Railroads want one-person crews on freights

[greyhounds]

This may say more about specialized roles that anything, where unions insist on one person one job, and the engineer couldn't figure out what had to be done.  If you have a more encompassing approach to train operation in one well-rounded individual, you would not have the incident you report above.

 

The point of the post is more people add more years of experience in the cab.  After nearly 30 years in the cab and on the ground I knew exactly what the dipsatcher was talking about and what needed to be done at that location.  The two crewmembers at the site did not.  Now take away one of those crewmembers on ALL the trains and there is a higher probablility the remaining crew member will not have had any experience in a new or unusual situation.  That can lead to truoble.  One thing for sure on the old 4 and 5 person crews where at least one of the members had 20 or more years experience, at least one of the crew had been in this situation one or more times and had advice to offer.  That has been largely lost and will only get worse with one person crews.

 

You will not believe how much railroading experience has been lost over the last 20 years.  As the baby boomers start to pull the pin in the next 3 years or so even more will be gone.  The hand line the switches scenario will become much more prevalant and that is not a good thing in the railroad industry.  

"I want my old job back."

"I'm sorry, you can't have it.  A machine does it".

From the movie "Take This Job and Shove It".  It's about inevitable industrial change and the difficulties people have adjusting.  Set in a brewery in one of my favorite places, Dubuque, Iowa.  You see,  in this movie  Art Carney sells the brewery to Edie Albert and Albert sends in this young hotshot corporate type, who grew up in Dubuque with the guys working in the...Oh, never mind.

It's a good movie about how things like this have to happen and how people get upset with the need to change.

Recomended corporate reading is "Who Moved My Cheese", a book that deals with the same subject, but not as well as the movie does.

[arbfbe]

This may say more about specialized roles that anything, where unions insist on one person one job, and the engineer couldn't figure out what had to be done.  If you have a more encompassing approach to train operation in one well-rounded individual, you would not have the incident you report above.

 

The point of the post is more people add more years of experience in the cab.  After nearly 30 years in the cab and on the ground I knew exactly what the dipsatcher was talking about and what needed to be done at that location.  The two crewmembers at the site did not.  Now take away one of those crewmembers on ALL the trains and there is a higher probablility the remaining crew member will not have had any experience in a new or unusual situation.  That can lead to truoble.  One thing for sure on the old 4 and 5 person crews where at least one of the members had 20 or more years experience, at least one of the crew had been in this situation one or more times and had advice to offer.  That has been largely lost and will only get worse with one person crews.

 

You will not believe how much railroading experience has been lost over the last 20 years.  As the baby boomers start to pull the pin in the next 3 years or so even more will be gone.  The hand line the switches scenario will become much more prevalant and that is not a good thing in the railroad industry.  

[jeffhergert]

   According to the carriers, PTC (Positive Train Control) would allow them to safely operate with one person crews.  I've read articles where the carriers question whether some of the other benefits, like capacity enhancements, are worth the cost.  It leads me to think that the railroads don't really want PTC, except maybe on a limited basis such as lines hosting passenger trains.

  If the carriers could get a contract to go to one person crews before installing some kind of PTC system, they never will install it unless forced to.  I doubt that any business friendly administration, and despite the political rhetoric most are, would force a wide spread use of PTC.  

  BTW, currently with two persons in the cab, if the engineer has to use the restroom and the conductor doesn't have an engineer's license, you have to come to a stop.  A literal reading of our rules wanting the conductor to be in the operating cab all the time, except when on the ground during switching moves, would require you to stop if the conductor has to go. 

Jeff

[MichaelSol]

The direct capital investment represented by a "railroad train" is between $14 million and $22 million. The cost of a two man crew through the entire cycle time of a trip represents .03% -- three one hundredths of a per cent  -- of the capital investment in the train. The cost savings would represent only .015% of the total direct capital investment in the train.

Few industries would begrudge that level of "human investment" to protect the capital investment.

I'm gonna get more than one "train cycle" out of my investment, no?  Assuming a cycle is 2 days and investment life is 10 years, then 0.03% *365*10/2 = 54%

Every industry I can think of has spent capital to replace labor.  Name one that hasn't.  Even the USPS.....

It is true there is a reducto ad absurdum to any concept, including a 2 day train cycle. And, "protecting" an investment is certainly a qualified idea. Get rid of the .03% entirely. Save that 54% over ten years. Better yet, apply the same analysis to fuel --  save 86,000%. I'd say, cut back on fuel! Well, I'm not sure either analysis makes sense on its own two feet ... but, if you cut out the labor entirely ...

Nothing moves. The rate of return is hugely negative on the capital investment because it can produce nothing.

Replacing people by machines is was/is all the rage.  No one looks very hard at the results. The follow-up studies on these things in industry are notoriously poor or even non-existent. "We did it, therefore it was good," is the Biblical mantra of the modern incentive-driven, option-exercising executive. Not much PR value in a study showing the opposite.

One of the biggest such capital investments "to replace labor" in terms of scale was made by GM in the 1970s.  They've been suffering a negative rate of return on those investments ever since.

The auto company that has spent the least for capital to specifically replace labor?

Toyota.

The fact that whole industries "do it" -- whatever "it" is -- in my mind has never been an adequate substitute for a rigorous cost benefit ratio analysis. The hardest part of the process is designing an appropriate cost benefit analysis for new systems, and generally the least amount of time and budget is spent on that part.

I suppose if the argument is as simple as "capital" replacing labor, then it's an automatic conclusion -- makes it easy. You're entitled to make it, but good luck if you invest on that basis alone.

Insofar as mechanization has replaced humans in process streams, there has been a logic to it -- but transferred in many cases to inappropriate circumstances, and the history of industrialization is littered with the corpses of companies that replaced humans with machines inappropriately.

I agree with arbfe above -- these things tend to be driven by past experience (well, we cut expenses doing this before, let's do it again), not a recognition that the current situation is different, in fact, from the past.

GM spent billions in "capital to replace labor". Exactly in the words you use.

Toyota has always offered that it spends capital to assist its people to do their jobs better, always better.

There is a world of difference there between your vision, and, say, Toyota's. But, you're in good company -- "replacing people" has been a decision driver, right or wrong, for over 100 years.

But, three key questions:

1) In what sense is a railroad "investing capital" to replace the second crew man?

2) How does it assist the remaining "crew" member to do his or her job better?

3)  Aside from a small decrease in the operating expense, does it leverage the productivity of the existing capital investment? Does it contribute or subtract from that productivity?

[BaltACD]

One-man crews are feasible, practical, and inevitable, for most of the road jobs in North America. 

If it's safety you want to improve, ask Congress to change its instructions to the FRA and start permitting U.S. railroads to implement the systems that are on-the-shelf and available today that positively enforce authority violations and excess speed.  Those systems do more to improve safety than any number of extra employees in the cab.  (Ironically, those systems -- which are engineered and manufactured in the U.S. -- are being installed in developing-world countries where the FRA has no jurisdiction.)

S. Hadid

Be my guest to be that One Man 'crew' on a 9000+ foot train that is in emergency in the middle of a cold rainy night in a hostile enviornment.

 

...one single track stretched accross a bridge.

Obviously, single man trains will have to have a flying squad handle any mishaps enroute.  I doubt anyone believes the single crewman should have to walk a train in emergency.  There will have to be more flying squads if single man operation becomes the norm.

With mention of a 'flying squad' you are dreaming.  The Car Dept. will be home in  bed, need 2 hours to get to their reporting location and then be lost in trying to get to the inaccessable location where the train is in trouble and then request 'Blue Flag' protection once the get on the scene.  Trains that are stopped on Main Tracks for reasons other than Dispatcher controlled Red Signals are VIRTUAL DERAILMENTS.

The One Man crew, for Main Line US railroads is the figment of a Bean Counters illusions of running a railroad.  The Bean Counter that could not run a Christmas garden toy train system.

[Anonymous]

I'd like to hear a little more about how this concept of "lonesome pay" gets calculated.  Also, Selector,  w/r/t your "well-rounded individual", it reminds me somewhat humorously of Charles Barkley, who, when queried about his excessive salary demands during negotiations with his then team, the Phila. 76ers, replied, "If they expect me to play like two people, I wanna be paid like two people!"  Yes, I know that it probably won't come to pass (the two-person pay), but I thought it was a succinct thought...

Riprap

[oltmannd]

One-man crews are feasible, practical, and inevitable, for most of the road jobs in North America. 

If it's safety you want to improve, ask Congress to change its instructions to the FRA and start permitting U.S. railroads to implement the systems that are on-the-shelf and available today that positively enforce authority violations and excess speed.  Those systems do more to improve safety than any number of extra employees in the cab.  (Ironically, those systems -- which are engineered and manufactured in the U.S. -- are being installed in developing-world countries where the FRA has no jurisdiction.)

S. Hadid

Be my guest to be that One Man 'crew' on a 9000+ foot train that is in emergency in the middle of a cold rainy night in a hostile enviornment.

 

...one single track stretched accross a bridge.

Obviously, single man trains will have to have a flying squad handle any mishaps enroute.  I doubt anyone believes the single crewman should have to walk a train in emergency.  There will have to be more flying squads if single man operation becomes the norm.

[selector]

One-man crews are feasible, practical, and inevitable, for most of the road jobs in North America. 

S. Hadid

 

  I listened to a dispatcher a couple of nights ago trying to talk a crew through a set of double crossovers with instructions to handline some of them.  In frustration, he finally told them to just sit still and let the signal maintainer come out rather than risk the crew running through the switches.  Pretty basic stuff but obviously no real comprehension on the train of what needed to be done. 

This may say more about specialized roles that anything, where unions insist on one person one job, and the engineer couldn't figure out what had to be done.  If you have a more encompassing approach to train operation in one well-rounded individual, you would not have the incident you report above.

[Anonymous]

One-man crews are feasible, practical, and inevitable, for most of the road jobs in North America. 

If it's safety you want to improve, ask Congress to change its instructions to the FRA and start permitting U.S. railroads to implement the systems that are on-the-shelf and available today that positively enforce authority violations and excess speed.  Those systems do more to improve safety than any number of extra employees in the cab.  (Ironically, those systems -- which are engineered and manufactured in the U.S. -- are being installed in developing-world countries where the FRA has no jurisdiction.)

S. Hadid

Be my guest to be that One Man 'crew' on a 9000+ foot train that is in emergency in the middle of a cold rainy night in a hostile enviornment.

I've been in worse, but that's not the point.  You and I aren't the point.  The point is that if someone wants better safety, there's better ways to do it than insist on two men in the cab and resist installation of authority-violation systems that already exist, and already work.  And the economics are creating immense pressure that we aren't going to stop.

S. Hadid

 

[selector]

I agree with you that the whole idea of a one-person crew is totally stupid and can be extremely dangerous.  For example, what if the engineer should have a heart attack or something like that? 

Rob Knight

Cuba, MO

Why, the tail brakeman would have to run up and become an engineer, wouldn't he?  Field promotion and all....a good day for him.  It wouldn't take more than about 10 minutes of walking up a coal train to effect it, either.  Of course, what if he dies of a heart attack over the excitement.  Hooo, now we have a real problem.  Maybe we need three man crews, you know, just in case...?

[BaltACD]

One-man crews are feasible, practical, and inevitable, for most of the road jobs in North America. 

If it's safety you want to improve, ask Congress to change its instructions to the FRA and start permitting U.S. railroads to implement the systems that are on-the-shelf and available today that positively enforce authority violations and excess speed.  Those systems do more to improve safety than any number of extra employees in the cab.  (Ironically, those systems -- which are engineered and manufactured in the U.S. -- are being installed in developing-world countries where the FRA has no jurisdiction.)

S. Hadid

Be my guest to be that One Man 'crew' on a 9000+ foot train that is in emergency in the middle of a cold rainy night in a hostile enviornment.

[oltmannd]

The direct capital investment represented by a "railroad train" is between $14 million and $22 million. The cost of a two man crew through the entire cycle time of a trip represents .03% -- three one hundredths of a per cent  -- of the capital investment in the train. The cost savings would represent only .015% of the total direct capital investment in the train.

Few industries would begrudge that level of "human investment" to protect the capital investment.

I'm gonna get more than one "train cycle" out of my investment, no?  Assuming a cycle is 2 days and investment life is 10 years, then 0.03% *365*10/2 = 54%

Every industry I can think of has spent capital to replace labor.  Name one that hasn't.  Even the USPS.....

[oltmannd]

The argument for the one man train crew goes like this:

RRs have impending labor shortage and want to reduce operating costs.

Gov't wants PTS - badly - but won't pay for it.

RR can't afford PTS w/o offesetting savings to generate sufficient ROI.

RRs propose win-win-tie.

Win: Gov't gets added safety from PTS.  Saftey from 1 man + PTS  >  2 men + no PTS

Win: RRs avoid labor shortage, use some savings to pay for PTS

Tie:  RRs offer lifetime employment for all current T&E employees.

Unions reject.

Stay tuned!

P.S. Is "one man crew" oxymoronic?

RRs propose win-win-tie.  This is the biggest bunch of baloney ever to be thought up. I sure the Human Resource person who came up with this got what was coming to them.  Everytime someone in a management position starting espousing this garbage, I'd draw up. It is the entre to your getting the shaft, the only question is how BIG it is and how Deep are they going to bury it in you. 

One man crews may play well in the board room, and in the shortline arena; but out there on the BIG Roads it will translate to lost time, lost productivity, increased terminal dwell time, and ultimately big money.  They[ RR employers]  will need to decide if they are going to have engineers who are lawyers, or lawyers who are engineers. One man crews and the situations they create will need plenty of explanations!  

Gabe here's your chance to get a Railroad JOB!

.

Actually, the RRs called it win-win-win, since the guys running reduced crews would get lonesome pay along with job guarantees.

BTW, I wasn't advocating for or against, just laying out the RR's argument.

I'd be willing to bet it happens, slowly, and only where PTS is implemented.  It's just a matter of how loud and long the argument goes on.

[StillGrande]

For example, what if the engineer should have a heart attack or something like that?  If this plan goes through, like the railroads want, then there'll be no conductors to help them.  Or better yet, what if there's a derailment and the engineer gets killed, who's going to inform their families? 

This argument doesn't make sense.  Wouldn't the railroad be reducing the risk of having to stop a train for a medial emergency since there is only one person who can have a heart attack rather than two?  And wouldn't they have less families to notify in the event of an accident? Does the conducter really drive over to the engineer's house to tell his family he was killed in an accident? 

With more double track mains this actually sounds like a more feasible action.  More ability to pass around the problem.  The breakdown is still going to be there with one or 2 people on the train.  With more computer operation and more computer monitoring, this seems like an inevitable event.  Cell phone coverage is getting better all the time.  I am not saying it is perfect, but would the engineer need to "radio" the dispatcher when he could just call him.  Railroads could install cell towers (maybe get some revenue out of them. Don't tell UP!) for low coverage areas. 

I doubt one person crews would be used on locals with a lot of switching.  There are still cabooses out there for some activities. 

Not saying it wouldn't be boring.  Tough to go all that way with one person.  Still, other industries manage. 

The terrorism argument is a joke though.  Other than armed guards, who still could not stop a vehicle attack, a rocket, or sabatoge to the tracks, you cannot secure the load 100%. 

[MichaelSol]

The direct capital investment represented by a "railroad train" is between $14 million and $22 million. The cost of a two man crew through the entire cycle time of a trip represents .03% -- three one hundredths of a per cent  -- of the capital investment in the train. The cost savings would represent only .015% of the total direct capital investment in the train.

Few industries would begrudge that level of "human investment" to protect the capital investment.

[trainfan1221]

I know this has been discussed in the past, and as always I will state my opinion that to have one person on something as large and powerful as a freight train is a terrible idea.  At least outside of yard duties.  It just doesn't make sense and it's a lousy way to get people to lose their jobs too. 

[samfp1943]

The argument for the one man train crew goes like this:

RRs have impending labor shortage and want to reduce operating costs.

Gov't wants PTS - badly - but won't pay for it.

RR can't afford PTS w/o offesetting savings to generate sufficient ROI.

RRs propose win-win-tie.

Win: Gov't gets added safety from PTS.  Saftey from 1 man + PTS  >  2 men + no PTS

Win: RRs avoid labor shortage, use some savings to pay for PTS

Tie:  RRs offer lifetime employment for all current T&E employees.

Unions reject.

Stay tuned!

P.S. Is "one man crew" oxymoronic?

RRs propose win-win-tie.  This is the biggest bunch of baloney ever to be thought up. I sure the Human Resource person who came up with this got what was coming to them.  Everytime someone in a management position starting espousing this garbage, I'd draw up. It is the entre to your getting the shaft, the only question is how BIG it is and how Deep are they going to bury it in you. 

One man crews may play well in the board room, and in the shortline arena; but out there on the BIG Roads it will translate to lost time, lost productivity, increased terminal dwell time, and ultimately big money.  They[ RR employers]  will need to decide if they are going to have engineers who are lawyers, or lawyers who are engineers. One man crews and the situations they create will need plenty of explanations!  

Gabe here's your chance to get a Railroad JOB!

[Bob-Fryml]

Here's another perspective.

In June 1977 Union Pacific served a Railway Labor Act "Section 6" to the United Transportation Union U.P. Eastern District General Committee to establish crew consist manning levels along the lines of what The Milwaukee Road achieved a year or two earlier.  Generally this change involved dropping one brakeman from through freights, work trains, and locals plus eliminating one must-fill yard helper postion from switch engines.

It took the Railroad 7-years to reach the Agreement and another 8-years before it was fully implemented, when, on February 1, 1992, all brakemen were eliminated from through freight operations and the second brakeman/yard helper positions were dropped altogether.   But do remember this: the Carrier always has retained the right to fill any job they want, at any time they want, with a "standard crew," e.g., a conductor and two brakemen or a yard foreman/footboard yardmaster and two yard helpers.

Congress passed the Staggers Act in 1980, legislation which largely deregulated freight tariffs but also made cartel pricing sanctioned by the Interstate Commerce Commission illegal.  For the first time since the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, the railroads had to compete on price as well as service.  It took a while before the railroads fully understood and strategically implemented their newly found pricing incentives, but when they did it led to a downward pricing spiral.

The implementation of sophisticated information technology eliminated the necessity of mindlessly transferring information from one piece of paper to another resulting in the severe downsizing of the clerical ranks.  Better roadway machinery, better track maintenance techniques, and better track components - not the least of which was the widespread implementation of welded rail - helped downsize the maintenance of way ranks.  And then there was the merger movement of the 1980s and '90s that allowed railroads to combine back office operations for further savings.  But as the railroads were able to achieve each of these cost savings, it helped their profitability for only a short while.  As multi-year rate contracts expired, the customer would pit the incumbent against his competitor until one said "uncle" and the other got the business - but almost always at a lower tariff!  ITEM:  From 1980 to the mid-1990s railroad rates rose only 16% in nominal dollar terms, but fell sharply when adjusted for inflation.

So what does this all means in 2006?  The Carriers are just doing what they've done since 1977:  seek to eliminate what they consider to be a redundant position in order to achieve temporary, but ultimately elusive, gains in profitability.  Maybe their aim is to get the RIGHT to operate trains with just one person crews and then go after the technology and regulatory approvals to make such an operation possible.

[oltmannd]

The argument for the one man train crew goes like this:

RRs have impending labor shortage and want to reduce operating costs.

Gov't wants PTS - badly - but won't pay for it.

RR can't afford PTS w/o offesetting savings to generate sufficient ROI.

RRs propose win-win-tie.

Win: Gov't gets added safety from PTS.  Saftey from 1 man + PTS  >  2 men + no PTS

Win: RRs avoid labor shortage, use some savings to pay for PTS

Tie:  RRs offer lifetime employment for all current T&E employees.

Unions reject.

Stay tuned!

P.S. Is "one man crew" oxymoronic?

[arbfbe]

Management, including railroad management has a bad habit of hitching their cart to a horse and riding that horse into the ground.  If eliminating one person on a five person crew, i.e. the fireman, then eliminating another must be a good idea as well. Low and behold, eliminating the fireman saved the railroads some money and improved the bottom line.  Eliminating the rear brakeman saved some money and improved the bottom line.  So let's eliminate the other brakeman and save some money.  But did it improve the bottom line?  Likely not, certainly not as much as eliminating the first two jobs.  Well, if that did not improve the bottom line as much what did we do wrong?  Obviously, based upon past experience, we did not eliminate ENOUGH jobs.  So they proceed to eliminate the conductor's job as well since, in their mind, that will improve the bottom line.  The will eliminate jobs until it no longer makes any sense and beyond that.  The will ride that horse right into the dirt.

Need proof?  Look at the railroads in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s.  Eliminating "excess" capacity was the horse to profitability.  They eliminated "excess" capacity to the point that when business did pick up they could not handle the volume any more.  Imagine how much profitability could improve if the railroads were not dogcatching so many trains since all that earlier "excess" capacity had been eliminated.  They will do the same with employment levels.  

[Modelcar]

....Most likely the public doesn't have any idea what the situation is in an Amtrak or commuter cab....A freight train is not just a straight through operation most of the time.  More is required to "man handle" the freight operation with all the set outs, and various operations.

[Anonymous]

Yes, the success has a great deal to do with one-man crews.  Cost margins are very thin on any business that can move by rail or by truck.

Perhaps the public would care about two-man crews vs. one.  Since they don't care about Amtrak and commuter trains having just one man in the cab, I doubt that they'll get too spun up about freight trains.

[Modelcar]

....Is the "raging success" of said railroad due to one man crews.....just eliminating one person's benefits in a train crew....?

I'm not a railroader but for the operation of trains I believe people  would still feel a bit more comfortable with at least two man crews operating the train passing through...

 

   

[Anonymous]

arbfbe -- I'm not much looking forward to it either.  But since the U.S. is already rife with truck drivers making very poor wages (factoring their time away from home), working long, solitary shifts, and achieving a sufficient level of safety to satisfy the voters, it's hard to see how railroads aren't going to follow the same route, complete with all the problems that will ensue.  It will indeed make the job of engineer even less appealing, but as long as the public continues to tolerate a winner-take-all economic system there will be enough takers to make it feasible.

S. Hadid

[arbfbe]

One-man crews are feasible, practical, and inevitable, for most of the road jobs in North America. 

S. Hadid

 

While I agree it is feasible I doubt it is really practical.  It has been feasible since they put stokers on steam engines but the challenges of the application would not have been pretty.

Most of the trips I make over the road could certainly be done solo but how lonely and unfulfilling they would turn out to be.  I can think of dozens of miles on my route where the rover/utility employee in a pick up is not going to get to my train at all.  Then you run into the issue of who is going to train the next generation of employee.  The railroads found out about that after they eliminated the fireman's position.  Sure, engineers' training programs have been implemented and they turn out qualified engineers but some of the polish has been lost.  I listened to a dispatcher a couple of nights ago trying to talk a crew through a set of double crossovers with instructions to handline some of them.  In frustration, he finally told them to just sit still and let the signal maintainer come out rather than risk the crew running through the switches.  Pretty basic stuff but obviously no real comprehension on the train of what needed to be done.

 

I am not looking foreward to implementation of one person operation.  The railroads will not be nearly as well prepared for it as they promise to be.  You always hear from the railroad about how two, three, four or five employees dropped the ball and the accident happened inspite of the full crew.  You never hear of the times where the second employee reminded the other of an upcoming event and saved an accident or injury from happening.  Since no metal was bent those events are not recorded.  Socialogically one person crews will make railroaders even more alienated from the rest of the population than they are now.

Sometimes the implementation of a possible application just does not make much sense but if it will "save" money the railroads will go broke trying to make it work.   

[locomotivefan]

I agree with you that the whole idea of a one-person crew is totally stupid and can be extremely dangerous.  For example, what if the engineer should have a heart attack or something like that?  If this plan goes through, like the railroads want, then there'll be no conductors to help them.  Or better yet, what if there's a derailment and the engineer gets killed, who's going to inform their families?  This whole idea is full of baloney and I think the railroads, if this plan goes through, will rue that day very much.

 

Rob Knight

Cuba, MO

[greyhounds]

To everyone saying "It won't work", "It won't be safe", "It won't be efficient", etc.

One person crews do work, they are safe and they are very efficient.  Besides being a very normal thing in other countries, the Indiana Rail Road has operated with one person crews for years.  And they operate everything up to, and including, unit coal trains with one person crews.

It's been a very successful operation in its 20 years of existance - turning a decrepit ex-ICG line running south and west from Indianapolis into a raging success.  The Indiana recently expanded by acquiring the CP operation between Chicago and Louisville.  They aren't exactly a 'short line'.

Now the Indiana doesn't have high traffic density and that mitigates some of the potential drawbacks to one person operation.  But given the right set of circumstances, in the right situatiions, one person crews will be just as effective on the UP as they have been on the Indiana.

It seems the unions should be negotiating the conditions and situations where one person crews may be used.  They could protect their members by seeing that there were no layoffs due to one person crews, for example.  But no.  The unions don't even want the issue on the barganing table.

It is a proven fact that one person crews can operate some trains in a safe, efficient manner.  For the unions to try to block the idea from even being on the table is a return to the days when they insisted on diesel locomotive "firemen".  

   

[Anonymous]

One-man crews are feasible, practical, and inevitable, for most of the road jobs in North America. 

If it's safety you want to improve, ask Congress to change its instructions to the FRA and start permitting U.S. railroads to implement the systems that are on-the-shelf and available today that positively enforce authority violations and excess speed.  Those systems do more to improve safety than any number of extra employees in the cab.  (Ironically, those systems -- which are engineered and manufactured in the U.S. -- are being installed in developing-world countries where the FRA has no jurisdiction.)

S. Hadid

[Andrew Falconer]

How many disasters will it take to prove that the Management of Transportation Corporations are cutting the number of employees to below a safe level?

There are no flying robots to monitor loads, make repairs, and check the brake lines. They have not found a way to replace all the employees yet. Nobody is that efficient.

The railroad does not actually run itself after the locomotive engines are started.

Andrew

 

[BaltACD]

A Engineer only train is great......as long as there are not mechanical problems with the train.

Train goes into Emergency....only person on train now goes for an 18000 foot or longer jaunt in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, or more ominosly...in the middle of someswhere with multiple road crossings blocked by the train with irate drivers contemplating mischif and mayhem for any rail worker they see.  Now our engineer finds the knuckle his train handling broke.....7500 feet from the engines....of course the knuckle to fix the break is 7500 feet away.....and on and on and on..

Getting todays 9000 foot+ freight trains over the road is a team effort between engineer and conductor, expecially when the train becomes stopped for mechanical reasons or defect detector inspections.

Without Cabooses and the the Conductor & Flagman that used to occupy it, the length of time trains are stopped for repairable mechanical problems has more than doubled, as inspection and problem resolution can only take place from the head end  now, rather than initiating the inspection from both ends of the train.  With a One Person crew we can expect line of road delays to double again.  So what was a 30 minute delay in the days of the Caboose and is now an hour delay, will become a 2 hour or more delay.  Two hours on a busy single track railroad is an eternity to have the line SHUT DOWN, as any train that should be moving and isn't is a virtrual derailment in the operating throughput of the line.