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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by zardoz Antigates: A. Agreed. Actually, you have a great idea. Leave the second person in the cab to gain experience AND to take care of the other needs. Perhaps a current rail can enlighten me--are the conductors of today forced to go through engineer training, and are they subsequently forced into engine service as needs and seniority dictate? B. I agree that the railroad should not have to carry and extra burden based on worse-case scenario. But when (if) that scenario does happen, then the decision does not look so good. Especially if the deceased is someone you love. Or the town you live in has to be evacuated. C. You are correct, I interchanged the terms. In this discussion I equate security with safety. We must be secure if we are to be safe, and we must be safe if we are to be secure. [/quote] A. The interviewer with NS that ran a conductor hiring session I attended a year ago, stated that it would be MANDATORY that all conductors try out for the engineers position after 24 months, and passing was also MANDATORY. Meaning if you flunked the engineer's test , you couldn't just remain a conductor. B. whenever anyone dies, the deceased is almost ALWAYS somebody's loved one. So I fail to see how your argument makes that person "special" in any way. Maybe that makes me a cold heartless sons-a-gun, but I really think that western culture has a wildly exaggerated sense of "value" on the individual. Created in no small part by attorney's cultivating the victim mentality, to maximize the value of their percentage. C. I understand, but do not endorse, your intent there. No psycho engineer is gonna launch his SD-70 at Moscow to create an international incident. And even on a more down to earth basis, how many conductors that you are aware of have wrestled the control stand away from a beserk engineer,.. thus thwarting threats to ram his Z train into the trackside bowling alley? My bet is that someone would have to wake him up first. [}:)] AHHH, NOW we have a reason for the 3rd man on the crew....[:D] The conductor's valet. My bet is that within 30 years the major class 1's will be operatorless, and will function more like a netwotk of interconnected conveyor belts. the trains will all run in carefully regulated sync throughout the entire network such that trains will never have to stop between origin and destination. That train may roll out of LA headed for chicago at only 23.7 mph, but it's speed (and the speed of all trains it will meet along the way) will be controlled by a central computer and synchronized, and continuously updated and revised as needed, like an electronic ballet, for perfect meets. Humans will only be dispatched to manually straighten out the occasional glitch.
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