Yes it was a steam era question, but the same 5 man crew existed on most all trains until the late 1980's, mid-90's in places. Many engineers working today still have their fireman's seniority if they started before 1986, but after that no more firemen were hired, new engineers since then come from train service. There has been a tremendous productivity gain made by train crews since the 1980's. When I started as a fireman, we had a five man crew almost all the time, and even 6 if you count an occasional engineer trainee. We ran mile long, single stack trains over a single division with 5 men and a caboose. Over the years, that changed to 2 men, running across two divisions, with two mile long trains, one stacked on top of the other, and no caboose. Just the other day I saw a facebook video of a BNSF stack train running west out of KC, that was 16,000' long with remotes in the middle and on the rear end, with just the two men on the engine. How many men would it have taken in 1940 or 1980 to do that ?
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