GE brought in several groups of enginemen, helpers, etc. whose names were provided by the Unions, and they went over the cab mockup (a full size cab with all controls, desktops, etc.) early in the design phase for the GE desktop controller. We also had a GE B40 that did some barnstorming with the first cab with the window design that some of these people complained about, so we changed it. The input of these people was important and they had a hand in the final design, not only of the overall cab, but "each and every" control, where it was located, its dimensions, etc. Once we built some prototypes, they were invited back and they ALL liked it. They did make some minor recommendations re the cab and we made those changes as well.
So a few years later and "all of a sudden", no one likes the desktop controller! What should we have done differently? GE did "everything that we possibly could" to get this right, and that is the bottom line.....
After this fiasco, I reluctantly concluded that "this was a moving target", and not always in the forward direction either.......
We went through the same circus at EMD. The real problem was, all of the people that came in to "help design" the desk top controller, after having seen and sat in the Canadian cab unit, were Union Officials. In other words, none of the "Union Officials" had actually been in the cabs of operating diesel units in many years! They war all "arm chair railroaders" and really had no clue what day-to-day Engineers REAL experience.
That is why the stupid desk top controllers were such a disaster on the U.S railroads. My best friend, Engineer Doyle McCormack summed it up beautifully; "Think about sitting at a diner table for 11 hours!".
