Just spoke with someone involved in the operation of a new heavy rail commuter service that has hired some experienced railroaders and some off the street people. He said the experienced rails are doing well running trains with PTC as they use it as a tool but they still maintain situational awareness. The new hires rely entirely on the PTC and can only do what it tells them to do which results in - well, ISSUES. The basic design of PTC is to act as a failsafe if the engineer doesn't act properly such as slowing down BEFORE entering a speed restriction or approaching a stop. The PTC system is actually still pretty fragile and relying on it to "run the train" results in a lot of problems which translates directly into service delays. This seems like a training issue but the comment was made that people these days have been brought up to focus on the "gadget" them rather than paying attention to what's actually going on around them and breaking that inbred reliance on the technological toys is very difficult. How interesting.........

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