Why Don't ALL Crew Members Have Radios?

[Everydaymatters]

I don't understand why only operating personnel should be on them or why OBS personnel should not be on them or what the safety reasons could be. If those are the rules, then they need to be changed. In the case of the man in the wheelchair who needed a lot more help than his daughter and the SA could give them, I hate to think how that could have turned out. One radio with one sleeper attendant can do a lot more good than harm.

 

[Hal]

I don't understand why only operating personnel should be on them or why OBS personnel should not be on them or what the safety reasons could be. If those are the rules, then they need to be changed. In the case of the man in the wheelchair who needed a lot more help than his daughter and the SA could give them, I hate to think how that could have turned out. One radio with one sleeper attendant can do a lot more good than harm.

You don't understand because you are ignorant of railroad operations. The frequency is for train operation not customer service. It needs to be kept clear for that purpose. That does not need to be changed. Should not be changed.
As far as the wheelchair the SA does not need a radio to get help. There are other OBS and there would be operating crew on the platform. Operating crew would know there was a passenger getting off the sleeper. Also they should have informed a member of the operating crew about the passenger having a wheelchair prior to the stop. Lastly there is a PA on the train. They can get on the PA and request assistance.

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[Lonestar648]

The frequency has to be kept clear so the conductors and the engineer can communicate, not having to wait until the channel is clear. This is why the frequencies are licensed for specific uses like Operating Personnel, MOW teams, etc. but there is a safety protocol for monitoring these frequencies with the scan option on the radios. OBS would crown the operating frequency with non safety related traffic, therefore they would require their own itinerant frequency.

 

[Thirdrail7]

The less chatter on the radio, the better. There are already interference issues from other train, the dispatchers.
Can you imagine:

Dispatcher: Extra engine 2033, you have permission to occupy Porter block at (chirp..as the OBS, who was on the other channel changes over to the road channel to find the conductor) Conductor, I need help with a passenger at (chirp as the Chef, comes on the radio and overrides everyone) the cafe car needs water.

Sound like fun.

 

[Everydaymatters]

I don't understand why only operating personnel should be on them or why OBS personnel should not be on them or what the safety reasons could be. If those are the rules, then they need to be changed. In the case of the man in the wheelchair who needed a lot more help than his daughter and the SA could give them, I hate to think how that could have turned out. One radio with one sleeper attendant can do a lot more good than harm.

You don't understand because you are ignorant of railroad operations. The frequency is for train operation not customer service. It needs to be kept clear for that purpose. That does not need to be changed. Should not be changed.
As far as the wheelchair the SA does not need a radio to get help. There are other OBS and there would be operating crew on the platform. Operating crew would know there was a passenger getting off the sleeper. Also they should have informed a member of the operating crew about the passenger having a wheelchair prior to the stop. Lastly there is a PA on the train. They can get on the PA and request assistance.

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Where is the PA? Is there a PA on each level? The wheelchair incident was on the CZ at GBB at the end of the platform. Shouldn't the conductor have known about this passenger? And shouldn't the conductor have taken care of getting the proper equipment to this passenger?

 

[Thirdrail7]

I don't understand why only operating personnel should be on them or why OBS personnel should not be on them or what the safety reasons could be. If those are the rules, then they need to be changed. In the case of the man in the wheelchair who needed a lot more help than his daughter and the SA could give them, I hate to think how that could have turned out. One radio with one sleeper attendant can do a lot more good than harm.

You don't understand because you are ignorant of railroad operations. The frequency is for train operation not customer service. It needs to be kept clear for that purpose. That does not need to be changed. Should not be changed.
As far as the wheelchair the SA does not need a radio to get help. There are other OBS and there would be operating crew on the platform. Operating crew would know there was a passenger getting off the sleeper. Also they should have informed a member of the operating crew about the passenger having a wheelchair prior to the stop. Lastly there is a PA on the train. They can get on the PA and request assistance.

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Where is the PA? Is there a PA on each level? The wheelchair incident was on the CZ at GBB at the end of the platform. Shouldn't the conductor have known about this passenger? And shouldn't the conductor have taken care of getting the proper equipment to this passenger?

We would need more information. Was the wheelchair on the manifest? How did the person originally get on the train? Did a lone person assist the person when they originally boarded and now additional assistance was required? GBB is a staffed station. Did the passenger indicate they would need assistance on/off, which should have put GBB or the crew on alert? Was the conductor helping other people, receiving orders, having a job briefing with the engineer or maybe even walking to unlock the wheelchair lift/ramp as the person was being unloaded? These are the type of things that come to mind.

It would seem that the level of assistance required would have been discussed prior to the stop, and perhaps it was. Conditions do change though and some times additional assistance is required. If that's the case, it isn't like this is a 100 car freight train. The attendant could have also easily said something like "wait right here, let me get help" and walked to find another crew member.

If someone wanted to argue that every crew member should have a radio for emergencies that pop up such as the train splitting apart or crew members being injured and the attendants need to take over, I could understand that to some degree. However, if someone needs help outside of emergency conditions, they should be able to put one foot in front of the other and walk to find another member of the crew.

 

[Everydaymatters]

I don't know the answers to any of your questions. I thought the conductor lifted all the tickets???? If so, then the conductor should have known. It was a very awkward situation. The attendant was off the train. The lady was trying to maneuver the wheel chair off the train. She had the doorway blocked so that he could not have re-boarded. Had he walked to get help, she probably would have pushed the wheelchair off and caused a lot more problems than already existed.

I have seen where the attendant will take the most needy off the train after everyone else. For all I know, that might have been his plan and the lady jumped ahead and decided to do it herself. In this case, I feel he was correct in trying to help her get the wheelchair off rather than walking away and leaving her to create more problems. From what I saw, if he had a radio he could have used it to call for help. He was wise in not walking away at that point. You would have had to be there to see this as I know I'm not good at explaining.

Again, where are the PA's? Are they on both levels?

 

[OBS]

On Superliners, in all but Dining Car, PA's are on the lower level. Diner, on upper level.

 

[railiner]

Not really a good analogy, due to vast difference in operation, but....

On cruise ship's, only the navigational officer's or deck department crew have marine frequency VHF radio's for operational purposes. The hotel department crew at one time had separate business band (usually UHF) radio's for their key personnel use, but now most ships issue those employees a cell phone that operates off the ships own proprietary cell towers...

(The ship's also have other means of ship to shore communication's including satellite phone's, and HF radio's for redundancy.)

 

[Lonestar648]

A cruise ship has a much smaller footprint, plus it travels mostly in areas with little opportunity for interference. With the size crew a ship has, it is easy to justify an on-board cell system. They run special cable throughout the ship so the low power handheld units can transmit/receive from any floor and any room on the ship. This system allows for dynamic reconfiguration of the units on a channel, for emergency situations, etc. Unfortunately, this type of technology can not be used for Amtrak or any railroad.

 

[xyzzy]

There are no frequencies specifically designated for railroad use anymore. That changed a number of years ago when the FCC consolidated the Railroad Radio Service into the "Industrial/Business Radio Pool" and mandated narrowband FM. But the existing RR frequencies were locked in at that time, so there is a de facto allocation.

I say again, there is nothing in today's FCC Part 90 that restricts issuance of these radios to operating personnel. If a railroad put such language into its license application, it was a railroad decision. And for good reason. Personally I believe radios for the road and dispatcher channels should not be given to OBS crews. Amtrak could apply for its own nationwide channel specifically for OBS and could add that channel to radios issued to Amtrak conductors (although that creates another problem). But I suspect Amtrak has already considered this and rejected it because of the cost.

 

[MattW]

With WiFi coming around, I say the better option is some kind of WiFi VoIP radio for the crew. Maybe some type of "squelch" function on the conductor's WiFi radio so they only hear the traffic when specifically paged to keep the distractions down.

 

[Lonestar648]

Even if you used Digital Squelch to quiet the OBS use on the Conductor's radio, if OBS is using the Operations frequency, Everyone must wait until the user releases the PTT switch. In a critical situation, seconds count, and the user with the PTT switch pressed doesn't know of anyone needing the frequency.

 

[Ryan]

He's talking about a completely different piece of hardware using WiFi only. Literally nothing would change about the Operating Crew's radios.

 

[lionelhoguy]

A couple of years ago I found a list of frequencies for on board staff to use, and it turned out to be the same frequencies that are pre-programmed on the family walkie-talkies you can buy. I tried to find where I found them, but no luck. I used to hear more on them, but there has not been much activity on my last couple of trips.

 

[Karl1459]

Normally the OBS have no reason to contact operations. Except in the rare "true emergency". In many Fire Departments there is a dedicated "MAYDAY" channel that is to be used ONLY for situations that involve immediate life danger. The MAYDAY channel is normally only monitored by the dispatcher, incident commander, and "rapid intervention team" leaders. If Amtrak were to have handheld wireless communications for OBS the protocol might be...

Channel 1. OBS to OBS

Channel 2. OBS and Conductor. Only used to request communications to conductor for non emergency routine and up to non life threatening emergency communications.

Channel 3. Operations. OBS does not have access.

Channel 4. MAYDAY. Only used for life threatening emergency where immediate assistance or action is needed, ie "Mayday Mayday Mayday, wheel failure in coach xxx with passenger injuries".

The engineer would only have operations channels, with a possibility of monitoring the mayday channel.

The conductor would be responsible for monitoring the operations and mayday channels, and unless otherwise committed the OBS to Conductor channel. The option to monitor OBS to OBS would exist at conductors discretion.

Violation of the MAYDAY channel would be cause for severe disciplinary action.

OBS to OBS would have value... this would allow for multiple canvassing of the train for diner reservations as an example and other crew coordination.

Somewhat sophisticated equipment and training would be needed, and with Amtrak's funding this would be a low priority.

 

[Lonestar648]

the technology exists but it comes with a price. These sophisticated digital two-way radios can be programmed and reprogrammed remotely by authorized electronic maintenance personnel, so configurations can be dynamically changed with the latest technology. Does Amtrak want to assign one of their project managers away from something else to coordinate and bid and implement the OBS radio system? Very doubtful. Unfortunately, something serious has to happen to escalate this need into a high priority.