Remote-controlled trains are no longer found only in hobby stores. The real thing is coming to a railroad switching yard near you.

Union Pacific Railroad this year plans to discontinue use of engineers aboard trains being changed and moved in its Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo., switching yards.

By October, 86 engineers could be out of a job, said Randy Schneider, who chairs the Kansas City area Division 81 of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.

Attorneys for the union recently filed a lawsuit to prohibit UP from operating remote-controlled locomotives without trained locomotive engineers.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado. Michael Young, representative for the union’s general committee, said he didn’t know when there would be a ruling.

“We’re not against technology,” Schneider said. “We just think the engineers should have the opportunity to be trained to handle the controls.”

Schneider said he didn’t know of any engineers from Lawrence who would be affected by the change in Kansas City. The UP center in North Lawrence does not have a switch yard. Topeka has a small switch yard, and there may be two or three engineers working there from Lawrence, Schneider said.

“I don’t think anything will be done there for at least a year,” Schneider said.

UP signed a contract with United Transportation Union to handle the remote-control system. Plans call for 21 major terminals and 40 satellite locations to be converted during the next two years.

UTU employees will have to be trained to use the system by Union Pacific. That training began this week in Kansas City, said John Bromley, Union Pacific’s director of public affairs.

The remote controls will be worn by the workers like a harness, Bromley said.

“They will operate the controls and switch the trains as they are walking along beside them,” Bromley said.

Union Pacific engineers will have the option of being transferred to other engineer jobs, but those jobs may not be in the same area where they are now living, Bromley said. Engineers are still needed for cross-country train travel, he said.

BLE officials also have raised questions about the safety of remote-controlled trains. They point to collisions and derailings that have occurred in yards in Des Moines, Iowa, and Hinkle, Ore.

Sunday, a remote controlled train derailed near Romeoville, Ill., landing on the motor vehicle lane of a bridge, BLE noted.

Bromley said he was unaware of the Romeoville accident but called other accidents “fender-bender types.”

“These things can happen with real engineers,” Bromley said. “Remote-controlled trains have been used in Canada for 10 years, and we are impressed with their safety record.”

There has been no talk of upgrading technology further and removing engineers from cross-country train travel, Bromley said.

The technology for that exists, however, said Terry Faddis, mechanical engineering professor at Kansas University.

“But I think they are still going to need someone in the cab to make sure nothing goes wrong,” Faddis said.

Without remote control, switching trains in a rail yard requires an engineer and two other crewmen on board a train, rail officials said. Only an engineer and one other crewman are aboard a cross-country train.