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Railroads want one-person crews on freights

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[quote user="greyhounds"] The "hard cap" of 15 cars on the Slingshot trains didn't fit the market needs.  [/quote] I'm still not clear on why there had to be a "hard cap" at all.  This was a scheduled train, right?  You leave on the hour whether you have one trailer or 50, because dependability (predictability) of service is what's being sold.  The train leaving with only one trailer is the loss leader for the train that leaves with 50, and your hope is that the shipper will see that schedules are kept regardless of quantity, and thus be more willing to commit to the service.  If over time the single trailer train does not grow, you cut it, because perhaps the time slot just doesn't fit the needs of the shipper.  But you still have to dedicate enough of a time window to see if the service can grow or not. Was there any empirical evidence of the era that suggested a car limit per crew number was credible?  This is what is so vexing regarding these management vs union spats - I can understand the larger fear of de facto labor force reductions if one man crews were implemented systemwide, but when you replace one specific long train with multiple scheduled shorter (usually shorter, but not necessarily) trains, you usually end up with more folks working even with one man crews in the shorter trains.  Six short trains of one man crews employs more people than one long train with four crew members.
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