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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by ValleyX As for firemen, Gates, Zardoz'es comments are right on the money, I, too, attribute many of the recent troubles to engineers that were made engineers way too soon, without seasoning. [/quote] Well not to brew any bad sentiment, but paying a guy full scale to basically sit around as a student is somewhat pork barrelish, isn't it? Especially when you look at the time frame involved, when the RR's were having the trucking industry carve their own lunch right out of the RR's rib meat...etc. Costs had to be trimmed somewhere. And, just playing devil's advocate, if there is ample spare time on todays 2 man crews that conductors sleeping on the job is the widespread sin that everybody knows about but no one will admit to...then put yourself in the employer's position and imagine how they would feel paying for 3 man crews. let alone 5 man crews. Tell ya what I think, it may take 10 years, and it might take 30 years, but I suspect NO MAN CREWS will become the eventual norm. Automation at the industrial level is very robust already. And if one thinks that "safety" is the best argument for keeping a human in the cab, all I can say is think about all the grade level accidents where the engineer says "I threw the train into emergency, which was all I could do. The amount of train I had behind me required 4000 feet to stop, but unfortunately I only had 1500 feet between me and the car sitting in front of me... ...cause that is what the railroad hears time and again, ... Proximity sensors on engines and photo sensors at grade crossings could today make the decision to throw the train into emergency equally well to a human,....plus an automated crew won't die on hours and require rescue and replacement via the taxi, won't require a motel bill at "away" terminals, and won't close their eyes to "rest" them while on duty. It's inevitable I'd say. Probably have fewer broken knuckles to boot, since computers never get ants in their pants. what has to happen to allow this to work is a cost effective way to build in the necessary redundancy for safety, and wireless communication protocols with adequate "fail safe" provisions programmed in, and I think it could happen. Probably in my lifetime
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