remote control

[Anonymous]

When I left the railroad back in early 80's there was no such thing as remote control. There was wild stories, about things like that, but no one believed it could ever happen. I would like to know who is getting all the money that is saved from not having a four or five person crew? Is the one person crew paid well to do the same job as it took 4 or 5 to do? If your union signed a remote control agreement, did they not take good care of the employee? Can you imagine the savings for the railroad? They are saving, not having to pay wages to 3 or 4 other people. The savings have to be in the millions of dollars. What could the company, be doing with all that money? I know they don't spend it on employee relations. I don't care if they only have one employee on a train, that one employee, should be compensated well. It won't be long, that the one operating employee with his remote control takes the train to certain spot at the yard limit sign, on the main line gets off, and a person in a building 500 miles away operates that train to destination. Its only a matter of time. Get your paychecks now, because in the near future there won't be one, to get!

[Anonymous]

Funny you ask, Bruce. I just got RCO qualified on the BNSF. There is a 60 day hold down, and I was on the virge of getting forced to a spot. In a nutshell, there are 2 man crews. No engineer! These remotes suck! Imagine now trying to switch and have the responsibilities of the engineer, not to mention the loss of a brother's job. I feel like a friggin' scab when I run the thing. Virtually no trainhandling experience and pulling 7000 ft. drags. Yep, it is dangerous. We get paid an additional 46 minutes to run them. The UTU sold us out. I have since withdrawn from the UTU and became a BLE member. Mark my word, others have been hurt by them and it will continue. Quantum is now testing satellite controlled trains on the road...you are correct, it won't be long.
Ken

[JoeKoh]

Yard service is one thing but over the road trains isn't a good idea.There are too many what ifs here in John Q public land. Someone will likely get hurt.I remember seeing an article about a derailed remote control train blocking an oklahoma interstate.Someone needs to do more safety research.
Joe

[Anonymous]

I hope who ever makes the satelite/gps train system is not the same group of morons that made the vending machines at my job. If so then we will be loosing to much money and always getting the wrong product :)
Icemanmike2-Milwaukee

[Anonymous]

In Europe, remote controlled switchers have been in use for many years, and now the europeans are indeed working on unmanned freight trains.

I know that the very same (morons) guys that made AC locomotives possible in the US are now working on unmanned freight trains.

This first version is intended for the european market anyway. But so was the first version of AC traction.

http://www.siemens-cargomover.com

Cheers

[Anonymous]

IF the current employees can be trained to operate thes remote trains safely then It woulden't be a bad idea. We should be visiting where it is currently working (well) and then see how to make it better...lets face it it will undoubtly lead to the loss of jobs :( Tis is something NO ONE wants!!!!!!!!!
Icemanmike2-Milwaukee

[Anonymous]

I could see the point of remote control, if it was used by a trainman at the lead end of a cut while shoving to couple up. The engineer would then stay in his cab and take control when the engine is in the lead.

BUT THAT AIN'T HOW THEY DO IT - not here anyway.
the guy with the beltpack could be anywhere! He can't even see as good as the engineer while shoving - let alone feel how the cut is handling. The yard sure is getting noisy with all the bangin around - and almost every day a busted coupler too boot.

But the big thing I don't understand is why the UTU gets away with signing deals on another AFL union's turf. How come the AFL-CIO hasn't censured the UTU. Ain't that how the teamsters got kicked out - for doing such "Un-brotherly" stuff!

I guess the union is out for its own self, just the same as the company is! We are the pawns!

[Jackflash]

The UTU isnt in the AFL-CIO , and after this
probably wont be let back in !

[Anonymous]

Ironicly enough I though the original idea or use of remotes where for handling special materials so that the conducor had more control, not for buildind an entire load

Icemanmike2-Milwaukee

[mudchicken]

Bruce & CO.:

For all the howling and grieving shown in the ersatz "Union Hall Meeting", please consider that some of those bucks can actually be put into replacing those 50 year old ties and 100 year old rail in those same yards. The joke term "deferred" (as in NO) maintenance could be done away with slowly and a few of those operating supervisors can go bye-bye as well....

[Anonymous]

Yup...they'er popping up in yards everywhere...Canada use's them alot....I'll be skipping Amtrak or any rail travel when they put someone hundreds of mile's away running a crew/less 100 car train!!Next they will do this with plane's & I'll be driving my car everywhere I travel....if I travel

[petitnj]

It is interesting how we all resist change until it destroys what we are trying to protect. The unions fought to keep useless firemen on board locomotives and extra brakemen on the caboose until the railroads had no money to stay in business. Now the unions will fight for every advantage as the remote controlled trains take over.

As pointed out above, the savings is in your pocket. The cost of transport is in your utility bill, the cost of your shoes and the cost of everything else. If you keep the unnecessary employees, the truckers will continue their domination and the railroads will wither. If you allow the railroads to advance their technologies there will be more jobs maintaining equipment (a nice job that gets you decent working hours), building track (that makes the trains go faster and the service more attractive) and high tech jobs maintaining the computer systems.

The unions will resist and fight and once the railroad can no longer compete, everyone will lose their jobs. I hope you enjoy driving an 18 wheeler, there are still job openings there.

[Anonymous]

Noel, do you work for the rr? Have you ever paid union dues? You sure seem to know alot about the rrs.

[edblysard]

Funny, you equate the lose of one more man out of a three man crew with profit. So now, not only do I have to line switches, read a switch list, hold a lantren, and a radio, pull pins and keep a eye out on my helper, I get to run the locomotive. What you fail to realize is that the statistics the FRA gets are provided by the railroad,(we all know how concerned about safety they are) the FRA does not go out to the field and collect its own data. Cutting payroll is any industries quickest response to a slumping botton line, its quick and easy. Make no mistake, with three men, I can flat switch 250 to 300 cars in a eight hour shift, and couple, swing and spot them all in the outbound tracks. With a remote, I will be luck to move half of that. Plus, the engineer sees things from the cab no one on the ground can, and I have had my behind saved a few times by an alert engineer.
By the way, firemen wernt "usless", how in the world do you think engineers are trained? On a computer simulator? Lots of luck. In a three week course, kinda like drivers ed? Unless they get hands on experience, and knowledge of the terrain they run over, all the class room work you want to give them is a waste of time. And that usless rear brakeman? When was the last time you walked a 150 car train to line a switch behind, and then had to walk back to the front end? Talk about a waste of time! The railroads program to eliminate as many employees as they can will, at some point, tip them over into the same mess they were in ten years ago, tons of trains, no crews rested to run them. As for saving jobs, as far as I am concerned, the UTU is a waste of my time and money.
I get the feeling you dont railroad, except from a armchair, or in front of your computer.
Savings in my pocket, yeah, and I bet you gave your christmas bonus back to you company so they could buy more staples and printer paper!
You dont get it, do you?
If I had wanted to be a pudgey little computer geek, I would have never gone railroading.
You, and everyone else out there who thinks remotes are great, well, as soon as your happy with a locomotive with a empty cab going through the crossings where your kids schoolbus crosses the tracks on their way to school,, and your wife goes to work, I may be pursuaded to listen to a argument in favor. But I doubt you would be happy with the end result, especialy if its your wife they have to cut out of whats left of your car, or your kids in the life flight chopper.
Go back to microsofts train simulator, and play some more, leave the railroading up to the guys who do it for a living.
ED

[cabforward]

it's some strange things you say about r.r. workers, unions, and what r.rs. will do with the profit returend from rcls.. fireman and brakeman are useless? why, because there is no coal to shovel into the firebox? what have you been reading? how you can ignore the safety issue of having a second pair of eyes and ears on an engineer's blind side is truly remarkable.. how would an engineer take notice of something happening when the right-of-way bends sharply to the left? that's where the useless fire and brakemen would sit.. next, you seem to imply the r.rs. would use profits from saving money with the use of rcl to improve track conditions and make more jobs available--for who, unborn babies? r.rs. wnt rcls and squeeze pennies from turnips for one reason: to make their pockets jingle.. you close with a few words on unions who are putting r.rs. out-of-business.. yeh, right! those poor r.rs.. they have noone to speak for them, no influence with lawmakers.. whew! dont that stretch the elastic on my b-v-ds! boil it all down, and you are saying, the end justifies the means.. yeh, the r.rs. will have to cut a few workers off their jobs, demote some, transfer a bunch, but that's o.k, see, 'cause, after all, the unions are out to ruin the r.rs.. what crewman wouldn't want to destroy a r.r., and his pension, after putting in 25 years, 20 of them on the x-tra board.. the family surely awaits the day when the wage-earner comes home and says, guess what! the r.rs. is in bankruptcy, the pension's gone, and whooo-eee, i'm out of work!! oh yeh, this really works!

[petitnj]

Now that we have a serious discussion, let's focus on some points. First, I am not a railroader, I am a teacher. My views of railroading come from discussions with railroading friends.

Next, saving dollars. A dollar saved doesn't go into some executive's pocket. It reduces the rate of increase of costs and is spent to make the company more efficient next year. Compare your pay stub with that 5 years ago and see how much your pay and benefits have increased. Has your employer passed all that on to the customer or have they limited cost increases by increasing efficiencies?

Finally, safety. Because of the diligent work of everyone involved in railroading your casualty rate is one tenth of that of other industries. Even though the extra set of eyes in the cab would help we all would be far safer if the extra set of eyes were on an additional train of containers taken off the road. The casualty rate of US railroads is about 1000 per year (most of these are trespassers or drivers at grade crossings). There are single states that have that casualty rate for truckers in one year. I would rather have my wife driving on a truck free icy interstate than worrying about the infrequent grade crossing. The grade crossing is clearly marked and signaled. The out of control truck just honks his horn and plows into the back of the car.

[petitnj]

Now that we have a serious discussion, let's focus on some points. First, I am not a railroader, I am a teacher. My views of railroading come from discussions with railroading friends.

Next, saving dollars. A dollar saved doesn't go into some executive's pocket. It reduces the rate of increase of costs and is spent to make the company more efficient next year. Compare your pay stub with that 5 years ago and see how much your pay and benefits have increased. Has your employer passed all that on to the customer or have they limited cost increases by increasing efficiencies?

Finally, safety. Because of the diligent work of everyone involved in railroading your casualty rate is one tenth of that of other industries. Even though the extra set of eyes in the cab would help we all would be far safer if the extra set of eyes were on an additional train of containers taken off the road. The casualty rate of US railroads is about 1000 per year (most of these are trespassers or drivers at grade crossings). There are single states that have that casualty rate for truckers in one year. I would rather have my wife driving on a truck free icy interstate than worrying about the infrequent grade crossing. The grade crossing is clearly marked and signaled. The out of control truck just honks his horn and plows into the back of the car.

[Anonymous]

Noel, exactly what do you base the premise that the railroads are saving money with the remotes? I believe you have made the simple presumption that one man gone means money saved. In the yard where I work the railroad spent millions implementing these remotes. They had to train over a hundred men at better than $2000 each, retrofit the locomotives at over $100,000 each and install radio repeaters. I am sure you will say that the savings from one less man will pay back that investment. Unfortunately you and the railroads are not taking the loss in productivity per job caused by the change. Capital investments on the railroad are huge, track and rolling stock cost a fortune. To use these investments in an inefficient manner costs money. The yard I work in publishes the statistics every month for the yard operations. These statistics include comparisons with last year (when all jobs had engineers). I have the March publication so I can compare Jan, Feb, and Mar with and without engineers. The average number of switch engines worked per month in the three month period with an engineer was 462, RCO 476. The average number of penalty lunches in that three month period with engineers was 13, RCO 57. A penalty lunch costs about $10 each. Minutes overtime per day with an engineer was 24 minutes, RCO 370 minutes. Overtime on an RCO for two men comes to about $1 an minute and with an engineer (three men) $1.50 per minute. The average cost per car switched in the yard averaged with an engineer $8.97 per car, RCO $9.85. The cost per departed car (some cars are switched more than once before departing) with an engineer $10.74, RCO $11.59. A buck a car may not sound like much, consider the yard I work in switches 50,000 cars a month. Their own figures show that they are not saving money with remote control jobs. This doesn't include costs for trains being held out, departing late, or even bypassing the yard to be switched elsewhere and then have some of the cars sent back. How long will it take to pay back the capital outlay for remotes, when it costs more to do the same amount of work?

[edblysard]

Ok Nole,
What do you teach?
You said a dollar saved dosnt go into an executive's pocket but is used to reduce the rate of increase cost and is spent to make the company more efficient next year. Like Southern Pacific?
Nice textbook concept. Real life concept. Budget overun, forgot to spend the money to improve the tracks, derailed a few to many trains, solution? Lay off ten men from the extra board this month, ten more next month, and aboli***hree trains/jobs. Take money saved from the payroll, fix track. Oh, and be sure to fire the crews from the derailed trains, because we dont want the FRA to know we didnt maintain our track, so we will blame the crews, say they were speeding or something.
Saving dollars.
Compaired my last paycheck from one 5 years ago. Difference? 0. Still make $23.00 per hour. I was hired after 1985, so I dont get the perks the pre 85 guys do, who, by the way are fast leaving railroading due to natural attrition. In fact, my efficent union informed me that, with the next round of contract talks, they intend to allow the carriers to make us pay up to 2/3 of the cost of our health insurance, and we have no choice as to who or what insurance company underwrites it, the carrier does.
As for the other set of eyes being on another train, two men on a train is one too many?
If you ever get to see the paperwork required by the Federal goverment, and see the duties a conductor performs, and then try to add that to the duties a engineer has to perform before a train can even leave the terminal, your efficiencey drops to 0, because your one trainman would have to spend over a hour just checking the train before it leaves. Remember the CSX locomotive that ran away two years ago?
One man crew, engineer got off to line a switch, didnt do a complete brake reduction, tie a hand brake, open the generator switch, center the reverser. These are the FRA requirements for when a locomotive is left with no one on board. Takes about five minutes. He just applied the independent, though he had closed the throttle completely, and got off the line the switch. And away it went. Now, imagine that locomotive had 75 or 80 container cars behind it? What a monster, free, with no one in the seat. Did you see how much trouble they had stopping that thing, and it was a light motor. If you are a physics teacher, then you already understand that when 450000 lbs of locomotive gets going, there isnt a heck of a lot that will survive getting in it's way. Now add the weight, mass and inertia of 80 loaded containers behind that. That brings us to the human factor. You said you would rather have your wife driving on a icy truck free interstate , and that grade crossings are clearly marked and signaled. Yet people continue to drive around those clearly marked, bell ringing, light flashing arms down crossings and get hit, on average once every 90 minutes in America. How many are avoided because a engineer saw it coming, blew the horn a little louder, or reduced the throttle just enough to make a death into a near miss will be debated till the end of time, but I know it happens, I have been there and watched from the cab. Technology cant solve all problems, nor does it offer a solution to the human factor. Ask the crews of the Challanger or Colombia, billion dollars pieces of equipment, with tripple redundent systems, both destroyed because we relied too much on
technology instead of plain common sense. Its too cold to launch, but the computer says its ok. Do you think the hunk of stuff falling off and hitting the wing might have damaged it? The machine said no.
My point is, unless the railroads are willing to automate the entire process, do away with all grade crossings, invest billions of dollars in the technology, automate every switch, apply tripple or quad redundency to every piece of equipment, remote control locomotives become, instead of a efficent way of moving frieght, accidents waitting to happen. You assume that railroads behave like other businesses, but they dont. If your business repeatedly had a accident at a certain place in the workshop or plant, you would invest time and money to repair or upgrade that place to prevent accidents from happening there, yes? Railroad solution for grade crossing accident? Dont upgrade the crossing, just buy the people a new car, pay the medical bills, offer a settlement, and go about business as usual. Someone got killed, and your looking at years of expensive litigation, OK. They would rather spend millions in litigation and settlements than improve or do away with the crossing, which would cost far less, and save lives. They actually have a chart to show them how much a lost arm, foot, hand or eye is worth, so they know how much to offer a injured worker if they get hurt. Talk about callous, my hand is worth $2000.00. Never kid yourself into thinking railroads run like other businesses, its a entirely different culture, played by a completely different set of rules. Ask one of your railroad buddies what lengths the trainmaster would go to if they broke a finger at work, to keep it from becoming a FRA reportable injury. FELA, OSHA, and the Civil Rights bill dont exsist on railroads.
Lastly, you wife has the choice to change lanes, slow down, or not drive anywhere near trucks, the train has no choice as to where it goes. If it gets away, and technology does fail, the results will destroy the industry.
Ed

[Anonymous]

Oh, ED! How I love your commentary! You have the moxy and are articulate enough to lock horns with the teacher. As they say.... those who can do...those who can't; teach. For Noel: "I don't RR, but I talk to friends that do." Sorry, bud. That don't cut it. I am remote qualified. I operate one every day. I was on the verge of getting forced to the job, so I bit the bullet. Now, compared to you who read about it and have discussions on the topic, that would make me the expert here. You wouldn't know a frog from a wet fart! I work around new TMs all day that are college grads with econ. degrees among others. Guess what, it don't work! Your textbook *** doesn't fly on the RR. Case in point...BNSF is one of the worst managed companies in the US. Guess who is running the show....up high and down low. Yep, non RRing college grads.

[Anonymous]

Frenchie, Noel will get back to you as soon as he goes to Barnes and Noble, has a cappuccino, and reads the latest issue of Trains.
ironken
ps I wi***hat they had karma points here. This post is worht a few.

[dekemd]

Noel, have you ever worked for a large corporation? Large corporations do very strange things when it comes to money, operations, and employees. To give you an example, the company I work for recently had an employee involve in a car accident in a company vehicle. He was stop at a red light and a car turned off the side street into him. The company blamed the employee saying that if he had driven slower he would not have been at that intersection at that time and he wouldn't have been hit!?! This is the same mentality the railroads have.

You say that savings do not go executives. Look at American Airlines. The employees voted on massive wage concessions so the company would not go bankrupt. Two days later the company announced additional bonus for the executives. The bonuses were taken back after the employee uproar. Most corporate managers and executives get bonuses based on the bottom line. There are some who honestly care about the company, but many do whatever it takes to get a high bonus.

Personally, I would like to take as many trucks as possible off the highways. Trucking companies say that the railroad are not efficient enough. RCO will not make them more efficient. It has been well documented that RCO yard jobs take longer. Let's look at what would happen if RCO were used for road trains. You would have thousands of tons of train cruising along with no one aboard. Most engineers I've talked to drive by feel. How is an operator hundreds of miles away at a computer going to do that? What happens when something as simple as a coupler breaks? The train stops, say 30 miles from the yard. It sits there blocking the main line while someone is dispatched out to the train. This person has to drive the 30 miles to the train, then walk the train to find the break. What about those places that are only accessible by foot or by rail? He might have to walk 5 to 10 miles just to get to one end of the train. All the while the main line is blocked. Whereas someone on the train just hops off and starts walking. Most conductors or brakemen would probably have found the break and fixed it before the dispatched man could get 10 miles from the yard. It wouldn't take but a few broken couplers on an RCO train to send efficiency to the toliet. If railroad efficiency goes down the more trucks will not come off the highways.
So if RCO is not more efficient, does not save money, and does not improve safety, then why do it? Because some higher up in the corporation that has never acutally worked the job thinks it's a great idea and it gets shoved through regardless of the consequences. I've seen it happen many times where I work. After several years of declining performance numbers, somebody will come up with something different and they'll try that for a while.

Sorry for the length, but there was a lot to cover,

Derrick

[Anonymous]

Here is one for you Ed. On April 16th in Denver a remote crew tied onto some cars. They hopped into their van and headed out a head of the movement, the helper was operating from inside the van. The engine was on the other end of the movement. Unfortunately the helper put the reverser selector in the wrong direction. They drove on not looking back while their engine and cars went the other way. The movement ends up by a signal through a power switch onto the main and across the diamond that crosses the UP. It came close to hitting the local inbound from Cheyenne. Didn't make the news did it, the carriers cover just about everything.

Paul

[cabforward]

O.K., we understand the problem w/rcls.. the r.rs., the workers, the casual readers, as myself.. r.r. mgmt. is the only bunch of boys who can change it.. how would they do that? would they step up and apologize? would they simply drop it, willy-nilly, and revert to previous systems?

anyone who has worked for a large outfit has seen this happen.. xyz corp. attaches itself to a nutty idea and makes wild promises.. results prove the opposite.. noway is xyz admitting or even allowing discussions of this topic to reach employees or the media.. there has to be a gradual, slow movement of xyz away from the great idea that put it behind the 8-ball.. this means several years of continuing to promote this idea that helped noone to do anything, or earn a dime of profit, or grab a favorable line of media coverage.. this is necessary to allow mgmt. cover themselves while claiming the worst idea since the left-handed nut is a great success and will continue to have the support of mgmt. and workforce..

after some time (2-3 years), xyz will announce that 'unforeseen' circumstances in usage of the heretofore favored device have shown disadvantages and other factors in continuing to apply the device as company policy.. xyz will announce its strong support of the device even as it issues plans to strike the device from the corp. game plan.. a year later, xyz will announce it has not dropped plans for widespread usage of the device, but is suspending usage of the device pending the 'glitches' getting worked out.. a few months later, the media reports xyz has completely dropped usage of the device with no plans to re-introduce it in the foreseeable future..

r.rs., like any other bureaucracy, and probably more so, has to work its way thru dropping an idea it promoted it the first place.. it has to find a way out of the woods without looking like it was lost in the first place.. it has to cover itself in terms of media coverage, legal action and contractual agreements with the mfrs. of rcls, without looking like they are doing what they really are doing.. it's like walking real slow backwards so noone will notice you're really going the other way..
one detail to be worked out is how the different r.rs. will schedule their withdrawal so it won't look like they're all abndoning ship together.. this is more complicated than just one corp. backing away from a bad idea, this is an entire industry..

of course, it would be so much easier if they would admit they were wrong and apologize to all the workers who were put in a bad spot.. easier, not simpler.. when did a single r.r. ever apologize for anything? multiply that by 10, and double it, now you know how ego-driven this is.. this is an open sore for the workers that won't heal for decades.. this is an ego-hit for the r.rs. that won't heal for decades..

meanwhile, this messing around and putting up a front to cover their embarrassment and total wash of an idea that never deserved more than one day of consideration to begin with will cost thousands of men their ambitions to do something they like but have to stay with a job they now have that meant someone else got laid-off.. thousands more their jobs altogether, millions in development and testing.. great loss-of-face in the media, loss of trust with stockholders and depressed value of investment..

when r.r. mgmt and unions sit down and start hashing over what will be reconstituted post-rcl, there will certainly be much payback demanded by the unions, costing millions more in wages and benefits..
and for what? to save the co. money in the long and short-term.. i learned in computing a long time ago, a 'first principle' which is: a short cut is the longest distance between 2 points..
it always is..

[Jackflash]

I've got a question for the teacher and others
who think reducing the workforce in the RR and
other industries is such a good thing....
At some point in time...who is going to buy
products and services, as very few people will be
gainfully employed, Company "A" lays off 1700
Company "B" lays off 600, ect, ect, its in the
paper every day, and on TV too. They lay people
off and then wonder why they have a decline in sales, DUH, people on unemployment dont buy new
cars, the population isnt getting smaller, in the
very short term it (one or two pay periods)
might make since, where people know they are going
back to work, but long term, folks just wont buy.
instead of laying people off, companys should be
putting people to work (employed people spend money)

[petitnj]

Didn't make it Barnes and Nobles but am just finishing my reheated Folgers. Thanks for all of the interesting insight into RCO. I know the numbers look like the investment is questionable, but you have to remember that employment costs have become so high that all businesses must be as lean as possible to survive (not just to profit). I know it looks like management is bilking the worker when they take their $10M bonuses home. However, most of those folks easily made their money from their talents in keeping the company alive. (This will cause a stir among the forum, but it is true. A good CEO can make $100M decisions and those are rewarded.)

As remote control catches on, there will be many mistakes and the learning curve will change operations in the long run. However, you can't get in its way now that the RR's are adopting RCO. I know the unions have taken very active roles in assuring RCO safety and I am sure they will continue to refine the procedures. Once again, I stand by the claim that you cannot prevent a new technology (I cannot fight courses on the Internet, for example) even though it seems inferior.

As for cost you might see a significant "up front" investment in remote control systems, just as any new technology is expensive at first. (My first computer that connected to the Internet was $40,000 and you should have heard school management scream!). Later the same technology becomes part of the ongoing cost and is a very small cost. For example, RCO of main line trains may force RR's to make smaller more agile trains. This might increase costs by forcing the RR to buy more locomotives. Remember, however that I can turn one trainman's salary into the mortage on a new locomotive and save money. (Now wouldn't it be nice if we had more than one locomotive manufacturer in the US?)

As for the final question of who buys the products if everyone is out of work. Here you have me stumped. Between government regulation, insurance and tax costs, and all the other costs we have made the American worker very expensive. He doesn't make shoes or clothing any more. These industries moved overseas because they didnt' change. The American worker does make Japanese cars. How can that be? By improved productivity of the foreign car manufacturers they are able to make a factory here in the US that competes with much cheaper overseas labor. You are in the same battle. Hollar and scream as much as you'd like. No one is listening, I am sorry to say. I sympathize and wish it weren't so but we have to change, cause it ain't going to work otherwise.

On a final note, just think of where we would be today if the unions had not resisted RCO for more than a decade! We would have gotten thru all these bumps and running safer, cheaper and larger railroads. You will look back at this new chapter in railroading and be glad you didn't live in the good old days.

I'll wave as you pass by my window today. Thanks for being part of one of the most efficient and safe industries in the country. The reason we still have high standards of living is that the transportation industry has made foreign goods very cheap. You have yourselves to either blame or congradulate. And thanks for the good discussion. We need to get this group in one of my classes and let my students hear how passionate the US worker is about their vocation. They would be inspired. Now I have to get my course on railroading back on the class schedule and involve this forum.

[edblysard]

Hi Nole,
While I agree that change is ineveitable, I am not so sure its is always for the better.
But the concept that railroads resist change isnt quite correct. They do change, when the change improves the bottom line. Diesel vs steam is the classic example, 1 diesel cheaper to maintain with standard off the shelf parts and less expensive to purchase against a machine thats expensive to purchase, mostly hand made and very labor intensive. Or hand held radios. Didnt show up on railroads till the early eighties. I can not imagine doing my job without one. So technology can and does serve to improve things, but at some point you have to have people, with their built in thinking machine. Computers lack that one vital ingredient, instinct. The ability to sense that, even though you have no facts to prove it,you know, just know something is wrong is a skill no computer will ever achieve, but one which has served me well.
As for leaning out companies, well, railroads learned ten years ago that lean and mean can lead to starving and begging. Not enough people to move trains, and begging for the business that was chased away to trucks.
My brother in law owns a construction company, they lay sewer pipe, storm drainage system, and built water processing plants. He has a theory, he calls the Great Wall of China game. He figured the cost of building one mile of the wall, with todays modern materials (re enforced concrete)and machines, at around $500 thousand per linear yard, at the rate of a yard per day.
The logistics of getting the machines and materials to the site were stupendous. I joked with him about how many mexican workers he keeps on his payroll, almost a small army, and that they could hand build the wall, and walk to the site for almost nothing. He pointed out that, with his small army, he could build the Great Wall, at a rate of 3 yards per day, with native stone, for half the cost of doing it the modern way. Yes, he ownes huge earth moving machines, but at some point, you got to have humans with their shovels do the fine work.
Sure, you could automate the entire railroad, run the whole thing just like model rairoaders do, from a central place, but at some point,you would have to have people take small trains out to industries and pull or spot them. If you knew what some of the stuff inside the tank cars was, you wouldnt want it handled by a machine, it would require a human, with their instincts and skills, to move.
Look at the auto industry, it invested in robotics to the point that over half its work force became un employeed. Detroit has become a economic waste land compared to twenty years ago. The workers couldnt cross train to something else, and have swelled the welfare rolls to a point you would find scary. Yes, japan has built auto plants here, and they work very well. But they are not in Detroit, their in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennesse. The work force is small. Isnt it part of a business to provide jobs? Even grumpy old Henery Ford grasped the concept that if his workers couldnt afford to buy the product they were building, then there was no reason to build them in the first place. The five dollar a day plan made great PR, but also allowed the workers to buy back into the company, by purchasing the very product they built.
But railroaders cant buy back into the company, the produce we sell is the effecient movement of large quanities of freight from point a to point b. Sure, you can automate a lot of it, but again, at some point, you have to have people to do the fine work.
We are as lean as we can get, without automating the entire thing.
The concept most non railroaders fall prey to is that the technology and machines are new, and thats what we are resisting.
Wrong, the technology is old, its adapted from overhead cranes, CaNac is the leading provider of remote locomotives. Untill they got into the RCL business, they built and serviced overhead remote controlled cranes. I wouldnt be any where near as leary of this if the equipment was new, state of the art microprocessor stuff, but some of it is from the vacume tube era, and the locomotives its installed on are SW9 and SW6, most over 50 years old. How efficent is trying to maintain 50 year old equipment? If you saw the beating theses machines take, it wouldnt surprise you in the least to find most of them are down for repair at the 50% rate. Not efficent at all. The concept of efficency is great, but when it gets to the deer hunting with a machine gun aspect, well, its efficent, but why would I want to?
This post is getting long, or I would try to explain the business culture and employment culture of railroads, both of which are unlike anything you could imagine, and so alien to the normal way companies do business you would swear it couldnt exsist.
Stay Frosty, and keep the wife off those icy interstates with those rabid truck drivers.
Ed

[Anonymous]

My local newspaper reports that automated highways are comming - so that they can put your car 5 feet behind the one in front and get more cars on the road.

I personally would like to see some scenery when I go for a drive, not the Buttt end of the SUV in front.

But just imagine the car in front blowing a tire, or a sudden unintended brake application in a semi, jackknifing it all over the road.. All those cars 5 feet apart would inevitably run into each other until the were no cars left comming from behind! Now that's the smartist planning of all.

You wont be able to drive either.

On the other hand - stay home and wait for some show-off barnstormer to goof it up and land his Cesna on your kitchen table, or a drunk amature pilot to cra***hrough a crowded mall. Both happened in my town - YA AIN'T GONNA BE SAFE ANYWHERE until a few public officals wake up!

[cabforward]

for an ignorant man, you project an intelligent image.. i say ignorant, because you know nothing about r.rs.. i don't know much myself, but the difference is, i know i'm ignorant..

everything you've said has either specific applications to other areas of economics, which you presumably know better, or is extrapolated to include r.rs.. maybe this is how you cover the vacuum of information you have about r.rs..

this is like, i know nothing of caring for a chid, but i've read dr. spock's book, watched films about child care, and handled dolls who open their eyes, cry and wet themselves.. now i'm good to go!

you know nothing about a subject, yet have the incredible gall to read a few books (you dont say if you have spoken to r.r. workers about the stuff of which you write.. they probably wouldn't have anything to do with you), then instruct men who risk their lives, work exhausting hours, endure godawful weather, face attitudes from superiors and cope with possible lay-offs daily, on how easy they have it and how grateful they should feel for the years they have put in.. on top of which you accuse their co-workers from past generations of holding jobs which were unjustified and unecessary..

mister, if i were you, i wouldn't brag to anyone outside this forum about what you've said here, you could be sorry you didn't keep your mouth when you had the chance..

[Anonymous]

Here, here Cab! In addition. Noel, don't include this thread in your silly little class! No doubt we will be put in the "typical obstenate (sp?) railroader light. I just got called, so while you are snug in your bed, I will be moving the nations hazmat by remote. Wish me luck, we all (including you) need it. And as Cab stated: I wouldn't go around spouting your views to any real Rails (no, those wannabes in your class don't count), they may become the teacher and school you on Einsteins theory....for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and dot your eyes for you. Some of these guys around the yard are pretty tough old buzzards!