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Railroad labor cautiously supports FRA’s two-man crew proposal
Two man crews are doubly safe. Two sets of eyes, especially in the early morning hours are necessary for a safe operation. How many men on the bridge of a ship? How many crew members on the flight deck? They are there for a reason.
Lets toss in the scenario of a train going into emergency for whatever reason…engineer secures the train, then begins the long walk to the rear looking for the defect. Broken knuckle you say? NOW thats a LONG delay, hopefully no other trains are ahead or behind…yeah right.
My experience in work situations has taught me a second person in such positions adds to the safety and efficiency of an operation. I base this in time, motion, and sound presence in a work environment. I have been contradicted by those, mostly railroad managers, who prefer one man cabs. And they may be correct up to a point…in passenger service there are lots of transit and commuter operations operating with only one person in the cab. But these are train operations with short distance and time stops and starts and often open window contact with others at station stops and visits by crew member; also many of these are often less than an hour trips. So, yes, maybe there are applications where one set of eyes works safely. But go more than an hour without stopping or non stop leaps of 20 or 30 minutes need the second set of eyes. As noted, airplanes are not allowed to operate with less than two in the cockpit and that freight engineers have more difficult operating conditions from changing speeds, weight of train, type of train equipment, types of freight to name a few items. So, yeah, two qualified people in the cab will add safety and efficiency even with PTC which really is something different.
Had labor not bargained away the caboose this issue would not exist. Because of safety, thefts, and train operations there should be a man at each end necessitating a three man crew!
Mr. Norton, the caboose was going away wether we liked it or not. And no we didn’t like it. Rather bargained away or protections gained is a matter of debate but I got my protection and at the end it paid 280 dollars A DAY over and above my daily rate. We prior right employees got a rather decent Christmas check every december.
And looking at it another way…one notices commercials on the tube for asbestos lawyers and filing claims for lung cancer and asbestosis, among other things. Being on the rear of a train I would turn on the lights at night or turn on the lantern and see particles of dust floating in the air. My face AND nose would be dirty after a trip too. Add to that conductors and flagmen that smoked and you had a lot of men passing due to cancer related illness. Still going on today. I really think that eliminating the caboose helped slow that rate of cancer among railroaders WAY DOWN.
Here we go back to the dark ages again.
Technology can never walk the length of a 14,000 foot train trying to find out why it went into emergency.
Robert: I guess that you’d be fine with one person flying an air plane. But, I don’t see you complaining about two or more persons in the cockpit. Boy, the hypocrisy reeks. Please don’t give the baloney about airlines being profitable. They are not! They don’t build airports. They don’t provide safety and security. They’re subsided by federal or state governments.