https://www.yahoo.com/news/rule-thwart-railroad-efforts-cut-135530938.html
This is long overdue. It's id--tic to think that 1 man crews are safe or effective esp with 15k ft trains. The push for 1 man crews was never really thought out well. UP would have to build access roads next to the rail every where at a cost of hundreds of millions. You really think a roving conductor would be able to access these trains during winters across the midwest without them?
If the industry ever goes to “ground man” I think that job could be the worst one out here. Sitting alone in a truck or even an office in the middle of nowhere, watching the CAD and listening to the radio. Hours after hours of doing nothing. Then some brown noser manager is gonna try to gain brownie points by inventing some mundane repetitive tasks for the groundman to do. Then when the groundman is actually needed and they go assist a train but dont fill out the mundane redundant paperwork invented for them they’ll get in trouble for that. The whole disgruntled employee cycle starts again.
you really need to read the whole document to get an idea of the standard the carriers will have to meet to run one man on thru freight...
Page 182 is a good place to start and get a feel for the required 'risk assessment'. There are numerous other parts of the regulation that touch on the requirements.
Read the fine print on this. FRA will grant exemptions to the carriers for one man crews if they can prove its safe. So I'm sure they'll go to them saying a 15k foot stack/coal train is safe since there is no hazmat, on ptc territory and the conductor "isn't doing anything"
They just opened the door to eliminate 90% of us.
What is the train crew unions going to use to sc--w over every other union at contract negotiation time now that the one man crew panic is off of the table?
This will no doubt be a political football for future FRA administrators but I suspect it's going to be harder to remove this language than it was to get it in place...
Time will tell, but one thing is for sure. Crew consist is off the table for at least a couple of years. 8^)
Uh oh time to start being nice to trainmen again cuz they aren’t going anywhere. I sure hope they have a hiring and retention plan cuz lots of folks where I work are ready to dip out especially if we get a raw deal on contract.