I have to pause the video at 2:45. Mark, you are quite correct, sir! A train needs a bare minimum of two men. What do you do in an emergency? Just set the brakes and go for a long walk? Think of how well a portable radio and one man with eyeballs on the problem works. Don't worry about the next train on the line.... Hey, Mark, I'm on a roll. More management positions? Brilliant. More power point presentations and meetings. Managers are a higher level when it comes to salaries, right? Just checking if the old man's pencil needs sharpening. A railroad has a product. Efficient and consistent transportation. There is not one manager in existence that can get his hands dirty, and work in the weather, fixing what is broken. When things break, everything stops. When someone is injured, everything stops. Better make a power point presentation explaining that. Why did that accident happen, and were you prepared? Oh, shit. Here, check this cool spreadsheet. Hehe.
Having worked for the Post Office for 33 years I felt lucky to be able to work for them for that long. Like you the present slowdown in the PO is the result of a Postmaster who knows nothing about the operation of the PO. Like your job, union jobs are the first to go. The highest paid and most useless manager are always the last to go. Luckily you survived long enough to retire. It's the best thing I ever did and I loved my job. Your videos are great and being a railfan, you have taught me many things I had no idea about. You have also taught me to respect the railroad and their property. There is nothing worse while railfaning if you get hurt or arrested while doing something you love. Enjoy your retirement, you earned it.
Reminds me of the old Caltrans joke about "How many men does it take to fill a pothole"? The answer is "100 of them. 98 supervisors and 2 laborers and one of them is asleep on his shovel"
I left before the 2020 plan i left nov 1 st 2016. The last 3 years i was a zone gang foreman on a distribution gang. Delivering ptc material in 6 states. I knew this was coming, half of the work i did for over 30 years as a maintainer was eliminated. No more heads to rock, no pole line to maintain, no batteries to clean and water, very little bonding, broken rails were welded the next day. Ground tests were changed from monthly to quarterly, led signal heads and crossing lights, no paper to change on the hot box detectors that was atleast weekly on 5 detectors ,at high traffic volume 2 times a week plus the weekly test now monthly. No more code line. Not near the problems with new hxp3 as i had with the old motion sensors. The good old days are gone, I am glad i am retired.
Greetings MCM, I wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying. As Prof. Dr. Tom Sowell once said "Nothing could be more dangerous and more stupid than having people taking decisions for which they pay no price for being wrong". We should remember that the Titanic was not supposed to sink --- according to the "experts". Ontario, Canada. 2021/04/10.
My last five years working as a locomotive engineer for the Soo Line (Canadian Pacific) was under the leadership and creator of precision railroading, the late CEO, E. Hunter Harrison. The BAD: At the Soo's Bensenville (Illinois) yard we went from about 30 yard jobs to mark up on to about 12. The GOOD: I made more money in my last five years than I ever imagined I would working for the railroad. Made a big improvement in my pension upon retirement.
I am not a railroader, but I have had a number of friends who were. If you want an example of what not to do to a railroad, just look at the history of the Lac Megantic, Quebec disaster. After what had once been a Class 1 railway that was run into the ground by the new management after the sale of the line, well, it was pretty bad as millions around the world saw. I'm not indicating that UP would ever get anywhere close to becoming this bad, but it does happen. This train had a 1 man crew too, just one of the many things that contributed to this terrible disaster. I had a retired CN conductor friend (now long deceased) who used to call these shoddy run railroads, "Tinker Toy" railroads. Large or small, if you mismanage a railroad and you get what you get. I in no way shape or form intend to diss anybody in railroad management nor do I intend to offend anyone here. Thank you.
Crazy management story from another industry: in the early 2000s I was assigned to the crew receiving new nuclear reactor fuel assemblies from Westinghouse. These arrive by truck, in big casks, on a regular twice-weekly schedule. Our job was to open the casks, inspect the fuel assemblies, then lift each 1600+ pound assembly and place it into our storage racks. Trouble was, our hoist was broken for several days, the casks were piling up, and we were getting frustrated! Management didn't want to bring in an extra couple of technicians to fix the hoist on overtime, and because the regular dayshift maintenance guys were all busy elsewhere nothing was happening. We're out there twiddling our thumbs when we get the news that our CEO is resigning, and he is leaving with over $60M in total compensation! I'd have to work SIX CENTURIES at my present pay to equal what that guy walked away with, the one on watch when our company went bankrupt. Meanwhile we sat, waiting for someone to okay spending a few hundred bucks to fix the golldurn hoist. True story!
With advances in artificial intelligence, it's about time to start replacing the executive teams at all these large corporations with software. Just think how many 20 million a year CEOs, CFOs, CIOs etc. can be easily replaced with a $20,000 per year licensing fee?
@@bjornegan6421 And when some eventually derails or otherwise has a major problem like hitting a tanker truck or school bus, the automated system can announce ¨REBOOT REBOOT¨
I agree with you that a manager needs to know or at least understand what his people are doing to contribute to the company to be able to "manage" them adequately. Some "bright" bean counter on a railroad, electric utility, telephone, or cable company changed the bottom line by switching operational and maintenance equipment from owning to leasing so the cost is taken off as an expense instead of capitalization. When a truck (etc) is bought and owned, it is capitalized; when it is leased, the cost is not capitalized but charged to operating expense for tax purposes.
I enjoy your videos and am learning things from you. Without a conductor on a train,who is going to walk back 112 cars to find out why the train went into emergency? I'm glad you made it into retirement vs. being laid off. Keep the videos coming and thanks for the ones already made. Jim
you have it correct, the people keep the rails safe! they are the inspectors,maintenance, and ones that fix the problems to keep everyone safe, no failures that hurt people both rail and public. the upper management just warm seats and say yes . the best managers go through the rank and file and know the systems and how to fix them. the upper management will just walk away, screwing over the remaining workers that keep the train’s going daily! it is better to get out before you get hurt by bad management. congratulations upon your retirement, mine is close I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. going through the same with ed breen and his chopping the company to nothing. barry
It’s sad and funny at the same time when companies can be so short sighted in trying to cut costs, when all they do is depress morale, cause financial hardships to those who loose their jobs a make it tougher for the ones lucky enough to retain their job. I was lucky. My dad got me into the oil refinery where he worked. The Human Resources manager congratulated me, shook my hand with a strong, proud hand shake and said there has never been a layoff in the oil industry, and I’ll have a job for life. Ironically, 4 years later we went out on strike. One of the gives that the union would not let go was when the company said they were going to lay off, they wanted to do it regardless of seniority. So, I made up my picket sigh to read “LAY ME OFF FIRST!” You see, I was a believer in seniority and was low on the totem pole. I got canned and was fortunate enough to get hired on with another company. This company went through 5 company name changes, mergers, etc. With one of the last mergers, they were going to lay off and pick and choose who they wanted to keep. I remember my supervisor was preselected to keep his job, and was to be taking on the roll of telling the pool of questionable employees whether or not they would be hired back under the new company. It always bugged me that he was happy doing that job. He sure was able to detach any emotions from his duties. Now, one day, essentially everyone was let go, and they had to clear out their lockers as nobody (hourly paid people) knew who would be let go or hired on. So, we followed the line passing him at the table and on out the gate. As you got to him, he was sorry but, they did not have a job available for you, or he stated the new company would like to offer you a new job with them. (It was all just paperwork - and crew and schedule changes when you went back to work if you got the job.). So, here I am in line. I felt like I was in a bread line during the Great Depression. I was sad and my eyes were tearing up as I approached. Now, I was a good operator and got along nicely with everyone. But, I wasn’t so arrogant to assume I had a job waiting for me. I was in 5he same boat as everyone. I got offered the job, got the “handshake” and the congratulations. But as I left and headed for my car, I felt like 💩. How could I be happy when some of my union brothers were let go. Them oil companies were making loads of profits, yet they felt the need to cut costs by things such as cutting jobs. And the insulting thing, putting salt on the wound, was it became a more dangerous place to work and live in the community. Fatigue sets in with mandatory overtime. Morale drops because you are stuck working a scheduled day off, etc. and to compound a reduced work force covering the - not the same jobs, but more as they expand production with new process units, more equipment to operate and maintain and larger geographical footprints to cover. Now, you have guys that retire, quit, get fired, on disability. They had seasoned employees with a lot of experience. They let that go. Then what do they end up doing? Hiring new employees with little - if any practical experience. Young kids that don’t have the appreciation for a good job to support a family, buy a house, etc. it’s just spending cash for their young lifestyles. That’s fine, except they don’t have the instinctive fear of doing substandard work, whether it me skipping their rounds, faking lab testing & results or faking critical readings, not to mention poor attendance records. We went through a phase where we hired disadvantaged people from the community. In the surface, it sounds like a nice idea. However, when I applied for such a job, my resume was scrutinized and the testing that was required was not a piece of cake. At the very minimum, basic math, English, reasoning skills were paramount. What we’ve seen were we started seeing idiots who were hired to fill someone’s quotas. It really irritates me when you have a standard which sets you above the rest. And then, if you can’t reach that standard, you lower the bar just to satisfy, well, I’ll leave it at that. Now, since the gulf way, there has been a boost in support of our veterans. We made the effort to give these men and women some extra consideration. On average, they had discipline which helped them to become qualified, safe and proficient. Sure, you might get some young kid who’s a bit green. But, if you found issues with their work, they corrected it, not try to cheat the system. Look out below! I’m jumping off my soap box now. ✌️🤙. Good to see you continuing to improve, Mark. I get my vaccine 4-28-21
It did work because of the economy collapsing in 2020. Now with it rebounding in 2021 to 2022. UP has had nothing but problems with customers and employees
Having retired from a large RR, like many of you, I have an idea to save a lot of work for a train in transit but you know what? I´ll keep it to myself because its the college ¨boys¨ that should figure it out. College is good for a lot of things but NOT everything.
Or someone who looked at Europe, where CH did one man crews for about a century by now on mainline rail and other countries like DE or AT also have been doing it for ages without major issues...
free market capitalism has it's downsides and should never be left unbridled, especially when it comes to things that are necessities of life, like fire protection, education, transportation, etc. . thanks for your honesty and i really like your videos.
Mark, being a manager is a lot like being a member of a sled dog team. The only one that gets a fresh view of things is the lead sled dog. You're spot on about PSR and it's parallels to the late years of the SP. UP is only interested in rolling stock right now. This won't change until fatalities increase or derailments increase.
I was a conductor for Union Pacific until I got injured in 2014. PSR is a very destructive policy, destructive to employees, customers, and communities. It is utter madness.
There have been a few trial PR balloons sent up mainly from Europe on future one pilot airline passenger aircraft as well.... Lets see how that works out.....
Good thing i did not take the train crew position this past summer in Oakland, i would have quit my job at Chevron just to get laid off from UP and be screwed .
You're mighty right. Operating jobs are generally safe but with these new plans, no jobs are safe. Damned shame. I'm glad you didn't make the change and I'm glad I'm retired now. Thanks for checking it out and for checking out my channel!
A plant where I worked did the same thing. Maintenance was cut to patch things up after a derailment. Derailments went from maybe one in to days to an average of 3 in an 8 hour shift. Delays went thru the roof. So what do they do? Made the crews 1 man. Things that used to be unsafe are now thrown out the window. Injuries and deaths increased. Management numbers stayed the same. Old ones left and know it all college grads came in. (“I know, I went to college”). The company is out of business.
That’s funny, countries like Switzerland or Germany have been running one man crews for ages now, safely. I think in CH they went for one man crews pretty much since the beginning of electrics in the early 1900s (depending on the RR, most electrified between 1904 and 1920) the diesels were also one engineer crews when diesels became a thing. In the 30s they started doing a ptc equivalent to enforce signalling, but I have yet to find a big accident attributed to one man crews. Germany was a bit later, but also runs one man crews everywhere these days, though early high speed services were run with two engineer crews for some reason. Austria also runs one engineer crews, though I‘m not sure when they started. And at least in more recent years, countries like the UK also started doing one man crews... So I’m having trouble with understanding why one man crews can’t be safe?
European freight trains are much shorter and have a much smaller loading gauge than American trains. Also, Class 1 railroad lines traverse through very remote and rural regions of the country where the nearest town or yard could be 50-100 miles away (especially in places like Texas).
@@Cnw8701 Doesn't change the fact that There are thousands of trains a day running one engineer crews and the first ones were over a century ago. So, it can be done safely. And a train that's merely longer doesn't mean that ptc can't enforce signals and speed limits, heck, you guys even have FRED that could be upgraded to tell ptc that the train has now passed the speed restriction. So what am I missing? The fact that in the middle of nowhere you don't hear much on the radio? Afaik most one engineer trains rarely even use the radio cuz signals tell the engineer what to do and the signal guys know the filed schedule, so on the road, you rarely need to talk to dispatch in the first place... Afaik
@@genoobtlp4424 engineers use their radios on trains a lot more than you think. Add the fact that America has railroads that traverse the longest areas of an populated landscape in the world. Then add the size and length of the trains versus all these other smaller countries that you have listed which run shorter train on smaller areas makes for a huge difference. As far as your comment about the AI Systems doing the conductor job if it could successfully be done. Then why haven’t all Air travel companies done this with jet because they have had auto pilot for a long time yet they still state the fact that it needs to or three people in the cockpit at any given time.
guess I just lack the sample size to have heard the radios being used outside trouble situations (like delay coordination or breakdowns) or shunting. Guess engineers have one less reason to get bored. About the automation in the air: it‘s a trust thing for one case, people don’t trust a computer to safely land a plane in an emergency, and shitty weather is a problem for automatic landing. Stopping a train on the other hand can be done in any case without endangering anyone, if you’re properly dispatching trains. The 1930s version needs a couple of magnets, an antenna, a clock, some relays and an electronic valve to throw the train into emergency. With that you can force engineers to start braking at cautions, enforce red lights and enforce slow speed sections, as well as other stuff, if you’re willing to use more than three distinguishable electromagnets (DE uses 2000Hz, 1000Hz and 500Hz magnets for example to set these signals). Heck, you can go as low as permanent and electromagnets like they do in the british AWS, where a permanent magnet arms the system and a second magnet disarms it again, resulting in one sound or it doesn’t get disarmed within x time, giving you, as engineer y amount of time to acknowledge the signal or be thrown in emergency. Modern systems like ETCS have the advantage of computers, which can handle more complex operations like enforcing any speed limit, supervising the braking process by checking your speed against the maximum speed allowable without you overshooting a signal, customized braking curves, and obviously showing the received limits to the driver, so the driver has real time variable speed limits; more advanced implementations can even monitor the trains in front of them to enable minimum safe intervals based on variables like speed, weight, braking capability, length and all that stuff you already have to tell the engineer anyway. But still, in the end, an automatic braking system is just a more complex dead man switch (a device, that should be in every cab, especially since Hinton) that takes different inputs like signals and speed to decide whether to throw you into emergency now or wait. Planes don’t have a dead man switch either, as you can’t just throw a plane into emergency, you actually have to land, one of the most dangerous parts of any flight. And just because a country is small doesn’t mean you don’t have long train journeys, certain passenger runs within DE are well over 500miles one way and one of the most popular freight runs is Rotterdam-Genoa, a journey of almost a thousand miles, at least most of the way with one soul on board. Hell, even a country as small as CH has round trips that rack up a couple hundred miles, which run hourly from 6am to midnight all year round.
Where was the Broadway? Around here it appears there are as many unit cars, just fewer and longer trains. Go check out my piece on the 13,000 ton ethanol train. Thanks for the comment and for checking it out.
Hey Mark, NS is doing the same thing precision railroading and it’s not working out at all they’re having a lot of derailments and thousands of people has lost their jobs that’s been there for 15 to 20 years. BNSF Is the only rail road that’s not doing the precision rail Roading, they said it is not gonna work and they’re not even gonna try it as far as I know of
They are smart (if true) considering how BN started, one would think they know how to keep shit running. Shit they might just be able to buy out UP if they keep this up. Sad days but you make it or get swallowed
Poor management is not the same as PSR. Each have their problems. The idea of long trains and serving multiple yards and all that makes sense what I don't get is chasing the operating ratio and not taking on less profitable but still profitable business.
PSR has its forms in other industries. My employer saw for to shove out the door all employees 60 or over with 10 years or more of service right before Christmas. Over the past several years, the defined contribution pension plan has ended, the life insurance for retirees has ended, post retirement health benefits have ended and 5 weeks of vacation for the most senior employees was reduced to 32. None of these affected senior management.
we can thank HUNTER HARRISON for precision scheduled railroading (PSR)... he put it in play at CP and CN... came to the states and did it at CSX... and when UP saw the rise in the stock prices of those other roads, they bought in... but I did read that BNSF hasn't bought in … YET... maybe they wanna see how it works with UP... supposedly PSR reduces DWELL TIME, something the UP HATED... well with PSR, dwell time is either greatly reduced or eliminated altogether, increasing efficiency .... UP also closed the hump at proviso... also put on hold a few new yards in texas… so it looks like PSR is here to stay... unfortunately
Technology has contributed greatly to many of the job losses but basing job cuts and future performance on how smoothly things are working now will be a problem down the road. I'm glad I'm gone. The job I left 2 1/2 months ago is still vacant. My manager left and his replacement has already gone back to his tools. No one wants these jobs. Damned shame. Thanks for the comment and for checking it out!
While I was working at a Naval shipyard back in the early 1990's I would meet a worker who would leave to go work for Norfolk/Southern. He called it getting rid of the shipyard before the shipyard got rid of him. I can't help but wonder how he is doing now.
One man crew with poor maintained locomotives LacMagantic Quebec Canada which 47 people burned to death in derailment. Pull knuck, one person no way can replace in hour, to running out of service hours. Parked trains all over system mechanical problems.
You should take the Amtrak from Denver to California. They warn you crossing Nevada that the UP tracks are in in bad shape and hang on. Top speed on the train is think is 79. Couple of times thought we were coming off the track.
Mark, I couldn't agree with you more. "Precision railroading" is simply about boosting "shareholder value". I have no doubt the remaining employees will suffer with harder and more dangerous jobs. Customer service will also suffer as well as the lack of maintenance catches up to the system. The job loss will be devastating as railroad jobs are high quality jobs, which have become very rare in our economy. We've seen this in industry after industry in the US.....very sad. No one seems to care or is willing to do anything about it.. :-(
That's because the are in it only for the dollar!one day, they will regret this! Because soon ,the money will be worthless!then let's see how they operate then!
There is no problem with boosting shareholder value. The question is how that is done. The methods being used are an attempt at operational efficiency. Of course the view of efficiency depends on the metrics used. Maybe I am completely off base, but I would focus on expanding traffic, increasing median car velocity, and minimizing cost per car mile travelled, in that order of priority. Above all, do all this without compromising safety or long term ability to continue operations. Then again, I don’t know anything about the business.
Mark, it sounds to me like PSR exerts tremendous schedule pressure on personnel, and in many industries that type of pressure is repeatedly associated with accidents. I worked in the commercial nuclear industry for 35 years and always put the safety of the reactor and my coworkers first. Management always has schedules, but when meeting them means rushing and taking shortcuts then the schedule can wait. I'd rather look at my boss' long face than see a buddy taken away in an ambulance because he fell 50’ from a pipe that management didn't want to build a scaffold for! I don't know about the railroads but my utility is no longer run by experienced individuals who came up through the ranks, it is most often run by folks with a Goldman Sachs background. Those jackasses need to have their feet held to the fire on safety, because they will be quick to toss you under the bus (or train!) if something happens!
I worked for the power utility in a major eastern city; don't want to be more specific because data on the web never dies and anyone can view what is there. I was forced out for much the same reason - the equipment improved to the point where maintenance requirements were less. You know how your discard a broken tool? Yeah, like that. So many line workers leave with a sour taste. What are we passing to our kids? We see now how difficult it is for companies to hire grunts. Everyone wants to wear a tie and have clean hands. Good luck to those suits.
Warren Buffet, who owns BNSF, says PSR is BS. The only reason for PSR is to keep the Wall Streeters and stockholders happy. Customers / shippers don't like it. Railroad employees don't like it. :(
I don’t own any railroad stock, but if I did I would want management that keeps customers happy so they keep spending and maybe expand how much business the railroad does.
I'm glad I retired from engine service 7 yrs ago. I don`t like what I am hearing in regards to 1 man crews. We need 2 sets of eyes on the headend of trains period.
It's happened all over. Fire or retire the guys with dirty fingernails and keep and promote the guys with pocket protectors. It usually works great for the bottom line for a while,then everything falls apart and they wonder why.
I'm chemist and I work for big company but I will never give them more information than I have too.... Let the CEO figure it out.... Keep good information to myself....
I was "retired" about a year after you posted this. In my Firm, the reason was COVID - loss of business (revenue). I can sympathize and I too am a capitalist. I am working on a new career at present. I believe the Precision Railroading is sketchy, but seeing as there doesn't seem to be any other option, so be it. I can't believe how much work is added to each individual in PRR - amazing that folks carry on.
I'm a bit late to the table but here goes... ALL railroads are asset intensive businesses. Locos, cars, tracks, signals, real estate, equipment, etc. are all very, very, very expensive. With that in mind, the largest expenditure by UP and most all railroads is NOT labor. I would bet that their debt service is probably more than they spend on labor. I suspect that this game is nothing more than some people in mahogany row justifying their next bonus. Certainly not a new tactic. It's even more prevalent in a heavily regulated environment. When things go wrong, the regulators always get blamed and the executives just line their pockets some more.
is there a correlation between accidents and man power...specifically is there any proof that one person crews can safely operate a 9K LONG TRAIN. I see them across the nevada division with 3x3x2 configuration of DPU and wonder how a single person can change a broken coppler at night, in a snowstorm,etc!?
I don't know if any studies have been done but I can't imagine it is safer. As to problems with the trains most roads have "rapid responders" that tend to such problems. Thanks for checking it out
The tourist railroad I worked for in Oregon is now using PSR. My Superintendent of Operations tried to fire me "on account of PSR." I was a mechanic. My Mechanical Shop Manager made sure I stayed on as soon as my Superintendent of Operations threatened to fire me. It's been a disaster with PSR so far. I won't go on about the horror stories I've been a part of. It pissed me off. That's why I left the tourist railroad for a job in Guest Services in the NBA. I would call the UP 2020 Plan the Uni$#@%*! Plan.
Engineer, conductor, brakeman... That is what should be on all the trains. How do they expect 1 person to handle a 2 mile long hunk of metal when there are so many variables... What if you have a derailment, bearing burn up, brake issues, someone jumping on and uncoupling cars, Engineer getting sick or even worse getting shot at. It seems to me that they need to start putting spurs back in industrial areas and become more available for direct loads from/to ports. And if you keep letting people go then the pension fund gets depleted where it won't self fund. No social security for rail employees, Just the railroad pension fund.
I just hope they have to hire most of them back to fix it. But I have no ill-will towards the Railroad mothership.... I want them to succeed! I just want them to share the profits!😉
@@samfuller6273 fully agreed. When I was working I tried to do the best I could but even so that still cultivated a degree of resentment in me because of the way I and others were treated.
You are right on. I bet some of the high dollar people could be cut too---you know, the ones that know NOTHING about building trains properly, moving them and other personnel who keep them moving (like dispatchers for example). Some maintainers take an hour or more after regular hours to respond to trouble not because of being lax but because their assigned territory is so far from home and that´s because many signal maintainers have too much territory in distance to properly cover but on paper it looks good because jobs are abolished and the extra work is just dumped on whoever is handy. I wonder how a broken knuckle or blown train line hose will be handled on a 200 car train will be handled with a one man crew when the problem is maybe 30 to 130 or more cars back? Maybe the big roads should develop a system where ONE man can send a verbal text from his phone to a locomotive leading a certain train symbol and tell IT to proceed out of the yard west for example to point ¨X¨ , cut your train off and have fresh consist couple to your train and continue west etc. etc. Lets get railroading down to just ONE man for the whole system and he can alone put all the proceeds in his pocket. Oh by the way, what about motive power that needs repair or overhaul? Like plastic drink bottles, just trash them and buy new ones. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
Lately, I've been seeing what appears to be a significant increase in "light engine" moves, particularly on the BNSF. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I attribute this to a whole lot of locomotives ending up in one place, e.g. Chicago, as a result of the huge trains that are now being run to justify PSR. This tactic can't be good for BNSF's bottom line as all of these moves are 'freebies' as far as the railroad is concerned. I've noticed this same thing happening on NS and CSX although not as often. Any thoughts?
I watch some VR and have noticed a lot of "light engine" moves of 2 to 12 or so units on BNSF on different parts of the system. These are not "freebies" because a crew has to take them from one place to another place without cars; why they couldn't pull some cars to contribute to moving freight, I don't know. I have also noticed a lot of unit transfers with over 3 units up to 20 units on a train. There is no way 4 or more units on the head end of a train contributes to the economic movement of the train particularly if there are DPUs in the train, they are moving power(this is almost a freebie).
Hopefully BNSF is not going this route. In fact they just promoted some people into division manager positions who started out as conductors and engineers. The incoming CEO has pretty much said “bias for growth,” which is not what PSR is about neither is it about good customer service. PSR is a return to the bad old days when they thought their business was running trains rather than serving customers. We know where that led (e.g., Penn Central and SP).
This 1 man crew idea is inherently dangerous. People can fall asleep, even with PTC can put trains on the ground. PSR is stupid Period, catering to big shippers and losing small shippers.
I'm a red blooded capitalist as well, but they need to understand that they grow and make money on Our economy and labor and resources. And even more important, the entire idea of a public good as part of their mission is because of what WE gave them in the beginning. Land grants, grants to lay rail and sopread out. They do have a certain responsibility.
In the UK we've had single manning of freight trains for years. If a train requires to shunt/switch a man in a van meets it at the location. It works where distances are relatively short. The idea of a 2 mile long train out in the desert with just one man sounds scary, what happens if there is a problem and the guy has to examine his train?
big long walk by 2 like the old road sweep collect tools sweep go back for barrow forgot shovel go back fetch it so it goes on thing is each way is double the distance like he said iv been busy all day and havnt done much plus his walk home after working that stretch of road
Support two person train crews keep America safe. You have all got this wrong when it come to 2 man crew verses one man crew. The airlines have had autopilot for years but still have two and 3 people in the cockpit. If Boeing has taught us anything technology fails. It’s all the workers do is worry about losing jobs. Its common sense thousands of railroad workers will lose their jobs if all the railroads are allowed to go to 1 man crews. That's an issue you need to take up with Politicians ! They claims they are creating jobs then let him do something about people keeping the ones they have! This is about safety. This is about saving lives. Not just crew lives but the American people as well. Don’t forget about the rule-making process that was invoked by then-FRA Administrator Joseph C. Szabo after an unattended 74-car freight train carrying crude oil ran downhill and crashed in the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic, killing 49 people in 2013 that had just one man on the train! Hunter Harrison said on the record those extra set of eyes in the cab are valuable. PTC will not detect track issues or mechanical issues like bad order cars or prevent crossing accidents. Our rules change daily so if an engineer or conductor takes a day off or vacation who will job brief with each other on any newly updated rules that change. How about filling out an EC-1 as the train moves along the tracks or stop and flag a railroad crossing when they have an activation failure with the public crossing gates. We are suppose to job brief to make smart decisions taking the safer course. So if engineers are busy pushing buttons on a screen and reading train orders his eyes are in the cab. If they remove the conductor, it would be counterintuitive. So in my opinion one safety system cancels out the other. Now with ptc and full crew in the cab increases the safety of of train movement. Just plain old common sense. Railroads preach safety every single day. Its in their rule books and in their advertising. Its 24 hour a day safety...safety....safety. Well let them put their money where their mouths are. Pay for safety. Keep 2 men in the cab. Just like GM shutting down 5 plants putting 15,000 people out of work and pay there CEO 22 million. CSX on the other hand lost 41% of the business once Hunter Harrison took over cutting out almost half the work force from 27,893 people down to 15,362 people system wide and they paid him 385 million only to pass away 8 months later! With everything going automated from self check out lanes to manufacturing does anyone profit except share holders and CEOs!!!! The public has no idea what we deal with. Tell your neighbors about how many cars we hit and people are killed every year when they are hit by trains. Explain to them how the engineer is in the cab calling the dispatcher and getting 911 called. He is taking care of anything that may be wrong with the locomotive. He stays with the train. Tell them how the conductor gets down and rushes to the vehicle to see if he can possibly save a life. Maybe a baby is in the car and needs to be helped or maybe the parents can be removed and need CPR. Maybe he can comfort someone who is dying or in shock or screaming because they are severely injured . Tell them about how we hit live stock and large deer. Tell them how people love to put junk on the tracks. Shopping carts, bicycles, steel barrows, wheelchairs and even abandoned cars. A two person crew saved a child’s life wondering around on the tracks in Minnesota near midnight Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020. PTC didn’t help them. Tell them about how many trees we hit a year and do extensive damage to the locomotive. The engineer stays with the locomotives and assess the damage and does what is necessary to radio dispatchers for help while the conductors gets down and removes debris and check the rest of the train for any damage or signs of derailment. Tell them about the territory that is in the middle of TIM BUCK TWO! The places where no one can get to you fast unless you have a helicopter. How will they go bathroom now without two people to keep the train going down the tracks unless they have to stop not blocking crossings or take lunch. Tell them how radios don't always work in remote locations. Telemetry drops out and communication is lost. How many times does a conductor have to go back and trouble shoot another locomotive after alarms are going off. The engineer keeps the train rolling the best he can while the conductor checks the computers and checks to see if it is loading, traction motor faults or any other issue that may arise. Tell them about the blind curves that only one crew member can see around when your approaching public crossings or trees that block signals so that only one crew member can see them until you get the train right on top of them. Tell them about wash outs from floods, and heat warped rail and fog so thick you cant see a foot in front of you. SO WHAT IF YOU GOT PTC!! PTC does not tell you if a car in stopped on the tracks or a tree is across it or a person is walking in the tracks or there is 5 inches of water over the rail! Tell them how crew members have been attacked and some have even been killed by gang thugs and trespassers. A single man has no chance in these situations. It is better to have someone else with you to keep watch when working in bad areas and ghetto rail yards. The list goes on and on. Tell them how the company took away the right of the crew members to take a power nap. One crew member is supposed to call stopped every 15 minutes while they are waiting on line of road. As long as someone is awake and doing this and paying attention there is no reason on god green earth while a tired crew member cant take a 20 minute power nap. Tell them how crews are run into the ground and some are called out every 10 hours around the clock. They work all hours of the day and night and most have no weekends off. The company wont even let them have a power nap. What is going to happen when there is only 1 man on the train by himself and he is just plain worn out or is sick and afraid to take a day off because of the companies new attendance policy which is just absolutely insane. People come to work sick all the time. Vomiting, diarrhea, fevers and the flu doesn't stop them because they are in fear of losing their jobs. How is a sick man who is all by himself going to be able to make a full run safely and without risking his life or the publics when he doesn't have his other crew member to help keep him alert. The engineer has many roles and duties as well as the conductor. There are times when something happens that it is a must for an engineer to be on board and ready to take instructions while the conductor handles the rest of the responsibilities. There are so many things that go into railroading and running trains that the public doesn't know a thing about. THIS ONE MAN CREW IDEA IS THE MOST UNSAFE AND IRRESPONSIBLE IDEA that has ever been brought forward in the history of the railroad industry. And for what? To save a dollar. To line someone's pockets. To make someone rich. Who care who gets killed. If you think crossings are blocked now imagine if there was only one man and had to wait on someone to cut a crossing!Who care about the destruction to family lives. I don't know about you but I sure do and so should every person in America! Also if you haven’t seen it check out these two TH-cam videos. th-cam.com/video/atfY4tiyMz8/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/PoJ1MYWsJ5Q/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/j_rPE44oDE4/w-d-xo.html
I don't think anyone here disagrees with your assessment about safety but you're right about it being political. Your party affiliation is irrelevant. Call and write you elected representatives AFTER the election because they aren't concerned about your concerns right now. Neither party is fighting or even denouncing this. Unions are giving it lip service as they sell members down the river but are doing nothing to stop it just as they did nothing when SP did this in 1991.
Harrison's psr was simply a process of cutting costs and slashing customer service while creating a mess. He did that at CN, CP and lastly at CSX. CN and CP recovered but lost customers as a result.
Your Chief Operating Officer was part of senior management at CN Rail that all drank the Hunter Harrison Kool Aid. None of them could stand up and say this is not working here and no brainer, it never will. It did not work there and will not work on the UP. Things are so bad now at CN that they cannot run a wheelbarrow around an outhouse without using up 3 crews. If you can hang on for 5 years you will never make so much money for doing so little work. In five years it will be a free for all in all departments. It is too bad you retired Mark because the show gets more interesting as you go along, Longer trains do not cut down on total number crews it requires more. CN hired Rail Science Inc to tell them how to handle the braking on these long trains, RSI came back and told them it cannot be done. CN has spent 10 years trying to unsucessfully prove them wrong. Derailments were always fun as long trains can derail just by making an emergency application, or sometimes they will derail in mutiple locations in the train because of jackknifing. As for engineer only, you can just look at 50 people dead at Lac Mengatic to see how that one worked in Canada.
Yeah. I hope they see the danger in "super trains" and one man crews. I'm all for people making money but not at the cost of public safety and common sense. Thanks for the comment and for checking out my channel!
These plans are created by a confederacy of experts, which means the right thing never gets done. And it's interesting how the efficiencies and software and AI and automations never seem to affect the top level management.
Agree with much of what you're saying, especially with regard to one man crews and 2 mile long sidings. Competition is good but not sure where this plan leads.
That assinine or however you spell it. Think u get what im saying. Wait til a bunch of trains wreck from one man crew. And lawsuits from motorists that loose love ones from engineers falling asleep at the controls. So basically, an engineer will have to leave the locomotive unattendend, and move switches. Then get back on. Terrific. Not a good idea.
Outsourcing! That’s what KCS is doing around Kansas they use a third party communications company for almost all of the VHF, Microwave and PTC system! Comet Industries! I almost took a job until I realized they paid $1 over federal exemption, you had to be 3 hours from the tracks 24/7 except 1 weekend and NO OVERTIME!
The unions have been selling us down the river since the merger. The class 1 roads would all love to go there and probably will in the future. Thanks for checking it out
yep hired out in 2018 worked a whole year as a conductor kept getting furloughed on and off after that. Wish they never hired me could of invested time in something else. This one man train crew is depressing . I'm done and won't be able to hold ever again when they start doing this.
Roseville hump closed. Colton roundhouse lost many, many jobs you need between 15 to 20 years to work at Cloton roundhouse. This can't sustain very long. 11 more years for me I hope I'm gone before one man crews. This is what MAKES railroads FAIL! Deferred maintenance killed SP! They sort of did the same thing in the 80s then the failed SPSF! THUMBS DOWN ON 2020!
I hear you SIr! Same thing happening down here Mark....too many chiefs and not enough indians..LOL. Older signal guys like me are not being replaced and younger guys leave chasing more money??? Seems to be a global problem and we are below our number of signal guys now ...only a matter of time? Look forward to kore of your rail fanning videos. CHeers Gregg.
They still haven't put my old job up for bid! I believe they're going to start seeing if they can get by without vacated jobs. The maintainers are also part of the problem as they see it as a way to get more OT and they're right, but the workload will catch up and it may be too late for them. I dunno. I don't have the answers. I just hope they aren't shooting themselves in the foot! Thanks for checking it out!
I'm over on the east coast, where CSX has gone to mile to 2 mile long trains... with the expected results. A couple of weeks ago, they managed to have a double pull apart going into the long siding here at Four Oaks. Took them about 4 hours to get the train into the siding completely... Not sure if distributed power glitches may have been involved. One was about 15-20 cars behind the lead engines... and the other was back about 20 cars from the end of the train. They had to bring car repair in from about 50 miles north to repair the pocket on one of the cars... Precision break apart railroading... Then throw in the PTC failures here, where trains simply stop on the single track. A REALLY ugly situation for the workers...
From an operating and financial aspect, I get it. 100k in salary plus benefits and rrb donations times how ever many trains they run per year...that's a lot of money. From a safety and practical aspect, I don't understand it at all. One major incident attributed to the policy could erase years of savings, not to mention the bad press. I guess they're willing to play the risk v. reward game. Of course, none of this has happened yet. We shall see. Thanks for the comment and for checking out my channel!
@@MarkClayMcGowan Its worth playing the ¨risk¨ game because until the accident happens, the ¨shot callers¨ are raking in the big bucks and when the blame is laid at their doorstep then they collect a golden parachute to move on so in the end nothing is lost and plenty to gain by these ¨decision makers¨. Just think of so many of these guys that have totally or nearly screwed up a wonderful company, move on with piles of money to leave and then perch themselves in a position with another company and the process continues when they should simply be fired, kicked out the door and not rehired somewhere else to continue their destructive work. Too much FAILURE IS REWARDED.
@@MarkClayMcGowan unfortunately that's too common anymore. But when accidents start happening it'll bite them in the ass. Train accidents don't go un- noticed.
I agree! Those silly air brakes, knuckle couplers, and the diesel electric locomotive cost many many jobs.Lets dump all that and get back to REAL railroading! And oh, CTC started a real DANGEROUS trend, it must. go, before it expands to PTC or worse! And what could be more dangerous than riding in front of a few thousand tons at some break-neck speed. Let a computer take the risk.
Too early to comment on this aspect of railroading ... but everyone in the industry is trying to change for the better and to get more money to the shareholders so more investment should do the job... but the people come first and service to the people are the reason for the Country being what it is .... thus operations like Amtrak are necessary government investments as free Enterprise cannot meet the necessary needs of the people... like FEMA, the Insurance Industry dumped the coverages so ... keep thinking about Free Enterprise and maybe find out what Socialism really means ... not what you assume. Cheers
I'v seen a lot of good carmen form UP cut, sadest thing to see in the world, they cut so high, not even guys with 20 years of seniority were saved, I wonder if that was a sound decision 🤔 to cut the guys who maintain railroad cars, signals, locomotives, and ect??? 🤔🤔🤔
Remember 30 or so years ago when large firms down sized the companies. Made all this quick profit and stocks rose and big shots got their big bonus. A few years later they found there were not enough people to do the work. Problem, there were no skilled people to do the work. They had to hire more people than needed and TEACH them how to do the job. What did they gain. The railroads, the trucking industry found out, will have the same problem. Hunter Harrison's idea was good to a point, but failed by the rapid closures and layoffs, for $'s, with out studying the results.
thing is those that know the job are not doing it because they are learning the studants how to do it. not a cure to the problem. 2 people dont always do twice the work in a shift as well.
If you are looking at transportation in general, be it trains, trucks, planes or ships, the Human interaction is becoming less and less important. As AI improves, people...humans...will not be running the equipment but more of a safety net in the event that automated functions do not work. It is a good bet that in 20 years, people will not have to drive their cars, trains wont need any crews, planes will (almost already do) fly themselves. Super tankers....more automation and less crews...been that way for a while. We fly space craft ALL THE TIME without pilots or astronauts. The people are one of the largest day to day expenses and the least controllable aspects of any business. Machines/Technology does not call in sick, does not need retirement benefits, no vacations, can work 24x7, and frankly could be more reliable in the long run since they do not make mistakes (yeah I know...sometimes like with the Boeing MAX plane the machine failed...but that was ultimately a human related design screw up). Am I happy about being replaced by a bunch of circuits and programs...NOT AT ALL! But this is our reality. Steam replaced the horse drawn carriage, Diesel Electric replaced Steam, Alternate fuel will be next and assuredly AI driven automation will replace people to operate the trains. Better design and manufacturing will further reduce the need for maintenance of the rolling stock and locomotives, better rail construction will reduce the maintenance of way requirements. Look...all of us with a little gray on our roof are not afraid of work and valued what we did for our careers, but we also know that technology does not stand still and what many of us did for careers will be replaced by "a machine" at some point. YES, the bean counters and investors drive this trend, but frankly for railroads, to stay relevant in the transportation industry they need to move with the times. Here is something we all loose sight of. When we go to the store we generally look for the item we want and then the price of said item. WalMart and Amazon became the biggest retailers because they offered items for way less than others and made it easy to buy what they were selling. People flock to these establishments to buy their poorly made Chinese crap. We used to pride ourselves on buying items (tools) that would last now we buy them cheap and when they break we buy another cheap replacement. Made in the USA and made to last is really relevant to so few buyers these days, especially if there is a significant price difference. When we travel we look at the cost....train travel is REALLY expensive and takes much longer (aside from commuter trains...talking cross country like you would do for air travel) so people look to air travel. The railroads lost share to the trucking industry and continue to do so, and it is as much a cost thing as anything else. The RR's have to stay relevant in this economic environment and to do that they have to get much better at what they do without raising, and frankly reducing their cost to their customers...Their CUSTOMERS are what drives the need for RR's to compete....StockHolders understand this and yes they are driven by returns...but you have to have income and that is driven by Customers.... So get mad at the Customer who demand better service at a lower price...are you one of those :-)
I'm not mad and no one understands the price of progress on employment or the cost of labor on an employer more than I. I just don't believe PTC is going to make it safe enough for one man crews on 10,000 ton plus trains. There are too many variables. As far as maintenance, there is no AI way to get that done. Progress has certainly made it easier but a human still has to test and maintain the equipment. I get your point about rockets but they're not hauling hazardous materials through densely populated areas. I don't have the answers and maybe not even the right questions. I just know PSR didn't work for SP and it's not working well for CN or CSX. Thanks for the comment and for checking out my channel! It's appreciated!
Disagree about airplanes. I fly for a living and while, yes, most large aircraft have auto pilots it isn't the same as an actual pilot. Auto pilots are still very limited and have to be constantly monitored. 99% of them can't even land the airplane. The pilot has to take over a certain distance above the ground and manually land.
I'm not mad. I just don't think it's going to work. Were it only trainmen, maybe, but the safety factor just isn't there yet. But it's everyone. Planes and spacecraft don't require a well maintained signal system and track structure. Thanks for the comment though and for checking it out.!
I’ve heard a saying that kinda goes “Management only focuses on the numbers in the ledgers.” That seems to be what most Class I’s are doing now, and it’s detrimental to everything under the management level. These cost-cutting measures are going to make them look good, but that’s about it. Meanwhile more crews will get laid off, while the remaining ones will get pushed to do more in less time, and inevitably get injuries and cause accidents due to fatigue. I feel like if you’re going to hire an outside manager, they need more on hand experience for the first couple of months of work. They’ll be able to see how getting the numbers in running workers down.
You say you are a capitalist and then you start expressing concerns about what's smart and safe. :) Too many people don't realize that they can be capitalists yet qualify that with certain limitations and restrictions. It's a matter of degree where we all want to draw the line. I'm definitely a capitalist too. 99.9% of the products I see all around me are best distributed via a capitalist system. But for only the very few things (you can count them on two hands) out of what must be millions that I don't feel are best distributed under the capitalist system some people accuse me of being a socialist. It's all a matter of degrees.
I don't say I'm a capitalist, I am a capitalist. Safety is a big part of that. One hazardous material derailment in a populated area or that fouls a river or other natural resource or causes one or more fatalities puts a huge dent in profits. Safety has proven, over the last three decades, to be a profitable plan. I was involved in the safety program for 17 years. It's much cheaper to implement a long term safety program than to pay out a couple of injury claims during the same period. My main point, however, is that this has been tried in the past and has not worked. It's more about short sightedness and not learning from those who came before them. Thanks for checking it out and for the comment.
If you have just a one-man train crew and a 2 mile long train, then they have to walk to the back of the train to inspect something. The train will be stopped for over an hour while they do so! How will that affect performance?
work this out 2 mile train that is a 4 mile round trip man can average 3 miles an hour if he has to inspect every axle how many seconds x number of axles x 2 (up and back) take more than an hour.
The less maintenance people you have, the more locomotives you will have available for service! Get rid of your equipment maintainers,and you will destroy the entire railroad system!only a fool would want to endorse this psr on these railroads!
The less maintenance people you have ,the less locomotives you will have to be available for service!when you dont have the people who fix the engines and maintain the tracks, the freight cars, the signals, and to keep the locomotives running smoothly, then You can forget about running a railroad! Plain and simple! Simple aristmatic! Workers- jobs equals failures!this is what this psr will do to the railroads! Any CEO who puts this dumbass idea into the railroad industry is got to be the biggest fool on earth! Look at the problems that is happening to the railroads. More locomotive failures, more deaths, more derailments, more delays to the customers, shippers,and suppliers, more yard closures, and less profits in the railroad coffers.and more rail workers losing their jobs, and their homes and their income. This is what this psr is doing to the railroads who are dumb enough to put this psr into practice just for the sake of their stockholders and shareholders! These operating ratios don't mean a thing when you don't have the operating people in place to run the railroads like they should! No rail workers, no railroad!
I have to pause the video at 2:45. Mark, you are quite correct, sir! A train needs a bare minimum of two men. What do you do in an emergency? Just set the brakes and go for a long walk?
Think of how well a portable radio and one man with eyeballs on the problem works. Don't worry about the next train on the line....
Hey, Mark, I'm on a roll. More management positions? Brilliant. More power point presentations and meetings.
Managers are a higher level when it comes to salaries, right? Just checking if the old man's pencil needs sharpening.
A railroad has a product. Efficient and consistent transportation. There is not one manager in existence that can get his hands dirty, and work in the weather, fixing what is broken. When things break, everything stops.
When someone is injured, everything stops. Better make a power point presentation explaining that. Why did that accident happen, and were you prepared? Oh, shit. Here, check this cool spreadsheet.
Hehe.
Having worked for the Post Office for 33 years I felt lucky to be able to work for them for that long. Like you the present slowdown in the PO is the result of a Postmaster who knows nothing about the operation of the PO. Like your job, union jobs are the first to go. The highest paid and most useless manager are always the last to go. Luckily you survived long enough to retire. It's the best thing I ever did and I loved my job. Your videos are great and being a railfan, you have taught me many things I had no idea about. You have also taught me to respect the railroad and their property. There is nothing worse while railfaning if you get hurt or arrested while doing something you love. Enjoy your retirement, you earned it.
Reminds me of the old Caltrans joke about "How many men does it take to fill a pothole"?
The answer is "100 of them. 98 supervisors and 2 laborers and one of them is asleep on his shovel"
Well said,well spoken! The plan sounds like it will implode on itself! Great education, thank you Mr. McGowan!
I left before the 2020 plan i left nov 1 st 2016. The last 3 years i was a zone gang foreman on a distribution gang. Delivering ptc material in 6 states. I knew this was coming, half of the work i did for over 30 years as a maintainer was eliminated. No more heads to rock, no pole line to maintain, no batteries to clean and water, very little bonding, broken rails were welded the next day. Ground tests were changed from monthly to quarterly, led signal heads and crossing lights, no paper to change on the hot box detectors that was atleast weekly on 5 detectors ,at high traffic volume 2 times a week plus the weekly test now monthly. No more code line. Not near the problems with new hxp3 as i had with the old motion sensors. The good old days are gone, I am glad i am retired.
Greetings MCM, I wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying. As Prof. Dr. Tom Sowell once said "Nothing could be more dangerous and more stupid than having people taking decisions for which they pay no price for being wrong". We should remember that the Titanic was not supposed to sink --- according to the "experts". Ontario, Canada. 2021/04/10.
My last five years working as a locomotive engineer for the Soo Line (Canadian Pacific) was under the leadership and creator of precision railroading, the late CEO, E. Hunter Harrison. The BAD: At the Soo's Bensenville (Illinois) yard we went from about 30 yard jobs to mark up on to about 12. The GOOD: I made more money in my last five years than I ever imagined I would working for the railroad. Made a big improvement in my pension upon retirement.
I am not a railroader, but I have had a number of friends who were. If you want an example of what not to do to a railroad, just look at the history of the Lac Megantic, Quebec disaster. After what had once been a Class 1 railway that was run into the ground by the new management after the sale of the line, well, it was pretty bad as millions around the world saw. I'm not indicating that UP would ever get anywhere close to becoming this bad, but it does happen. This train had a 1 man crew too, just one of the many things that contributed to this terrible disaster. I had a retired CN conductor friend (now long deceased) who used to call these shoddy run railroads, "Tinker Toy" railroads. Large or small, if you mismanage a railroad and you get what you get. I in no way shape or form intend to diss anybody in railroad management nor do I intend to offend anyone here. Thank you.
Crazy management story from another industry: in the early 2000s I was assigned to the crew receiving new nuclear reactor fuel assemblies from Westinghouse. These arrive by truck, in big casks, on a regular twice-weekly schedule. Our job was to open the casks, inspect the fuel assemblies, then lift each 1600+ pound assembly and place it into our storage racks. Trouble was, our hoist was broken for several days, the casks were piling up, and we were getting frustrated! Management didn't want to bring in an extra couple of technicians to fix the hoist on overtime, and because the regular dayshift maintenance guys were all busy elsewhere nothing was happening.
We're out there twiddling our thumbs when we get the news that our CEO is resigning, and he is leaving with over $60M in total compensation! I'd have to work SIX CENTURIES at my present pay to equal what that guy walked away with, the one on watch when our company went bankrupt. Meanwhile we sat, waiting for someone to okay spending a few hundred bucks to fix the golldurn hoist.
True story!
That's what is wrong with American companies today.
With advances in artificial intelligence, it's about time to start replacing the executive teams at all these large corporations with software. Just think how many 20 million a year CEOs, CFOs, CIOs etc. can be easily replaced with a $20,000 per year licensing fee?
That's a hell of an idea! Thanks for the comment and for checking it out!
the same can be said for the engineer. the trains will be automated eventually
@@bjornegan6421 And when some eventually derails or otherwise has a major problem like hitting a tanker truck or school bus, the automated system can announce ¨REBOOT REBOOT¨
I like the way you think! I mean there are many examples of AI consistently beating even the best hedge fund managers in picking stock.
@@bjornegan6421 wount work.
I agree with you that a manager needs to know or at least understand what his people are doing to contribute to the company to be able to "manage" them adequately.
Some "bright" bean counter on a railroad, electric utility, telephone, or cable company changed the bottom line by switching operational and maintenance equipment from owning to leasing so the cost is taken off as an expense instead of capitalization. When a truck (etc) is bought and owned, it is capitalized; when it is leased, the cost is not capitalized but charged to operating expense for tax purposes.
Just one train to jump the track and watch who catches hell...
CEO's always think they know better than the people actually doing the work.
I enjoy your videos and am learning things from you. Without a conductor on a train,who is going to walk back 112 cars to find out why the train went into emergency?
I'm glad you made it into retirement vs. being laid off. Keep the videos coming and thanks for the ones already made.
Jim
you have it correct, the people keep the rails safe! they are the inspectors,maintenance, and
ones that fix the problems to keep everyone safe, no failures that hurt people both rail and public.
the upper management just warm seats and say yes . the best managers go through the rank and file
and know the systems and how to fix them. the upper management will just walk away, screwing
over the remaining workers that keep the train’s going daily! it is better to get out before you get hurt
by bad management. congratulations upon your retirement, mine is close I can see the light at the
end of the tunnel. going through the same with ed breen and his chopping the company to nothing.
barry
One man crew for two mile long trains seems a bit risky.
It’s sad and funny at the same time when companies can be so short sighted in trying to cut costs, when all they do is depress morale, cause financial hardships to those who loose their jobs a make it tougher for the ones lucky enough to retain their job.
I was lucky. My dad got me into the oil refinery where he worked. The Human Resources manager congratulated me, shook my hand with a strong, proud hand shake and said there has never been a layoff in the oil industry, and I’ll have a job for life. Ironically, 4 years later we went out on strike. One of the gives that the union would not let go was when the company said they were going to lay off, they wanted to do it regardless of seniority. So, I made up my picket sigh to read “LAY ME OFF FIRST!” You see, I was a believer in seniority and was low on the totem pole. I got canned and was fortunate enough to get hired on with another company. This company went through 5 company name changes, mergers, etc. With one of the last mergers, they were going to lay off and pick and choose who they wanted to keep. I remember my supervisor was preselected to keep his job, and was to be taking on the roll of telling the pool of questionable employees whether or not they would be hired back under the new company. It always bugged me that he was happy doing that job. He sure was able to detach any emotions from his duties. Now, one day, essentially everyone was let go, and they had to clear out their lockers as nobody (hourly paid people) knew who would be let go or hired on. So, we followed the line passing him at the table and on out the gate. As you got to him, he was sorry but, they did not have a job available for you, or he stated the new company would like to offer you a new job with them. (It was all just paperwork - and crew and schedule changes when you went back to work if you got the job.). So, here I am in line. I felt like I was in a bread line during the Great Depression. I was sad and my eyes were tearing up as I approached. Now, I was a good operator and got along nicely with everyone. But, I wasn’t so arrogant to assume I had a job waiting for me. I was in 5he same boat as everyone. I got offered the job, got the “handshake” and the congratulations. But as I left and headed for my car, I felt like 💩. How could I be happy when some of my union brothers were let go. Them oil companies were making loads of profits, yet they felt the need to cut costs by things such as cutting jobs. And the insulting thing, putting salt on the wound, was it became a more dangerous place to work and live in the community. Fatigue sets in with mandatory overtime. Morale drops because you are stuck working a scheduled day off, etc. and to compound a reduced work force covering the - not the same jobs, but more as they expand production with new process units, more equipment to operate and maintain and larger geographical footprints to cover. Now, you have guys that retire, quit, get fired, on disability. They had seasoned employees with a lot of experience. They let that go. Then what do they end up doing? Hiring new employees with little - if any practical experience. Young kids that don’t have the appreciation for a good job to support a family, buy a house, etc. it’s just spending cash for their young lifestyles. That’s fine, except they don’t have the instinctive fear of doing substandard work, whether it me skipping their rounds, faking lab testing & results or faking critical readings, not to mention poor attendance records. We went through a phase where we hired disadvantaged people from the community. In the surface, it sounds like a nice idea. However, when I applied for such a job, my resume was scrutinized and the testing that was required was not a piece of cake. At the very minimum, basic math, English, reasoning skills were paramount. What we’ve seen were we started seeing idiots who were hired to fill someone’s quotas. It really irritates me when you have a standard which sets you above the rest. And then, if you can’t reach that standard, you lower the bar just to satisfy, well, I’ll leave it at that. Now, since the gulf way, there has been a boost in support of our veterans. We made the effort to give these men and women some extra consideration. On average, they had discipline which helped them to become qualified, safe and proficient. Sure, you might get some young kid who’s a bit green. But, if you found issues with their work, they corrected it, not try to cheat the system. Look out below! I’m jumping off my soap box now. ✌️🤙. Good to see you continuing to improve, Mark. I get my vaccine 4-28-21
It did work because of the economy collapsing in 2020. Now with it rebounding in 2021 to 2022. UP has had nothing but problems with customers and employees
My uncle John J. worked for many years with SP and UP signalling systems. He lived in the Fresno area.
It sounds like the 1 man crew idea came from someone who has never run a train.
As most of upper management has not. I understand the concept, I just disagree with it.
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Having retired from a large RR, like many of you, I have an idea to save a lot of work for a train in transit but you know what? I´ll keep it to myself because its the college ¨boys¨ that should figure it out. College is good for a lot of things but NOT everything.
Having only one person on the train was likely one of the factors involved in the Lac Megantic crash in 2013.
Or someone who looked at Europe, where CH did one man crews for about a century by now on mainline rail and other countries like DE or AT also have been doing it for ages without major issues...
Doesn't Amtrak only use one engineman on anything under 6 hours?
CEO's answer to the stock holders. If they don't think the 2020 plan is a profit maker; UP will have a new CEO and a new plan.
free market capitalism has it's downsides and should never be left unbridled, especially when it comes to things that are necessities of life, like fire protection, education, transportation, etc. . thanks for your honesty and i really like your videos.
The best way to keep it in check is for consumers to make better choices.
Mark, being a manager is a lot like being a member of a sled dog team. The only one that gets a fresh view of things is the lead sled dog. You're spot on about PSR and it's parallels to the late years of the SP. UP is only interested in rolling stock right now. This won't change until fatalities increase or derailments increase.
I was a conductor for Union Pacific until I got injured in 2014. PSR is a very destructive policy, destructive to employees, customers, and communities. It is utter madness.
Yep. As I said, this isn't the first time it's been tried. You know what they say about not paying attention to history...
There have been a few trial PR balloons sent up mainly from Europe on future one pilot airline passenger aircraft as well.... Lets see how that works out.....
All boils down to the mighty dollar... They could care less about safety. All Employees can be replaced.
Good thing i did not take the train crew position this past summer in Oakland, i would have quit my job at Chevron just to get laid off from UP and be screwed .
You're mighty right. Operating jobs are generally safe but with these new plans, no jobs are safe. Damned shame. I'm glad you didn't make the change and I'm glad I'm retired now.
Thanks for checking it out and for checking out my channel!
A plant where I worked did the same thing. Maintenance was cut to patch things up after a derailment. Derailments went from maybe one in to days to an average of 3 in an 8 hour shift. Delays went thru the roof. So what do they do? Made the crews 1 man. Things that used to be unsafe are now thrown out the window. Injuries and deaths increased. Management numbers stayed the same. Old ones left and know it all college grads came in. (“I know, I went to college”). The company is out of business.
That’s funny, countries like Switzerland or Germany have been running one man crews for ages now, safely. I think in CH they went for one man crews pretty much since the beginning of electrics in the early 1900s (depending on the RR, most electrified between 1904 and 1920) the diesels were also one engineer crews when diesels became a thing. In the 30s they started doing a ptc equivalent to enforce signalling, but I have yet to find a big accident attributed to one man crews. Germany was a bit later, but also runs one man crews everywhere these days, though early high speed services were run with two engineer crews for some reason. Austria also runs one engineer crews, though I‘m not sure when they started. And at least in more recent years, countries like the UK also started doing one man crews... So I’m having trouble with understanding why one man crews can’t be safe?
European freight trains are much shorter and have a much smaller loading gauge than American trains. Also, Class 1 railroad lines traverse through very remote and rural regions of the country where the nearest town or yard could be 50-100 miles away (especially in places like Texas).
@@Cnw8701 Doesn't change the fact that There are thousands of trains a day running one engineer crews and the first ones were over a century ago. So, it can be done safely. And a train that's merely longer doesn't mean that ptc can't enforce signals and speed limits, heck, you guys even have FRED that could be upgraded to tell ptc that the train has now passed the speed restriction. So what am I missing? The fact that in the middle of nowhere you don't hear much on the radio? Afaik most one engineer trains rarely even use the radio cuz signals tell the engineer what to do and the signal guys know the filed schedule, so on the road, you rarely need to talk to dispatch in the first place... Afaik
@@genoobtlp4424 engineers use their radios on trains a lot more than you think. Add the fact that America has railroads that traverse the longest areas of an populated landscape in the world. Then add the size and length of the trains versus all these other smaller countries that you have listed which run shorter train on smaller areas makes for a huge difference. As far as your comment about the AI Systems doing the conductor job if it could successfully be done. Then why haven’t all Air travel companies done this with jet because they have had auto pilot for a long time yet they still state the fact that it needs to or three people in the cockpit at any given time.
guess I just lack the sample size to have heard the radios being used outside trouble situations (like delay coordination or breakdowns) or shunting. Guess engineers have one less reason to get bored.
About the automation in the air: it‘s a trust thing for one case, people don’t trust a computer to safely land a plane in an emergency, and shitty weather is a problem for automatic landing. Stopping a train on the other hand can be done in any case without endangering anyone, if you’re properly dispatching trains. The 1930s version needs a couple of magnets, an antenna, a clock, some relays and an electronic valve to throw the train into emergency. With that you can force engineers to start braking at cautions, enforce red lights and enforce slow speed sections, as well as other stuff, if you’re willing to use more than three distinguishable electromagnets (DE uses 2000Hz, 1000Hz and 500Hz magnets for example to set these signals). Heck, you can go as low as permanent and electromagnets like they do in the british AWS, where a permanent magnet arms the system and a second magnet disarms it again, resulting in one sound or it doesn’t get disarmed within x time, giving you, as engineer y amount of time to acknowledge the signal or be thrown in emergency. Modern systems like ETCS have the advantage of computers, which can handle more complex operations like enforcing any speed limit, supervising the braking process by checking your speed against the maximum speed allowable without you overshooting a signal, customized braking curves, and obviously showing the received limits to the driver, so the driver has real time variable speed limits; more advanced implementations can even monitor the trains in front of them to enable minimum safe intervals based on variables like speed, weight, braking capability, length and all that stuff you already have to tell the engineer anyway.
But still, in the end, an automatic braking system is just a more complex dead man switch (a device, that should be in every cab, especially since Hinton) that takes different inputs like signals and speed to decide whether to throw you into emergency now or wait. Planes don’t have a dead man switch either, as you can’t just throw a plane into emergency, you actually have to land, one of the most dangerous parts of any flight. And just because a country is small doesn’t mean you don’t have long train journeys, certain passenger runs within DE are well over 500miles one way and one of the most popular freight runs is Rotterdam-Genoa, a journey of almost a thousand miles, at least most of the way with one soul on board. Hell, even a country as small as CH has round trips that rack up a couple hundred miles, which run hourly from 6am to midnight all year round.
I definitely agree. The Broadway Local got abolished and a lot of Unit trains are gone now.
Where was the Broadway? Around here it appears there are as many unit cars, just fewer and longer trains. Go check out my piece on the 13,000 ton ethanol train.
Thanks for the comment and for checking it out.
Mark Clay McGowan The Broadway Local was on the Peninsula Sub in the Bay Area
Hey Mark, NS is doing the same thing precision railroading and it’s not working out at all they’re having a lot of derailments and thousands of people has lost their jobs that’s been there for 15 to 20 years. BNSF Is the only rail road that’s not doing the precision rail Roading, they said it is not gonna work and they’re not even gonna try it as far as I know of
They are smart (if true) considering how BN started, one would think they know how to keep shit running. Shit they might just be able to buy out UP if they keep this up. Sad days but you make it or get swallowed
Warren Buffet, who owns BNSF, says PSR is BS. He's very smart. :)
BNSF answers to one person only.Buffet takes the long view.not quarterly reports
That further cements why BNSF Railway is my favorite Class 1. Ignore the PSR bs and continue traditional railroad operation.
@@JessicaKasumi1990 yeah. One would speculate that UP should already know this after buying SP after they pulled this shit... oh well
Poor management is not the same as PSR. Each have their problems. The idea of long trains and serving multiple yards and all that makes sense what I don't get is chasing the operating ratio and not taking on less profitable but still profitable business.
PSR has its forms in other industries. My employer saw for to shove out the door all employees 60 or over with 10 years or more of service right before Christmas.
Over the past several years, the defined contribution pension plan has ended, the life insurance for retirees has ended, post retirement health benefits have ended and 5 weeks of vacation for the most senior employees was reduced to 32. None of these affected senior management.
we can thank HUNTER HARRISON for precision scheduled railroading (PSR)... he put it in play at CP and CN... came to the states and did it at CSX... and when UP saw the rise in the stock prices of those other roads, they bought in... but I did read that BNSF hasn't bought in … YET... maybe they wanna see how it works with UP... supposedly PSR reduces DWELL TIME, something the UP HATED... well with PSR, dwell time is either greatly reduced or eliminated altogether, increasing efficiency .... UP also closed the hump at proviso... also put on hold a few new yards in texas… so it looks like PSR is here to stay... unfortunately
Technology has contributed greatly to many of the job losses but basing job cuts and future performance on how smoothly things are working now will be a problem down the road.
I'm glad I'm gone. The job I left 2 1/2 months ago is still vacant. My manager left and his replacement has already gone back to his tools. No one wants these jobs.
Damned shame.
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While I was working at a Naval shipyard back in the early 1990's I would meet a worker who would leave to go work for Norfolk/Southern. He called it getting rid of the shipyard before the shipyard got rid of him. I can't help but wonder how he is doing now.
Sounds really scary, less maintenance people.
One man crew with poor maintained locomotives LacMagantic Quebec Canada which 47 people burned to death in derailment. Pull knuck, one person no way can replace in hour, to running out of service hours. Parked trains all over system mechanical problems.
You should take the Amtrak from Denver to California. They warn you crossing Nevada that the UP tracks are in in bad shape and hang on. Top speed on the train is think is 79. Couple of times thought we were coming off the track.
The BNSF road across Nebraska that the Zephyr runs on is even more scary. It's the heavy coal traffic.
Mark, I couldn't agree with you more. "Precision railroading" is simply about boosting "shareholder value". I have no doubt the remaining employees will suffer with harder and more dangerous jobs. Customer service will also suffer as well as the lack of maintenance catches up to the system. The job loss will be devastating as railroad jobs are high quality jobs, which have become very rare in our economy. We've seen this in industry after industry in the US.....very sad. No one seems to care or is willing to do anything about it.. :-(
Typical short term thinking. The FRA and unions are payed to keep us safe and working. Neither are doing it.
Thanks for checking it out
That's because the are in it only for the dollar!one day, they will regret this! Because soon ,the money will be worthless!then let's see how they operate then!
There is no problem with boosting shareholder value. The question is how that is done. The methods being used are an attempt at operational efficiency. Of course the view of efficiency depends on the metrics used. Maybe I am completely off base, but I would focus on expanding traffic, increasing median car velocity, and minimizing cost per car mile travelled, in that order of priority. Above all, do all this without compromising safety or long term ability to continue operations. Then again, I don’t know anything about the business.
Mark, it sounds to me like PSR exerts tremendous schedule pressure on personnel, and in many industries that type of pressure is repeatedly associated with accidents. I worked in the commercial nuclear industry for 35 years and always put the safety of the reactor and my coworkers first. Management always has schedules, but when meeting them means rushing and taking shortcuts then the schedule can wait. I'd rather look at my boss' long face than see a buddy taken away in an ambulance because he fell 50’ from a pipe that management didn't want to build a scaffold for!
I don't know about the railroads but my utility is no longer run by experienced individuals who came up through the ranks, it is most often run by folks with a Goldman Sachs background. Those jackasses need to have their feet held to the fire on safety, because they will be quick to toss you under the bus (or train!) if something happens!
I worked for the power utility in a major eastern city; don't want to be more specific because data on the web never dies and anyone can view what is there. I was forced out for much the same reason - the equipment improved to the point where maintenance requirements were less. You know how your discard a broken tool? Yeah, like that. So many line workers leave with a sour taste. What are we passing to our kids? We see now how difficult it is for companies to hire grunts. Everyone wants to wear a tie and have clean hands. Good luck to those suits.
Warren Buffet, who owns BNSF, says PSR is BS. The only reason for PSR is to keep the Wall Streeters and stockholders happy. Customers / shippers don't like it. Railroad employees don't like it. :(
I don’t own any railroad stock, but if I did I would want management that keeps customers happy so they keep spending and maybe expand how much business the railroad does.
I'm glad I retired from engine service 7 yrs ago. I don`t like what I am hearing in regards to 1 man crews. We need 2 sets of eyes on the headend of trains period.
It's happened all over. Fire or retire the guys with dirty fingernails and keep and promote the guys with pocket protectors. It usually works great for the bottom line for a while,then everything falls apart and they wonder why.
I'm chemist and I work for big company but I will never give them more information than I have too.... Let the CEO figure it out.... Keep good information to myself....
I was "retired" about a year after you posted this. In my Firm, the reason was COVID - loss of business (revenue). I can sympathize and I too am a capitalist. I am working on a new career at present.
I believe the Precision Railroading is sketchy, but seeing as there doesn't seem to be any other option, so be it. I can't believe how much work is added to each individual in PRR - amazing that folks carry on.
I'm a bit late to the table but here goes... ALL railroads are asset intensive businesses. Locos, cars, tracks, signals, real estate, equipment, etc. are all very, very, very expensive. With that in mind, the largest expenditure by UP and most all railroads is NOT labor. I would bet that their debt service is probably more than they spend on labor. I suspect that this game is nothing more than some people in mahogany row justifying their next bonus. Certainly not a new tactic. It's even more prevalent in a heavily regulated environment. When things go wrong, the regulators always get blamed and the executives just line their pockets some more.
is there a correlation between accidents and man power...specifically is there any proof that one person crews can safely operate a 9K LONG TRAIN. I see them across the nevada division with 3x3x2 configuration of DPU and wonder how a single person can change a broken coppler at night, in a snowstorm,etc!?
I don't know if any studies have been done but I can't imagine it is safer. As to problems with the trains most roads have "rapid responders" that tend to such problems.
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It will take a Major Catastrophic Event to Open the Eyes 👀 of the FRA about PSR. It Sucks! 👎
The tourist railroad I worked for in Oregon is now using PSR. My Superintendent of Operations tried to fire me "on account of PSR." I was a mechanic. My Mechanical Shop Manager made sure I stayed on as soon as my Superintendent of Operations threatened to fire me. It's been a disaster with PSR so far. I won't go on about the horror stories I've been a part of. It pissed me off. That's why I left the tourist railroad for a job in Guest Services in the NBA. I would call the UP 2020 Plan the Uni$#@%*! Plan.
What?! That's insane! What railroad was this?
@@Cnw8701 it's a tourist railroad in Oregon.
Engineer, conductor, brakeman... That is what should be on all the trains. How do they expect 1 person to handle a 2 mile long hunk of metal when there are so many variables... What if you have a derailment, bearing burn up, brake issues, someone jumping on and uncoupling cars, Engineer getting sick or even worse getting shot at.
It seems to me that they need to start putting spurs back in industrial areas and become more available for direct loads from/to ports. And if you keep letting people go then the pension fund gets depleted where it won't self fund. No social security for rail employees, Just the railroad pension fund.
Boy they doing a lot of people wrong. Hope it come back to bite em.
Yes, they are. I do understand some of it but most will come back to bite them.
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I just hope they have to hire most of them back to fix it. But I have no ill-will towards the Railroad mothership.... I want them to succeed! I just want them to share the profits!😉
@@samfuller6273 fully agreed. When I was working I tried to do the best I could but even so that still cultivated a degree of resentment in me because of the way I and others were treated.
Where ever you to wrong, You can look for it to come back on you! Period!
The airlines are next! One pilot, then someday, NO pilots.
And more indebted college students/illegal immigrants who they expect to repair and maintain those planes! 🤣
You are right on. I bet some of the high dollar people could be cut too---you know, the ones that know NOTHING about building trains properly, moving them and other personnel who keep them moving (like dispatchers for example). Some maintainers take an hour or more after regular hours to respond to trouble not because of being lax but because their assigned territory is so far from home and that´s because many signal maintainers have too much territory in distance to properly cover but on paper it looks good because jobs are abolished and the extra work is just dumped on whoever is handy. I wonder how a broken knuckle or blown train line hose will be handled on a 200 car train will be handled with a one man crew when the problem is maybe 30 to 130 or more cars back? Maybe the big roads should develop a system where ONE man can send a verbal text from his phone to a locomotive leading a certain train symbol and tell IT to proceed out of the yard west for example to point ¨X¨ , cut your train off and have fresh consist couple to your train and continue west etc. etc. Lets get railroading down to just ONE man for the whole system and he can alone put all the proceeds in his pocket. Oh by the way, what about motive power that needs repair or overhaul? Like plastic drink bottles, just trash them and buy new ones. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
in rail roads its Diesel Fuel
Put those so-called bosses on the front line and say you do this job the way you want us to. See how long they last.
Lately, I've been seeing what appears to be a significant increase in "light engine" moves, particularly on the BNSF. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I attribute this to a whole lot of locomotives ending up in one place, e.g. Chicago, as a result of the huge trains that are now being run to justify PSR. This tactic can't be good for BNSF's bottom line as all of these moves are 'freebies' as far as the railroad is concerned. I've noticed this same thing happening on NS and CSX although not as often. Any thoughts?
I watch some VR and have noticed a lot of "light engine" moves of 2 to 12 or so units on BNSF on different parts of the system. These are not "freebies" because a crew has to take them from one place to another place without cars; why they couldn't pull some cars to contribute to moving freight, I don't know. I have also noticed a lot of unit transfers with over 3 units up to 20 units on a train. There is no way 4 or more units on the head end of a train contributes to the economic movement of the train particularly if there are DPUs in the train, they are moving power(this is almost a freebie).
they'll use contractors.... why they bulking up on managers to supervise contractors.....
this is what went on with the new haven and the final bankruptcy made it disappear.
Unfortunately we will Never be able to Rid ourselves of Bean Counters. They will Fail Miserably. 👎
Is PTC Part of Signals Dept?
It's tied to the signal system but it is technically a communications system
Hopefully BNSF is not going this route. In fact they just promoted some people into division manager positions who started out as conductors and engineers. The incoming CEO has pretty much said “bias for growth,” which is not what PSR is about neither is it about good customer service. PSR is a return to the bad old days when they thought their business was running trains rather than serving customers. We know where that led (e.g., Penn Central and SP).
I don’t understand what you mean by running trains versus serving customers. Really curious what you mean by that contrast.
I bet the Desoto, MO car shop will get busy as from my understanding its the only car shop west of the Mississippi River.
Lmao😄.
Thanks for sharing your insight!
My pleasure!
Thanks for checking it out!
Very enlightening Thanks Mark
This 1 man crew idea is inherently dangerous. People can fall asleep, even with PTC can put trains on the ground. PSR is stupid Period, catering to big shippers and losing small shippers.
As well as endangering the public and the environment
I'm a red blooded capitalist as well, but they need to understand that they grow and make money on Our economy and labor and resources. And even more important, the entire idea of a public good as part of their mission is because of what WE gave them in the beginning. Land grants, grants to lay rail and sopread out. They do have a certain responsibility.
In the UK we've had single manning of freight trains for years. If a train requires to shunt/switch a man in a van meets it at the location. It works where distances are relatively short. The idea of a 2 mile long train out in the desert with just one man sounds scary, what happens if there is a problem and the guy has to examine his train?
big long walk by 2 like the old road sweep collect tools sweep go back for barrow forgot shovel go back fetch it so it goes on thing is each way is double the distance like he said iv been busy all day and havnt done much plus his walk home after working that stretch of road
Support two person train crews keep America safe.
You have all got this wrong when it come to 2 man crew verses one man
crew. The airlines have had autopilot for years but still have two and 3 people in the cockpit. If Boeing has taught us anything technology fails. It’s all the workers do is worry about losing jobs. Its common sense thousands of railroad workers will lose their jobs if all the railroads are allowed to go to 1 man crews. That's an issue you need to take up with Politicians ! They claims they are creating jobs then let him do something
about people keeping the ones they have!
This is about safety. This is about saving lives. Not just crew lives but the American people as well. Don’t forget about the rule-making process that was invoked by then-FRA Administrator Joseph C. Szabo after an unattended 74-car freight train carrying crude oil ran downhill and crashed in the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic, killing 49 people in 2013 that had just one man on the train! Hunter Harrison said on the record those extra set of eyes in the cab are valuable. PTC will not detect track issues or mechanical issues like bad order cars or prevent crossing accidents. Our rules change daily so if an engineer or conductor takes a day off or vacation who will job brief with each other on any newly updated rules that change. How about filling out an EC-1 as the train moves along the tracks or stop and flag a railroad crossing when they have an activation failure with the public crossing gates. We are suppose to job brief to make smart decisions taking the safer course. So if engineers are busy pushing buttons on a screen and reading train orders his eyes are in the cab. If they remove the conductor, it would be counterintuitive. So in my opinion one safety system cancels out the other. Now with ptc and full crew in the cab increases the safety of of train movement. Just plain old common sense.
Railroads preach safety every single day.
Its in their rule books and in their advertising. Its 24 hour a day
safety...safety....safety. Well let them put their money where their mouths are. Pay for safety. Keep 2 men in the cab.
Just like GM shutting down 5 plants putting 15,000 people out of work and pay there CEO 22 million. CSX on the other hand lost 41% of the business once Hunter Harrison took over cutting out almost half the work force from 27,893 people down to 15,362 people system wide and they paid him 385 million only to pass away 8 months later!
With everything going automated from self check out lanes to manufacturing does anyone profit except share holders and CEOs!!!! The public has no idea what we deal with. Tell your neighbors about how many cars we hit and people are killed every year when they are hit by
trains. Explain to them how the engineer is in the cab calling the dispatcher and getting 911 called. He is taking care of anything that may be wrong with the locomotive. He stays with the train. Tell them how the conductor gets down and rushes to the vehicle to see if he can
possibly save a life. Maybe a baby is in the car and needs to be helped
or maybe the parents can be removed and need CPR. Maybe he can comfort
someone who is dying or in shock or screaming because they are severely
injured . Tell them about how we hit live stock and large deer. Tell them how people love to put junk on the tracks. Shopping carts, bicycles, steel barrows, wheelchairs and even abandoned cars. A two person crew saved a child’s life wondering around on the tracks in Minnesota near midnight Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020. PTC didn’t help them. Tell them about how many trees we hit a year and do extensive damage to the
locomotive. The engineer stays with the locomotives and assess the damage and does what is necessary to radio dispatchers for help while the conductors gets down and removes debris and check the rest of the train for any damage or signs of derailment. Tell them about the
territory that is in the middle of TIM BUCK TWO! The places where no one can get to you fast unless you have a helicopter. How will they go bathroom now without two people to keep the train going down the tracks unless they have to stop not blocking crossings or take lunch. Tell them how radios don't always work in remote locations. Telemetry drops out and communication is lost. How many times does a conductor have to go back
and trouble shoot another locomotive after alarms are going off. The engineer
keeps the train rolling the best he can while the conductor checks the
computers and checks to see if it is loading, traction motor faults or any other issue that may arise. Tell them about the blind curves that only one crew member can see around when your approaching
public crossings or trees that block signals so that only one crew member can see them until you get the train right on top of them. Tell them about wash outs from floods, and heat warped rail and fog so thick you cant see a foot in front of you. SO WHAT IF YOU GOT PTC!! PTC does not tell you if a car in stopped on the tracks or a tree is across it or a person is walking in the tracks or there is 5 inches of water over the rail! Tell them how crew members have been attacked and some have even been killed by gang thugs and trespassers. A single man has no
chance in these situations. It is better to have someone else with you to keep watch when working in bad areas and ghetto rail yards. The list goes on and on. Tell them how the company took away the right of the crew members to take a power nap. One crew member is supposed to call stopped every 15 minutes while they are waiting on line of road. As long as someone is awake and doing this and paying attention there is no reason on god green earth while a tired crew member cant take a 20
minute power nap. Tell them how crews are run into the ground and some
are called out every 10 hours around the clock. They work all hours of the day and night and most have no weekends off. The company wont even let them have a power nap. What is going to happen when there is only 1 man on the train by himself and he is just plain worn out or is sick and afraid to take a day off because of the companies new attendance policy
which is just absolutely insane. People come to work sick all the time. Vomiting, diarrhea, fevers and the flu doesn't stop them because they are in fear of losing their jobs. How is a sick man who is all by
himself going to be able to make a full run safely and without risking his life or the publics when he doesn't have his other crew member to help keep him alert. The engineer has many roles and duties as well as the conductor. There are times when something happens that it is a must
for an engineer to be on board and ready to take instructions while the conductor handles the rest of the responsibilities. There are so many things that go into railroading and running trains that the public doesn't know a thing about.
THIS ONE MAN CREW IDEA IS THE MOST UNSAFE AND IRRESPONSIBLE IDEA that
has ever been brought forward in the history of the railroad industry.
And for what? To save a dollar. To line someone's pockets. To make someone rich. Who care who gets killed. If you think crossings are blocked now imagine if there was only one man and had to wait on someone to cut a crossing!Who care about the destruction to family lives. I don't know about you but I sure do and so should every person in America!
Also if you haven’t seen it check out these two TH-cam videos.
th-cam.com/video/atfY4tiyMz8/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/PoJ1MYWsJ5Q/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/j_rPE44oDE4/w-d-xo.html
I don't think anyone here disagrees with your assessment about safety but you're right about it being political.
Your party affiliation is irrelevant. Call and write you elected representatives AFTER the election because they aren't concerned about your concerns right now.
Neither party is fighting or even denouncing this. Unions are giving it lip service as they sell members down the river but are doing nothing to stop it just as they did nothing when SP did this in 1991.
Harrison's psr was simply a process of cutting costs and slashing customer service while creating a mess. He did that at CN, CP and lastly at CSX. CN and CP recovered but lost customers as a result.
Ah, CSX PSR
how tomorrow moves yesterday's freight two weeks from now
Overnight, or sometime next week.
@@cavalierliberty6838 Or, how tomorrow moves, cause it ain't moving today.
Amazing. I've seen both that quote and the one i put in CSX offices. One in richmond fulton (mine), one in newport news.
Lol Harrison literally worked himself to death; a victim of his own greed.
Your Chief Operating Officer was part of senior management at CN Rail that all drank the Hunter Harrison Kool Aid. None of them could stand up and say this is not working here and no brainer, it never will. It did not work there and will not work on the UP. Things are so bad now at CN that they cannot run a wheelbarrow around an outhouse without using up 3 crews. If you can hang on for 5 years you will never make so much money for doing so little work. In five years it will be a free for all in all departments. It is too bad you retired Mark because the show gets more interesting as you go along, Longer trains do not cut down on total number crews it requires more. CN hired Rail Science Inc to tell them how to handle the braking on these long trains, RSI came back and told them it cannot be done. CN has spent 10 years trying to unsucessfully prove them wrong. Derailments were always fun as long trains can derail just by making an emergency application, or sometimes they will derail in mutiple locations in the train because of jackknifing. As for engineer only, you can just look at 50 people dead at Lac Mengatic to see how that one worked in Canada.
Haven’t watched it yet, but Mark, we all know it’s not going to work! Just hoping we still have something to save when it’s all done.
Yeah. I hope they see the danger in "super trains" and one man crews. I'm all for people making money but not at the cost of public safety and common sense.
Thanks for the comment and for checking out my channel!
Retired from Telecommunications. College Educated 20+ year olds know Nothing about Anything.
That's because no one is willing to teach us anything, while others refuse to listen or cooperate.
Will they expect the engineer to get out and carry a heavy knuckle back down the line to replace one that broke.
also involes a walk out and back more than what it sounds.i wouldnt bother i would ring up despach ans come and fix.
These plans are created by a confederacy of experts, which means the right thing never gets done. And it's interesting how the efficiencies and software and AI and automations never seem to affect the top level management.
Agree with much of what you're saying, especially with regard to one man crews and 2 mile long sidings. Competition is good but not sure where this plan leads.
That assinine or however you spell it. Think u get what im saying. Wait til a bunch of trains wreck from one man crew. And lawsuits from motorists that loose love ones from engineers falling asleep at the controls. So basically, an engineer will have to leave the locomotive unattendend, and move switches. Then get back on. Terrific. Not a good idea.
Outsourcing! That’s what KCS is doing around Kansas they use a third party communications company for almost all of the VHF, Microwave and PTC system! Comet Industries! I almost took a job until I realized they paid $1 over federal exemption, you had to be 3 hours from the tracks 24/7 except 1 weekend and NO OVERTIME!
The unions have been selling us down the river since the merger. The class 1 roads would all love to go there and probably will in the future.
Thanks for checking it out
Mark Clay McGowan it really sucks because that would have been a dream job for me but not with the ridiculous requirements!
yep hired out in 2018 worked a whole year as a conductor kept getting furloughed on and off after that. Wish they never hired me could of invested time in something else. This one man train crew is depressing . I'm done and won't be able to hold ever again when they start doing this.
Sorry bro! Covid19 didn't help
Roseville hump closed. Colton roundhouse lost many, many jobs you need between 15 to 20 years to work at Cloton roundhouse. This can't sustain very long.
11 more years for me I hope I'm gone before one man crews. This is what MAKES railroads FAIL! Deferred maintenance killed SP! They sort of did the same thing in the 80s then the failed SPSF!
THUMBS DOWN ON 2020!
Yeah, things are definitely a mess. I'm so glad I got out when I did.
Europeans have been doing one person train crews for decades. Are US-Americans less capable?
I hear you SIr! Same thing happening down here Mark....too many chiefs and not enough indians..LOL.
Older signal guys like me are not being replaced and younger guys leave chasing more money???
Seems to be a global problem and we are below our number of signal guys now ...only a matter of time?
Look forward to kore of your rail fanning videos.
CHeers Gregg.
They still haven't put my old job up for bid! I believe they're going to start seeing if they can get by without vacated jobs.
The maintainers are also part of the problem as they see it as a way to get more OT and they're right, but the workload will catch up and it may be too late for them.
I dunno. I don't have the answers. I just hope they aren't shooting themselves in the foot!
Thanks for checking it out!
I'm over on the east coast, where CSX has gone to mile to 2 mile long trains... with the expected results. A couple of weeks ago, they managed to have a double pull apart going into the long siding here at Four Oaks. Took them about 4 hours to get the train into the siding completely... Not sure if distributed power glitches may have been involved. One was about 15-20 cars behind the lead engines... and the other was back about 20 cars from the end of the train. They had to bring car repair in from about 50 miles north to repair the pocket on one of the cars... Precision break apart railroading... Then throw in the PTC failures here, where trains simply stop on the single track. A REALLY ugly situation for the workers...
How cheap can you get? You cant afford 2 people in the multi million dollar train. gz
From an operating and financial aspect, I get it. 100k in salary plus benefits and rrb donations times how ever many trains they run per year...that's a lot of money.
From a safety and practical aspect, I don't understand it at all. One major incident attributed to the policy could erase years of savings, not to mention the bad press.
I guess they're willing to play the risk v. reward game.
Of course, none of this has happened yet. We shall see.
Thanks for the comment and for checking out my channel!
@@MarkClayMcGowan Its worth playing the ¨risk¨ game because until the accident happens, the ¨shot callers¨ are raking in the big bucks and when the blame is laid at their doorstep then they collect a golden parachute to move on so in the end nothing is lost and plenty to gain by these ¨decision makers¨. Just think of so many of these guys that have totally or nearly screwed up a wonderful company, move on with piles of money to leave and then perch themselves in a position with another company and the process continues when they should simply be fired, kicked out the door and not rehired somewhere else to continue their destructive work. Too much FAILURE IS REWARDED.
Eliminating any jobs is bad.. but i get it.. but to do it and jeopardize safety is totally wrong. Keep people employed
Safety is a big deal at UP...until it gets in the way of the dividend
@@MarkClayMcGowan unfortunately that's too common anymore. But when accidents start happening it'll bite them in the ass. Train accidents don't go un- noticed.
Boy do I agree with you
I agree! Those silly air brakes, knuckle couplers, and the diesel electric locomotive cost many many jobs.Lets dump all that and get back to REAL railroading! And oh, CTC started a real DANGEROUS trend, it must. go, before it expands to PTC or worse! And what could be more dangerous than riding in front of a few thousand tons at some break-neck speed. Let a computer take the risk.
Vulture capitalism is the name of the game in rail.
Nothing wrong with capitalism, it just needs to make sense!
Thanks for the comment and for checking it out!
As typified by the late Hunter Harrison.
One man trains are a huge mistake
Too early to comment on this aspect of railroading ... but everyone in the industry is trying to change for the better and to get more money to the shareholders so more investment should do the job... but the people come first and service to the people are the reason for the Country being what it is .... thus operations like Amtrak are necessary government investments as free Enterprise cannot meet the necessary needs of the people... like FEMA, the Insurance Industry dumped the coverages so ... keep thinking about Free Enterprise and maybe find out what Socialism really means ... not what you assume. Cheers
I'v seen a lot of good carmen form UP cut, sadest thing to see in the world, they cut so high, not even guys with 20 years of seniority were saved, I wonder if that was a sound decision 🤔 to cut the guys who maintain railroad cars, signals, locomotives, and ect??? 🤔🤔🤔
UP was already bare minimum around here. Cutting beyond that is never a good idea
Remember 30 or so years ago when large firms down sized the companies. Made all this quick profit and stocks rose and big shots got their big bonus. A few years later they found there were not enough people to do the work. Problem, there were no skilled people to do the work. They had to hire more people than needed and TEACH them how to do the job. What did they gain. The railroads, the trucking industry found out, will have the same problem. Hunter Harrison's idea was good to a point, but failed by the rapid closures and layoffs, for $'s, with out studying the results.
thing is those that know the job are not doing it because they are learning the studants how to do it. not a cure to the problem. 2 people dont always do twice the work in a shift as well.
If you are looking at transportation in general, be it trains, trucks, planes or ships, the Human interaction is becoming less and less important. As AI improves, people...humans...will not be running the equipment but more of a safety net in the event that automated functions do not work. It is a good bet that in 20 years, people will not have to drive their cars, trains wont need any crews, planes will (almost already do) fly themselves. Super tankers....more automation and less crews...been that way for a while. We fly space craft ALL THE TIME without pilots or astronauts. The people are one of the largest day to day expenses and the least controllable aspects of any business. Machines/Technology does not call in sick, does not need retirement benefits, no vacations, can work 24x7, and frankly could be more reliable in the long run since they do not make mistakes (yeah I know...sometimes like with the Boeing MAX plane the machine failed...but that was ultimately a human related design screw up). Am I happy about being replaced by a bunch of circuits and programs...NOT AT ALL! But this is our reality. Steam replaced the horse drawn carriage, Diesel Electric replaced Steam, Alternate fuel will be next and assuredly AI driven automation will replace people to operate the trains. Better design and manufacturing will further reduce the need for maintenance of the rolling stock and locomotives, better rail construction will reduce the maintenance of way requirements. Look...all of us with a little gray on our roof are not afraid of work and valued what we did for our careers, but we also know that technology does not stand still and what many of us did for careers will be replaced by "a machine" at some point. YES, the bean counters and investors drive this trend, but frankly for railroads, to stay relevant in the transportation industry they need to move with the times.
Here is something we all loose sight of. When we go to the store we generally look for the item we want and then the price of said item. WalMart and Amazon became the biggest retailers because they offered items for way less than others and made it easy to buy what they were selling. People flock to these establishments to buy their poorly made Chinese crap. We used to pride ourselves on buying items (tools) that would last now we buy them cheap and when they break we buy another cheap replacement. Made in the USA and made to last is really relevant to so few buyers these days, especially if there is a significant price difference. When we travel we look at the cost....train travel is REALLY expensive and takes much longer (aside from commuter trains...talking cross country like you would do for air travel) so people look to air travel. The railroads lost share to the trucking industry and continue to do so, and it is as much a cost thing as anything else. The RR's have to stay relevant in this economic environment and to do that they have to get much better at what they do without raising, and frankly reducing their cost to their customers...Their CUSTOMERS are what drives the need for RR's to compete....StockHolders understand this and yes they are driven by returns...but you have to have income and that is driven by Customers....
So get mad at the Customer who demand better service at a lower price...are you one of those :-)
I'm not mad and no one understands the price of progress on employment or the cost of labor on an employer more than I.
I just don't believe PTC is going to make it safe enough for one man crews on 10,000 ton plus trains. There are too many variables. As far as maintenance, there is no AI way to get that done. Progress has certainly made it easier but a human still has to test and maintain the equipment.
I get your point about rockets but they're not hauling hazardous materials through densely populated areas.
I don't have the answers and maybe not even the right questions. I just know PSR didn't work for SP and it's not working well for CN or CSX.
Thanks for the comment and for checking out my channel! It's appreciated!
Disagree about airplanes. I fly for a living and while, yes, most large aircraft have auto pilots it isn't the same as an actual pilot. Auto pilots are still very limited and have to be constantly monitored. 99% of them can't even land the airplane. The pilot has to take over a certain distance above the ground and manually land.
I'm not mad. I just don't think it's going to work. Were it only trainmen, maybe, but the safety factor just isn't there yet. But it's everyone. Planes and spacecraft don't require a well maintained signal system and track structure.
Thanks for the comment though and for checking it out.!
@@rynetreatch9558 auto pilot is just cruise control that's it it just keeps the altitude still need the pilot to activate it lol.
Trucking is “subsidized” by the interstate highway system, etc., what kind of capitalism is that?
I’ve heard a saying that kinda goes “Management only focuses on the numbers in the ledgers.” That seems to be what most Class I’s are doing now, and it’s detrimental to everything under the management level. These cost-cutting measures are going to make them look good, but that’s about it. Meanwhile more crews will get laid off, while the remaining ones will get pushed to do more in less time, and inevitably get injuries and cause accidents due to fatigue. I feel like if you’re going to hire an outside manager, they need more on hand experience for the first couple of months of work. They’ll be able to see how getting the numbers in running workers down.
As with all those who ignore history, they are doomed to repeat it.
Thanks for the comment and for checking it out!
You say you are a capitalist and then you start expressing concerns about what's smart and safe. :) Too many people don't realize that they can be capitalists yet qualify that with certain limitations and restrictions. It's a matter of degree where we all want to draw the line. I'm definitely a capitalist too. 99.9% of the products I see all around me are best distributed via a capitalist system. But for only the very few things (you can count them on two hands) out of what must be millions that I don't feel are best distributed under the capitalist system some people accuse me of being a socialist. It's all a matter of degrees.
I don't say I'm a capitalist, I am a capitalist. Safety is a big part of that. One hazardous material derailment in a populated area or that fouls a river or other natural resource or causes one or more fatalities puts a huge dent in profits.
Safety has proven, over the last three decades, to be a profitable plan.
I was involved in the safety program for 17 years. It's much cheaper to implement a long term safety program than to pay out a couple of injury claims during the same period.
My main point, however, is that this has been tried in the past and has not worked. It's more about short sightedness and not learning from those who came before them.
Thanks for checking it out and for the comment.
If you have just a one-man train crew and a 2 mile long train, then they have to walk to the back of the train to inspect something. The train will be stopped for over an hour while they do so! How will that affect performance?
work this out 2 mile train that is a 4 mile round trip man can average 3 miles an hour if he has to inspect every axle how many seconds x number of axles x 2 (up and back) take more than an hour.
PSR: Pretty s***ty railroading.
The less maintenance people you have, the more locomotives you will have available for service! Get rid of your equipment maintainers,and you will destroy the entire railroad system!only a fool would want to endorse this psr on these railroads!
The less maintenance people you have ,the less locomotives you will have to be available for service!when you dont have the people who fix the engines and maintain the tracks, the freight cars, the signals, and to keep the locomotives running smoothly, then You can forget about running a railroad! Plain and simple! Simple aristmatic! Workers- jobs equals failures!this is what this psr will do to the railroads! Any CEO who puts this dumbass idea into the railroad industry is got to be the biggest fool on earth! Look at the problems that is happening to the railroads. More locomotive failures, more deaths, more derailments, more delays to the customers, shippers,and suppliers, more yard closures, and less profits in the railroad coffers.and more rail workers losing their jobs, and their homes and their income. This is what this psr is doing to the railroads who are dumb enough to put this psr into practice just for the sake of their stockholders and shareholders! These operating ratios don't mean a thing when you don't have the operating people in place to run the railroads like they should! No rail workers, no railroad!