As an operating craft employee, I can assure anyone that there are more than a number of ways we can get in trouble...primarily, loss of focus! It doesn't matter your personal disposition, your weird or sane tastes or your good or bad habits (texting, gabbing with the second man, telephone calls, etc). What matters is that we can stay focused during long hours of repitition, daily grinds and predictable results. Those that fail this- either old head or new hire, will ultimately get themselves in a jam.

I submit this supposition: Cameras, second man, biorythm scans or anything else have only proven one thing: The operator might have shown to have failed his/her diligence during an observation period- yet these tangible monitoring concepts have seldom done the important- PREVENT the disaster that formed in a mere few seconds!

I recall in 2005 watching a seasoned Amtrak Engineer continously riddle his student (an earlier co-worker who since hired on with Amtrak) with superficial questions about items found in the Classified Ads section of the Modesto Bee. He did this almost non-stop from Merced to Fresno, where I departed, and probably all the way to Bakersfield. I called my buddy later that day to rattle his cage about it, and I was left with the impression that the idea behind this practice was to beat it into the student that the ability to stay focused over a long period of clear blocks without being genuinely distract was really quite PARAMOUNT to his training.

I wouldn't say that a camera either pointed at me or otherwise in a cab would be an acute invasion of privacy- I'm employed by a federally regulated interstate carrier whose obligation to public safety is not to be taken lightly. If that camera were moved to the toilet or locker room, then I'd probably have an issue.

Remember that locomotives are equipped with Event Recorders...so take that with a camera and I fail to see a significant difference. Although this may sound like I'm in favor of cab cameras and the attendant carrier influence, I'm NOT. Four months ago, I found myself in the foul of a hot main line due to my self-bombardment of reviewing my switching actions for rules compliance. Mentally reviewing radio procedure, physical actions and protocol left me so immeresed in self-observation that I wandered into the foul of the main at Kings Park. My feeling of bitterness over the scenario has little subsided.