Team Engineers

[Modelcar]

.....That idea seems to have merrit from an outsider's [me], point of view.....What's in place now seems not to take any blue ribbons. Wouldn't it seem to have possibilities of becoming more competitive against long haul trucking....Sure Unions would be a problem but they and everything else in railroading might be less of a problem if the railroads continue to loose business to competition...! Maybe reading the hand writing on the wall might cause some serious negotiations.

[mudchicken]

Amtrak experimented with a version of that right after their operating crews took over from the freight railroads in the mid '80's....Did not work well then.

[athelney]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jruppert

What a cool idea. you could rotate a month on then a month off. I think merchant mariners have much longer rotations like eight months on then four off. Don't truckers do like a month on then two weeks off? What about accomodations? - A crew car - a decent head would be nice, that seems to be a big deterent to me when considering becoming an engineer or conductor. Do railroads still have dormitories at crew change points?

Remember seeing a crew car on a freight in Australia a couple of years back.The train was going from Port Augusta to Perth across the Nullaboor Plain. Maybe a comment from one of our Australia n friends on the forum> How do the work?

[locomutt]

Could go back to the old GE BQ cabs like the L&N had.[:D]

[Anonymous]

What a cool idea. you could rotate a month on then a month off. I think merchant mariners have much longer rotations like eight months on then four off. Don't truckers do like a month on then two weeks off? What about accomodations? - A crew car - a decent head would be nice, that seems to be a big deterent to me when considering becoming an engineer or conductor. Do railroads still have dormitories at crew change points?

[Anonymous]

Team drivers are common in the trucking industry and provide many service and economic benefits. Crews of tow boats on the inland waterways sign-on, I believe, for 30 day rotations.
Why not team locomotive engineers? Provide the necessary amenities for sleeping, eating and communicating; appropriate training and information for operating safely and efficiently over the assigned route; all requisite agreements for bidding on assignments, frequency and duration of trips, etc. One nearly universal complaint of train crews is the unpredictability of their lives. With team crews, once on duty the team would know within reasonable boundries when their trip would end, with several days off without being subject to call. Unit trains and transcontinental intermodal trains would seem to be logical "test beds" [:)].