still remember the good old days when CN was a crown corporation. I used to be proud of the way CN maintained its track and equipment. We were starting to get nice new locomotives that had really good soundproofing. It actually appeared that our comfort and safety was a real concern. About five years ago there was about 22 miles of double track (in my region alone) lifted up and taken away. I guess that as a private company CN just has to maintain track to a minimum of standards. Maybe railway standards in a lot of areas need to be improved. We just got some new locomotives, the 8000 series, which seem to be louder and vibrate more than the old, old locomotives because these new locomotives have higher horsepower. CN also got some 2200’s that are much better than the 8000’s but still not as quiet as the 5600 or 5700 series locomotives. Maybe the standards for noise levels on locomotives need to be changed to a level that is actually safe to work in.
I also had a much better quality of life back when CN was a crown corporation as my trips were much shorter and I spent my off duty time at home instead of at some rundown hotel or old bunkhouse. In 2006 I had 51 trips where my layover was longer than 9 or 11 hours because I got paid excessive layover pay. These trips alone add up to 631 hours (26 days) with 459 hours off pay and 181 hours on pay.
I personally find that when I spend long hours at the away from home terminals I can’t get the sleep I require to actually feel good working home. Several of our bunkhouses still have bathrooms down the hall so I have to get up and dressed in order to go to the bathroom so I am wide awake by the time I get back to my room and have a hard time going back to sleep. At one point CN and the union came to an agreement about the standards and conditions required to accommodate crews for extended run work and it would have been really nice to see those conditions reflected in all of our accommodations as our single subdivision trips are almost as long as the extended run trips now and in some cases going west out of Jasper they are longer than extended run trips. Good soundproofing, climate control and private bathrooms should be mandatory for our accommodations and this just isn’t the case.
When I complain about sleeping conditions and the fact that CN didn’t even mention fatigue management for employees at the Edmonton presentation consider the following working conditions. On a daily basis I am exposed to diesel exhaust, there aren’t many environmental controls regarding this type of exhaust yet. The new locomotives are 4400 horsepower so there is noise and physical vibration created. I have a powerful radio and the end of train receiver located approximately two feet from my head exposing me to radio waves. Underneath where I sit are the traction motors which create electromagnetic fields. I don’t even know if much research has been done to measure the effects of the radio waves (consider the concern over cell phones and magnify it many times), electromagnetic fields or physical vibration for long hours on the human body. On top of these conditions I live my life without regular meals or regular sleep patterns. Besides the physical stresses put on my body there are the mentally stressful situations that arise in this type of work as well.
This company decided to take away our right to book off or book unfit and I have had a real problem dealing with that. For the first 25 years of my railway career it was ok to take time off when I needed time off. When I get a cold or the flu now, I sometimes have to speak to a supervisor before I can book off sick and I get told that I had better have a doctor’s note for when I return to work. Instead of just staying at home for a couple of days until I get better, I have to go to the doctor and it isn’t that I need medical advice from the doctor as I know what to do for a cold or flu, but I have to have that note for CN because my supervisor said I had better get a note. One evening, I hadn’t been able get enough sleep during the day so I just couldn’t go to work as I was too tired. When I called the crew office to book unfit I was put thru to my supervisor who told me I couldn’t book sick as it would be fraudulent, and there was no such thing as booking unfit so he didn’t know what to do. I then told him that I didn’t care what he did, but I was not going to work until I got some sleep so he ended up showing me absent without leave. I find this whole process to be unnecessarily intimidating, as speaking to a supervisor certainly isn’t going to make me get well any faster.
I can understand why CN was sold by the government, because it must have been very expensive to maintain the equipment and track as well as it was done back then. I felt much safer at work then. Maybe the safety act needs to be stating what percentages of the profits need to go back into the maintenance of the track and equipment. Maybe the government of Canada still has to put money into the railway in order for it to be better maintained. I don’t know the answer to this question; I just know that my division requested that we do a locomotive survey to document all of the mechanical defects on the locomotives that lead to inoperative dynamic brakes. (If this company isn’t repairing the mechanical defects of the locomotives, you can well imagine what the cab conditions are getting to be like). So far the results of the survey have shown there to be 56 locomotives come thru Jasper between March 21 and April 29 with inoperative dynamic brakes. 44 of those locomotives had B/O dynamic brakes and 12 had cut out traction motors. 12 of the locomotives documented came off the shops tagged b/o. This was a voluntary survey and not all of the engineers turned in surveys so I don’t know for sure if this number reflects the total number of inoperative dynamic brakes on locomotives going thru my terminal or only a portion of them. I have sent the spread sheet of the defects to my supervisor and he is starting to deal with the problem.
Locomotive dynamic brakes are very important for me to do my job the safest way I can, and they aid in fuel conservation as well. I would like to see the regulations revised to make sure the locomotive dynamic brakes are as well maintained as the locomotive air brakes have to be. This would involve better maintenance of the dynamic brakes themselves and the repair of cut out traction motors (When a locomotive has a cut out traction motor the dynamic brake is inoperative). With the types of trains we are working with these days it is imperative that we have working equipment to be safe. Some of the trains now are well over two miles long being run the conventional way with power on the head end of the train. Actually, at the western Canada Health and Safety meeting in Edmonton in January, there was a request for regional Health and Safety ideas so I will be requesting that dynamic brakes be mandatory on certain trains in this region.
As for CN being proactive when it comes to safety, well, I have seen the CN be reactive in some areas. It took a derailment and an injured employee July 19 2001 for CN to react to a water problem around mile 10 on the Robson subdivision. They reacted by installing movement detectors on the Albreda/Robson hill along with various improvements to the slide detector fences. I am glad CN is using the new technology with the talker systems and the movement or motion detectors and I am even more thankful that the locomotive engineer involved is still alive to benefit from the technology.
I just started the position of Legislative Representative for Division 898 in Jasper in January of this year. So far this year I am finding this position to be overwhelming. In January we had record snow falls and operating conditions that had to be dealt with. I personally experienced CN being reactive to the excessive snow conditions last winter. We were waist deep in snow and the railway here was just about at a standstill before the heavy duty snow removal equipment arrived. I know that the engineering department was doing the best they could with the equipment they had but to start with, the engineering department just didn’t have the equipment available to clear the snow quickly enough. Once there was a build up of snow on the Robson subdivision a unique problem for locomotive engineers was created. The snow on the inside of the rail where the flange of the wheels goes melted from the warm wheels with brakes applied and then froze. The problem was that the train brakes didn’t work as well as they normally do so it took extra air and extra time to warm up the train brakes. The engineering department didn’t have any equipment that could remove the ice because it was solid so we had to deal with the problem for several weeks until the weather warmed up and the ice melted. Engineering said that they would be getting a new feature they could add to their existing snow removal equipment to solve this problem next year. Our local health and safety committee has made a note to see the snow plan for our area in September before the snow falls next year and the snow plow and spreader are stored right here in this region for next year. So I guess CN just reacted this year but equipment is here to be proactive for next years winter conditions.
CN put in CTC between Harvey and Prince George last fall which is really great, CTC makes it much safer on those subdivisions, the only problem I have was when they were cutting in the CTC. The signals were put in service in stages but all of the signals were lit up for the whole subdivision at once. The bulletins, which I had pages and pages of, were the only way we could tell which signals were in service and which ones weren’t so it would have been nice for CN to put covers on the signals that were not activated to make it a safer transition.
In February we had the UTU go out on strike and had to deal with the safety aspects of managers working as conductors. The February Health and Safety meeting was cancelled by our superintendent probably because all of the managers were busy but there were major safety issues relating to this happening at the same time. Then, after the strike, the weather warmed up and we got our first rain fall out west so on March 7 it was major avalanche day. I happened to be out there and have never seen anything like it. Hopefully we will have some normal operating conditions before spring runoff happens.
Next, I will look at the Employee score cards. As a locomotive engineer this is my perspective and I have only had one report card. There is a section for efficency testing done by CN managers for each employee. As far as I am concerned, if for whatever reason I fail one of these tests I would like to be told on the spot rather than wait till the end of the year to find out that I have failed an effiency test. If I am doing something wrong I want to be corrected at the first opportunity possible. My first priority while at work has always been safety. Well, I was only given a 66% efficient score on my report card and told by my supervisor that the previous superintendent saw me arriving for work late once and failed me on one of these effiency tests. I only had two other tests done for the year so I turned out to be somewhat deficient on my report card. I am not sure if attendance management is the main issue on these report cards or if safety is.
Another problem I personally have with CN is the rules mentoring program. I have found that our supervisors have made mistakes about the rules while mentoring classes. One example of this is in regard to the red flag rule. There is a poster posted in our booking in room about this rule because the supervisors were wrong about this rule when they mentored classes. I am not blaming our supervisors for these mistakes, I think they have enough to do without rules mentoring. I personally find that having the rules review done with a rules instructor to be much more informative, accurate and useful. Lots of times when a rule is changed the rule instructor will relate back to the accident or event that resulted in the rule change and I find this helps me in the practical application of the change. There are so many changes to the rules and operating practices that I have a hard time keeping up and don’t need any misinformation from rules mentors.
Part of the problem we are having with safety in Canada involves our regulatory body. Some of the rules just keep getting relaxed to the point where they almost don’t exist.
Back in the old days, when trains went thru Jasper they were all inspected by certified car inspectors from the car department. Then the car department was moved out of Jasper and train crews inspected all of the trains going thru Jasper. Now, the rules have been relaxed even more so that it is only necessary to roll by Key trains (those with dangerous commodities or loads prone to shift) going thru Jasper. The tibs rules have also been relaxed to the point where when we change locomotives on a train in Edmonton the end of train equipment can be checked with equipment that the shops and car department have. The actual head end and tail end equipment of some trains isn’t tested together; as long as the emergency switch on a locomotive will work with the shop sbu it is assumed it will work with every sbu.
Due to all of the recent derailments involving dangerous commodities in Canada maybe we should consider going back to the old marshalling or use marshalling similar to the US which requires five buffer cars instead of one. It would be nice for the employees of the Canadian railways to have dangerous commodities separated from the locomotives by five cars, and I think it would be safer for the public if there was a five car separation between different commodities such as explosives, propane and chlorine. For the railways to become safer I think it will require changes in standards from the regulatory body, the companies and employees involved.