That's a problem with car drivers too, where they watch the nav screen and hit the car in front or to the side. And airplane drivers in visual situations such as near landing. Training helps, as does incorporation of voice-response systems so manual and visual interaction is less necessary. PTC will eventually get there; in prinicple, it's a combination of nav & adaptive cruise control for trains.

Another approach has been to put a "heads up" display in the windshield with key information. Some of those work better than others, and they're hard to retrofit. The retrofit issue is significant in locomotives and airplanes; less so in lower-cost hardware like cars where if you want it you just buy a new car that has it.