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Ohio legislator looks at two-man crew law
Put locomotives on the front and rear of each train and one person in both locomotive sets.
Some trains including hazmat, should require threeman crews.
It takes 1 person to start the ball rollin!!! Do it Mr Hagan!!
PTC is coming; unions are scared.
This is tough stuff.
I’m a pool freight engineer, got a conductor, and it is 0300 hrs when we highball west from Roseville.
40 years earlier, I fought to stay awake in the fireman’s chair of an F7 on an mty reefer drag on the Coast near Capitan…scared the____out of me!
So…I told the condr that if he wanted to nap, do it but, be ready if I ask you later in the trip to “keep me awake.”
That was my routine, for many trips. Did I have too much confidence in my self, by encouraging my back-up to sleep?
Two man crew?
Two person crew?
Two engineer crew?
No, no, and yes.
I would like to know how many of those on this board who are scoffing at the effort of this legislator in Ohio to require two man crews have ever been in charge of a large freight train by themselves. It is easy to make claims of “featherbedding” but the fact of the matter is that I don’t know of any of my fellow railroaders who would rather do the job all by themselves.
To bad this guy is only a state rep. He needs to be in Washington with his bill on a national level. Well done sir. And good luck. I hope you get this pasted.
Andrew obviously you have never rode a DP aka distributive power engine on a freight train . It will beat you to death back there. Every time the SLACK runs in and out its magnified 10 fold back on the rear. Not a practical idea. One of many reasons they did away with the caboose. Personal injuries.
Crew size has not been an issue in any of the recent major accidents. This is another legislative smoke screen. Most are track or railcar failures. Why not demand two drivers in each truck (especially hazmat)?
The unions and brotherhoods will be pushing for this legislation-- hard.
Oh man !! Why not go for four-man crews, so that each Conductor and Engineer has a back-up ? Better still, lets put cabooses back on the freights and go-back to the “old” work rules, so they can be more watchful of the last-half of the train !
This action would also help relieve some of the nation’s unemployment !
I’m sure Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would love to see New York State return to six-person (PC) crews.
The horrible accident and fire in Magantic makes a case for a two man crew. The two man crew provides a check and balance for the crew. There is a reason that signals are called when operating any train. this to keep the employees on their toes. Also both persons will set the number of handbrakes required to tie down the train. gradients will determine what a sufficient amount of hand brakes to be set.
Quite a few smart-ass comments here. Obviously from those who don’t work on the trains for a living.
From my own perspective, having worked in the industry long enough to go from 4 and 5 man crews to the present 2 man crew size, I have found the 2 person crew size to be the most efficient, workable and safe. When we first went from 3 man crews to two, I found working with just one other person on the crew forced you to work more closely together and seemed to me to make the moverment of the train safer. You had to rely on each other and communicate better, as there was no one else to help you.
I feel going to a one person crew is inherently unsafe for a few reasons; the most obvious being if anything happens to you (you fall seriously ill; get hit with an object or shot (yeah smart asses, it happens) you’re a goner. By the time any help finally arrived, it would more than likely be too late for you. Having a second person with you is simply a safer move all around.
Ideally, what I would like to see eventually take place, is having two qualified engineers in the cab; the junior engineer would assume the conductor’s responsibilities. Having a second engineer to help spell the first one, especially on long interdivisional runs that are in place on many locations in the RR industry presently, is a very smart, and very safe move. That is sort of happening now, as conductor’s get sent to engineer’s training, and upon completion of their training they can’t hold an engineer’s vacancy, they go back to being the conductor. But that is not commonplace to my knowledge, and I feel it should be.
At the very least, though, I would like to see the two person crew to be the standard; and I fail to see the benefit in reducing the crew size to one, other than strictly for financial gain. And it appears that this issue will need to be legislated, eventually. And for those of you who don’t work on the trains, hold your snarky comments. As a trainman/conduct
RIGHT ON WAY TO GO . OSHA OR ANY OTHER GOVT AGENCY SHOULD HAVE BEEN BEHIND THIS LONG AGO INSTEAD OF SOME OF THEIR NIT PICKING
I have never been a engineer. But I have been a pilot for 42 years. After 13 years of corporate and commuter flying with lots of all night freight operations I got hired by a major airline. When I started we had three man crews. Later we went to two man crews even for long international flights. Both crewman are pilots and we have duel controls. We swap out every other leg so each pilot gets equal stick time. The non flying pilot does all the paper work and handles all the radio communications. This keeps us both busy and in the loop. I like the idea of two dual rated crewmen in the cab who split the trip. One drives out the other drives back. I always asked my First Officer which leg he would like to fly. By the way, I have two hours of running a GP-30 in Nevada. Big deal, huh?