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It used to be that the main issue with working nights was that it could be difficult to get enough sleep during the daytime because the rest of the world was awake and it was light outside; both having the potential to interfere with sleep.  Rotating shifts could further complicate matters because they make it hard to establish a pattern.  There was no disorder or disease known to be caused by a lack of sleep. Today, a lot has changed in how this is viewed.  I can’t say that it is incorrect, but I am somewhat skeptical.  Any time new industries are spawned to solve a problem, one might be wise to question the problem.  Railroads have deep pockets, and sleep disorders have been defined in such a way that it calls for a massive solution with an enormous cost. According to my understanding, this is what sleep disorders amount to today: There are two main causes: 1)      Nightshift work 2)      Rotating shift work Sleep disorder can be caused by either one, but rotating shift work is more likely to cause them than routine nightshift work. Sleep disorder can be caused by either cause even though a person is getting adequate sleep.  The disorder cause is deeper than the issue of actual sleep.  The main cause is the disruption of natural internal biological rhythms that change from day to night according to the actual planetary day/night cycle.  Sleep disorder can cause a person to suddenly fall asleep at any time without any feeling of drowsiness ahead of time.  So, it amounts to a spontaneous loss of consciousness without warning.  Furthermore, this can happen even though the person has routinely been having adequate sleep each day.  The only cause might be simply working nights instead of days which disrupts the natural biological rhythm.  Some people can withstand this disruption of rhythm without developing sleep disorders, and some cannot.  The industry must determine which employees who are engaged in dangerous work are able to work nights without developing sleep disorders.  Any such employees found to have sleep disorder must be either successfully treated or taken out of the dangerous service.  This is where the prospect of this being a made-up disorder becomes very serious.  One must assume that railroad companies only have so many alternate, non-dangerous, jobs to which a person with a sleep disorder could be transferred to. If a method can be developed to screen people for the potential to get sleep disorder, they could simply be rejected from employment like people with other physical problems are rejected.      Prior to the discovery of sleep disorder, people working at night were often tired due to an actual lack of sleep during the day.  Some people even worked another job during the day. Prior to the discovery of sleep disorder, when a wreck was caused by a failure of the engineer to respond, one possible explanation was that he fell asleep.  If so, it was assumed that being tired was the cause.  If being tired were cause by insufficient sleep before going to work, it was clearly the engineer’s fault.  It is the responsibility of the employee to get sufficient rest.  Today, the cause might be a simple lack of sleep the night before; but the cause might also be a sleep disorder caused by working nights, even though getting sufficient sleep.  In that case, the wreck would not be the engineer’s fault.  Instead, it would be the company’s fault for allowing somebody with a sleep disorder to work in a dangerous activity. So you can see how the discovery of the sleep disorder syndrome changes the whole equation of responsibility, and forces the industry to respond in a very aggressive and costly manner.   That is what I mean when I say that sleep disorders have the industry over a barrel.
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