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Well, if railroads had continued to increase max operating speeds after the 1930's (wherein 100 mph passenger operations, even a few fast freights, were getting down the tracks faster than any corresponding highway vehicle) and let the natural technology to it's logical evolution, maybe those four man crews would have been more productive than the two man crews today. Granted, the unions still would have prefered limited crew districts like the 100 mile day, and conversely the railroads would still be pusing for one man crews even with 50 mph or 75 mph average velocities, but think about this in terms of railroad productivity. If railroads today had a standard of 125 mph top speeds and 75 mph average speeds, they'd be covering three times the distance between crew changes. A four man crew covering 600 miles a day is more productive than a two man crew covering 200 miles per day. Yeah, railroads are productive today, but not real fast. And the truckers weren't laughing because they were "taking" business from the railroads, rather they were bemoaning the fact that their perfered method of getting trailers between medium to long distance points, aka TOFC, was only offered in limited areas to limited clients over a limited network that had improved it's average velocity a measly 5 mph over the last 100 years.
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