diff --git a/train.py b/train.py
index 6729e82f1b42..ee1295ca3a59 100644
--- a/train.py
+++ b/train.py
@@ -484,7 +484,6 @@ def train(hyp,  # path/to/hyp.yaml or hyp dictionary
     parser.add_argument('--cache-images', action='store_true', help='cache images for faster training')
     parser.add_argument('--image-weights', action='store_true', help='use weighted image selection for training')
     parser.add_argument('--device', default='', help='cuda device, i.e. 0 or 0,1,2,3 or cpu')
-    parser.add_argument('--local_rank', type=int, default=-1, help='DDP parameter, do not modify')
     parser.add_argument('--multi-scale', action='store_true', help='vary img-size +/- 50%%')
     parser.add_argument('--single-cls', action='store_true', help='train multi-class data as single-class')
     parser.add_argument('--adam', action='store_true', help='use torch.optim.Adam() optimizer')
@@ -503,11 +502,6 @@ def train(hyp,  # path/to/hyp.yaml or hyp dictionary
     parser.add_argument('--artifact_alias', type=str, default="latest", help='version of dataset artifact to be used')
     opt = parser.parse_args()
 
-    LOCAL_RANK = int(os.getenv('LOCAL_RANK', -1))  # https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/elastic/run.html
-    RANK = int(os.getenv('RANK', -1))
-    WORLD_SIZE = int(os.getenv('WORLD_SIZE', 1))
-
-    # Set DDP variables
     set_logging(RANK)
     if RANK in [-1, 0]:
         check_git_status()
@@ -535,7 +529,7 @@ def train(hyp,  # path/to/hyp.yaml or hyp dictionary
     device = select_device(opt.device, batch_size=opt.batch_size)
     print({'RANK': RANK, 'LOCAL_RANK': LOCAL_RANK, 'WORLD_SIZE': WORLD_SIZE})
     if LOCAL_RANK != -1:
-        assert torch.cuda.device_count() > LOCAL_RANK
+        assert torch.cuda.device_count() > LOCAL_RANK, 'too few GPUS for DDP command'
         torch.cuda.set_device(LOCAL_RANK)
         device = torch.device('cuda', LOCAL_RANK)
         dist.init_process_group(backend="gloo")  # distributed backend