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September 2013
— by Angela Cotey, associate editor
In railroads' mechanical departments, the mission is clear: maintain locomotives and rail cars in tip-top shape so they operate as safely and efficiently as possible. But the nuances of carrying out that mission have become a bit more complicated of late — and will become even more so in the years to come.
Fleets are becoming more challenging to repair, as new technology and components make their way into the marketplace. As a result, workforce training is becoming more critical. Upcoming retirements are requiring mechanical department execs to place more emphasis on training, too. And, as ever, work process are being evaluated as railroads work to adapt to increasing demands with limited resources.
Following are examples of how mechanical department officials from a cross-section of freight railroads and transit agencies are preparing their respective departments to meet the evolving needs of their organization.
For many mechanical departments, training and workforce development are the top priorities. Workers are retiring in droves across all disciplines and at all railroads. But for locomotive maintenance, in particular, there often is a big learning curve.
"Mechanical is somewhat more heavily impacted by retirements, I think," says Norfolk Southern Railway Vice President of Mechanical Don Graab. "Some railroad skills are easier to learn on the job in a reasonable amount of time, [but] some aspects of locomotive work are not learned as quickly as we'd sometimes like them to be."
That's why NS has been devoting more resources to technical training. About five years ago, the Class I established a training center in Roanoke, Va. The facility is designed for veteran shop craft employees, while NS' larger training center in McDonough, Ga. is targeted specifically for new hires, says Graab. The Roanoke training facility also is more centrally located for most NS employees.
Earlier this year, the railroad finished upgrading the Roanoke facility, which now features classrooms and a laboratory. There, employees can learn skills such as repairing the electronically controlled pneumatic braking systems that NS is installing on locomotives. Training sessions can range from four hours to four days.
NS also trains "gang leaders" to help teach workers new skills. Mechanical Department managers have hand-picked "several dozen" union employees from across the Class I's network to conduct training locally, says Graab. They also are sometimes called to the Roanoke training site to provide classroom training. Training leaders are chosen based on their knowledge of technology, skills and ability to teach others.
"We try to use their collective skills; they don't all know all the same things," says Graab.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) utilizes trainers, too. The agency has appointed trainers in the rail and bus divisions to oversee refresher training and skill development courses, and conduct "after-action" discussions with crews to review how a situation was handled anytime unique circumstances arise, says Heidi Samuels, deputy director of operations-maintenance and security.
"That way, everyone learns from an event," she says.
By 2013's end, more than 35 percent of VTA's Maintenance Department workers will be eligible for retirement. To help ensure the agency has enough people in the right positions, VTA in 2006 launched the Joint Workforce Investment (JWI) in partnership with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265.
The program aims to help employees move up the career ladder, solve operational problems more effectively and address skilled worker shortages through various initiatives, such as ongoing training and an operator/mentor program. VTA initially rolled out the program in its bus division, and now has started implementing JWI in the rail maintenance division.
At Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), about half of the shop-level management team is eligible for retirement in the next eight years. So, the Mechanical Department is piloting a succession plan under which DART officials have identified the skills required for each position and targeted specific employees who have the potential to fill those positions based on their skills, education, experience and competency, says Joe Coker, DART's assistant vice president of fleet services.
"If the employee is interested, we will start partnering with them and our Human Capital department to begin developing their skills, start some job shadowing, and increase their level of exposure and accountability to quickly prepare them for the position," he adds.
Preparing workers to fill vacancies isn't the only focus in the mechanical department. Managers also need to prepare their workers to maintain new generations of light-rail vehicles that are becoming more technologically advanced.
"Most mechanics and technicians aren't used to maintaining modems and other onboard communication devices that are equipped with Wi-Fi and 4G," says Coker. "There's a bit of a learning curve there."
DART's latest technological addition? Infotainment screens onboard light-rail vehicles and buses. The screens track a vehicle's location using GPS and announce the next stops. They also have the ability to populate specific marketing and advertising at each stop.
DART mechanics are learning to repair the infotainment screens and other onboard electronic communication devices inside a retired paratransit van, which has been retrofitted to mirror the inside of a light-rail vehicle. Vendors for the various onboard systems come to Dallas to train a few mechanics on how to repair and maintain the systems, and those trainers in turn teach the rest of the Mechanical Department.
Customer communications will continue to evolve — and become more critical — in the coming years. Smartphones and social media have prompted a lifestyle change that hinges on 24/7, real-time information. And on the transit side, riders are beginning to expect the same amenities they've grown accustomed to in other aspects of their lives.
"There are going to be demands on the younger generations 20 years from now where they have to stay on top of things around the clock," says MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) Head of Subways Joe Leader. "It's just the way the generations are changing."
Passenger-rail cars will have to change along with them. NYCT officials already are working with a consultant to consider design changes for what will be known as the R211 series cars, which NYCT plans to purchase in 2019 or 2020. NYCT expects to install more sophisticated customer communication systems in the vehicles, which also will be Wi-Fi compatible. That way, the agency could send a message to passengers while they are onboard a train about service disruptions further up the line, enabling them to decide whether they want to transfer to another line.
"The 211s could reinvent the fleet for New York City Transit," says Leader.
On the opposite coast, one short line has undergone a fleet reinvention of its own. Last year, Pacific Harbor Line Inc. (PHL) finished upgrading its fleet of 23 locomotives to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Tier 3 emission standards. And the short line's fleet should be in top environmental condition for the foreseeable future; the EPA has not yet issued Tier 4 emission standards, but once it does, the locomotives likely will meet — and possibly even exceed — those standards, says PHL President Otis Cliatt.
The low-emission locomotives reduce particulate matter by more than 90 percent compared with the previous engines, which already were among the cleanest in the country, according to PHL.
The retrofitted fleet has helped the railroad improve its partnership with the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which the short line serves. The ports are continuously working to improve air quality in the L.A. region.
Going forward, PHL workers will attend seminars to keep up with the evolving technology available for ultra-low-emission locomotives. The short line also plans to continue implementing software and GPS navigation upgrades for its fleet.
"We consider ourselves to be technological trendsetters in the locomotive area," says Cliatt, adding that, as environmental concerns continue to grow, rail will become an even more attractive transportation option.
Freight and passenger railroads are counting on it — and preparing for it. Capital is being invested and more efficient work processes initiated to ensure they can handle the additional traffic and ridership industry officials believe will come. And a lot of those preparations are taking place on the mechanical side.
NS is spending a chunk of its $2 billion 2013 capital budget to ensure there's enough capacity at its locomotive maintenance facilities. For example, a storm recently blew the roof off a large but mostly dormant NS-owned locomotive shop in Decatur, Ill. Since the roof had to be replaced, NS officials decided to spend several million more dollars to stabilize the building for future use.
"It was a fraction of the cost to replace the building and while it's not critical to maintenance operations today, we think it's the perfect place to add a locomotive shop in the future," says NS' Graab. "We think the day eventually will come where we'll need it, and it's in a location where, as the business grows over time, we'll need a presence."
Meanwhile, in Birmingham, Ala., NS is spending $6 million to upgrade a former Southern Railway locomotive facility to "position it to absorb significant amounts of new work," Graab says. In Portsmouth, Ohio, NS has reopened and upgraded a rail-car repair shop to improve throughput and shop efficiency.
And in Chattanooga, Tenn., the railroad is reconfiguring locomotive shops that initially were designed to accommodate scheduled maintenance.
"There's a lot more unscheduled work today, so while we're not tearing the whole place down, we have demolished a couple of buildings and are putting up some new structures, and rearranging some turnouts on the track to make the facility more compatible with today's needs," says Graab.
Positioning the railroad for future growth isn't solely done through capital investments. NS is striving to employ new initiatives that will enable the railroad to operate more efficiently in the coming years.
In early 2012, the Class I launched a behavior-based safety initiative that emphasizes positive reinforcement to promote proper safety practices.
"Through that program, we realized there were sets of skills that had applications and usefulness beyond the arena of safety," says Graab.
As a result, the Mechanical Department now is launching an efficiency-based program called NSight, which aims to leverage the "special insights" acquired by department managers and supervisors to develop a "broader-based operational excellence," Graab says.
"This program is really targeted at teaching a number of principles that will … raise the level of employee engagement and ultimately achieve higher levels of not just safety, but service and efficiency," says Graab, adding as an example that NS plans to involve union employees in developing standard work procedures and best practices.
In the meantime, NS is tweaking some work processes to adapt to evolving traffic trends. As intermodal traffic continues to grow, the Class I's mechanical department is restructuring some of its practices to repair intermodal cars more quickly.
"Historically, when you have a bad-order freight car, you would take it out of the train, move it to a repair track, repair the car and then move it back to the yard," says Graab. "Best-case scenario, you would get it on tomorrow's train, but it usually was more like two or three days."
Now, the Mechanical Department is working more closely with the intermodal operations division, which immediately alerts mechanics when a bad order car is coming in. NS is purchasing equipment for all its major terminals so workers can, for example, change a wheel right in the yard.
"We can find it and fix it without impacting the train's departure," Graab says.
Transit agencies are working to improve efficiency, as well, particularly as ridership and service offerings continue to grow.
In 2014, a new San Francisco 49ers stadium is expected to open along a VTA light-rail line. On game days, the agency will operate 150 percent more light-rail vehicles than on a typical day. Because there are only eight game days a year, VTA won't add Mechanical Department staff or resources to handle the additional work.
Instead, officials are considering training bus mechanics on how to inspect and clean rail cars so the vehicles are ready for the Monday morning rush hour, says VTA's Samuels.
DART is counting on a preventative maintenance program to help the Mechanical Department handle more vehicles as light-rail extensions open. The agency continuously tweaks its maintenance plan by analyzing components that are failing while a vehicle is in service, so workers can be more proactive rather than reactive, says DART's Coker.
Meanwhile, as NYCT officials mull possibilities for the next generation of subway cars, they are keeping ridership growth trends in mind. Officials are considering articulated cars, which are joined together to essentially form one continuous rail car to provide greater capacity. Larger door openings and more grab handles would help the agency accommodate more passengers, too.
By the time the R211 cars are in service, NYCT will have installed communications-based train control on more of its subway lines, which will increase throughput. The agency will need to create new standards for the next-generation cars to ensure the onboard systems are interoperable with the signal system.
In the years to come, integration between various departments will become increasingly important, too. Mechanical Department officials will need to work with their counterparts in the communications and signals, engineering and other departments to keep their fleets and infrastructure running smoothly and cohesively.
As locomotive and rail-car technology evolves, the assets will play an even more critical role in helping railroads better serve their customers.
"You have to look at the system as a very integrated circuit," says NYCT's Leader. "These aren't just cars running by themselves. We want to make sure all of our assets last as long and are maintained as well as possible."
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