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RR Carriers Bring One-Person Crews to the Table

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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by macguy [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by csxengineer98 [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Limitedclear [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by HighIron2003ar You need two people to keep each other awake and motivated. Cutting costs generates waste that wipes out the payroll savings in many ways. With that $200,000 train passing little rock every 15 minutes 24/7 it should be easy to maintain a decent work force. Not cut people. A bigger question I think should be asked... Where is the money going? Why is there a need to actually remove paid positions from the railroad? [/quote] With all due respect, you don't need two people to keep alert. How many times have I run road freights with everybody but me fast asleep. MANY. I have had three other people in my cab including a senior Road Foreman all snoring away for the last few hours of a trip. In fact having others sleeping nearby makes me more tired than if I was alone sometimes. Have you ever actually run a train? I'm sure you are a great trucker, but trust me there are significant differences. Engineers can and do stay alert. Are we perfect, no, but we do pretty darn well, all things considered. LC [/quote]yea...i hear you limited...i too have been thier.... and that is one thing that pisses me off is right after we get on the engin..the conductor makes a bed... if i have to stay awake..so dose he...i will do eveything i can to make it hard for him to sleep...try and carry on a conversation... open a window so its cold...turn the radio way up...anything i can think of.... its one thing to nod off...its going to happen... its another thing to make a bed the moment i start to pull... but 2 men is better then 1.... if the other set isnt sleeping... and thats the big problem... they dont have anything to do... maybe they should have an alerter on thier side too... how many times have you been running dead on your a$$ and dont remember the last signal you passed...and had to ask the conductor...i know i have done it a few times... and in my mind it is safer if you can get the dead wood sleepers to stay awake... csx engineer [/quote] That's the thing that pisses me off, these guys that get on the trains and feel that it is their right to go to sleep as soon as the train is tied on. It's these kinds of conductors that give road conductors a bad name, and thus make a stronger case that the second guy isn't necessary up there in the cab. They are only hurting themselves when they sit back and sleep, because when it comes to one man operation, there will be no love lost with the hoggers. And we all know that once RRs get the go ahead for one man operation, they aren't going to be only running a few trains with one man, and other trains with two. No matter how long the runs are, or what kind of territory the train is run on, if the RR can legally operate the train with one man, than they WILL, they won't put an extra guy on just because the run is longer or the territory is hilly. We all know that, how many freight trains out there are running with brakeman on them because they RR feels that the third guy might come in handy? I'm sure the answer is 0, the only time the RR will run trains with more guys than necessary is if they are forced to, either by local agreements or regulations. Like I said, once they RRs get the go ahead for one man operation, all trains will run with one man, unless the RR is FORCED to put a conductor on the job because of planned lifts/set-outs, etc. [/quote] Perhaps. It has been my experience that the railroads have continued to run three man crews in many areas where they are not required to do so because that is what gets the job done. Even in areas with two man RCL crews the RRs are running three man crews some of the time because the RCL crews are not as efficient as a 3 man crew. I'm sure a 1 man crew is limited even with RCL as everyone has pointed out here. One man crews won't work everywhere, in some places they just don't make sense. I'm sure there will be a learning curve as management and employees figure out the new reality. There will be places where everything is one man and in other places, such as yards there will be both one and two man crews and perhaps Utility Men working together to get the work done. There will probably be a single roster of engineers for road crews. Whether one or two are assigned to a train will depend upon many different factors, but the days of craft separation and the crew consist agreements may be numbered in T&E service. Remember, we have a Republican President and a strongly Republican Congress. Why do you suppose the railroads are already pushing for mediation on the new agreement negotiations. They want to push for a Presidential Emergency Board to impose their wishes on labor BEFORE the next election. It is coming. The best we can do is to sharpen our skills and be ready for it. LC
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