The future for conductors

[Cutback4ever]

The conductor job is going away, no matter what anyone, especially railroad management tells you. With the adoption of psr, "pickup, setout, recrew" as the most railroaders refer to it, cost cutting has become the new religion of railroads and they are slashing jobs right now like we are in a depression. Mechanical departments are being cut from well over 100 to around a dozen in locations across the country, and brakeman positions are being eliminated in exchange for utility men. Several companies have shown interest in taking the utility positions to assist trains in the line of road and block swapping locations. I absolutely would not recommend anyone taking a job with a class 1 these days, as they are slashing them across the board. What was once a lifetime career, has become a temporary venture at best. Most conductors with 5-7 years seniority only have around 2 years of actual working and have been furloughed the majority of the time. Union Pacific currently has over 700 furloughed conductors and that number is rising everyday, and this is supposed to be the busy time of the year, so one can only imagine what January will bring, let alone a recession. The month of July saw the highest number of job cuts in the transportation sector with 5,532, and the Cass freight index has been declining for 7 months straight, and the first half of this year saw more job cuts than since 2009. http://www.challengergray.com/press/press-releases/2019-july-job-cut-report-38845-cuts-july-led-transportation-industrial-energy

[arbfbe]

Then the railroads will note that there were serious accidents with multiple casualties and millions of dollars in clean up costs when there were 5, 4, 3 and now 2 crew emebers on the trains. Thew will argue since that was the case then one person crewing of the trains is no difference than crewing trains with 5 person crews. Since there are no statistics kept of serious accidents prevented by the second, third, fourth or fifth additional crew member, their contributions will not be included in the debate.

Then who is there to debate with? One person crew operations will be instituted with out benefit of government investigation until there are fatalities. The FRA will not be getting involed until the have accidents to examine; Congress appears to be singularly disinterested or uninformed of what may be coming. The states found they could not require a caboose if the FRA did not require it and will not be anymore successful in legislatively requiring a second crew member in the cab of the locomotives.

This ends up being between the NCC, the BLET and the UTU, all others please butt out of the blood letting. The railroads need lower costs to attract capital in the global market and to pay top management their multimillion $$ bonuses.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Hugh Jampton

QUOTE: Originally posted by Hard Add

The question of safety is irrelevent in the eyes of management.

Until something goes wrong and a load of people are killed.

... and millions of dollars in cleanup costs, insurance premiums and lawsuit settlements are spent in the process (i.e. NS haz-mat incident in South Carolina in December)... the management becomes REALLY interested in safety matters [:)].

[Hugh Jampton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Hard Add

The question of safety is irrelevent in the eyes of management.

Until something goes wrong and a load of people are killed.

[Anonymous]

Sadly, we will be going the way of the caboose. OPTO (One Person Train Operation) is the way of the future only because of the cost saving measures it provides. It is already a fact on many transit systems, much of which are operated by Computer Based Train Control (CBTC) with the "operator" there only as a safety prcaution to overide the system in case of emergency. The question of safety is irrelevent in the eyes of management.

[arbfbe]

Some people here are missing the picture. It is not what you want or what you think is safe or inconvenient it is what railroad management wants. All you have to do is read their Section 6 notices they brought to the bargaining table to see they want one person crew operation. If the BLET will not give it to them they will get it from the UTU or via a Presidential Emergency Board. Anyone who does not have an engineers' certification to operate the locomotive will have limited job opportunities in the future. One of the opportunities will be to take engineer's training.

[Anonymous]

Future? What future?

LC

[coborn35]

Oh I see.
If a hose breaks or something hes screwed. Also wouldnt he have to take over the conductor/fireman job of walking the whole train when he gets put in the hole?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by coborn35

I think you may be reffering certain yard jobs where there is a remote controled locomotive. The engineer/fireman/conductor switches the yard standing on the ground near the loco throwing switches and whatnot. However there will NEVER be remote controlled unit trains because of the long distance.

He is talking about a one man crew on Main Line freights if I am not mistaken. As in Engr only. Better hope it never happens.

Virlon
Save your tickets.... the P.E. will rise again.

[coborn35]

I think you may be reffering certain yard jobs where there is a remote controled locomotive. The engineer/fireman/conductor switches the yard standing on the ground near the loco throwing switches and whatnot. However there will NEVER be remote controlled unit trains because of the long distance.

[CSXrules4eva]

y t

QUOTE: Originally posted by adrianspeeder

Seems to me it makes sense to have two people in the cab for safety reasons.

Adrianspeeder

I agree with you 100 percent!!!

One man trains will be pretty darn dangerous, even if you had the best safety system in the world on that train, human error will always presist. Sad but true.

[Anonymous]

There was a thread about this not to long ago, all about one man operation with trains.

The thread looked at the issue from a lot of different angles, it was quite interesting.

Not sure if we even came to a consensus or not.

[JoeKoh]

hmmm explain to me how one guy will walk a yard and drop and pic up cars along a mainline.or say he has to wait for a train in a siding how will he(or she) cut the cars for a crossing?more questions than answers before railroads even think of this.
stay safe
Joe

[adrianspeeder]

Seems to me it makes sense to have two people in the cab for safety reasons.

Adrianspeeder

[Anonymous]

I am curious, for you old heads what do you folks see happening to the conductor position in the next few years (or less). It somtimes seems as though the class 1s are ready to put it the way of the caboose.. Think that is inevitable?