Dominic Mazoch posted:Lastly, this is for the Number 90, HW, and the other people in this group who ran trains. In your honest opinion, are the people who are now running trains have that "innate" knowledge of railroading? A railroad version of Scully. Is the training good enough? Did the railroad industry loose a training base by having fewer switch jobs and locals. What about a Top Gun program where some of the best in the field teach, if they have the later skill.
Not to knock the newer railroaders, bit it might be good to hear from them. In a way of course their employs would not know.
"Lack of proper training" has been going on a long time, long before I was a railroader. In your first question about people running trains now...I would say it depends on the engineer/employee. There are certainly people I've met and worked with out here who are clearly professional, are passionate about doing things correctly and safely, and then there are others who are simply here to collect a paycheck every two weeks and skate by.
The official rule books and railroad training I've gotten has only served a purpose that is keeping me employed, and within the guidelines the railroad expects. All the really handy "good stuff" is passed down between railroaders. This is a job where things can go bad pretty quickly, and those stories and experiences that older railroaders have can really help you out in certain situations. If only I had a dollar for every time I had to call someone up and thank them because some nugget of advice they gave me 10 years ago turned out to be the key in a problematic situation...
I think, as a whole, the employees who are very skilled in what they do are dwindling. The company really doesn't care how well you handle a train...they just don't want an accident. The next big push is taking people (engineers, conductors) out of the equation entirely. If they didn't care about training you "outside the box" before, they really don't care now. Between Trip Optimizer, PTC, and other tech, you will lose highly skilled people in favor of base-line consistency which can be mass produced and manipulated.
Trip Optimizer for example...you currently have a group of engineers, some who never get knuckles, and a few who occasionally get them. TO gets fewer knuckles than the engineers who occasionally get them. So eventually you lose the "skill" the engineers have, and the railroad has fewer train separations...which is a higher priority than retaining "skill" because that has less of an impact on shareholder value. It's sad, but it's indisputable.
