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What's Interesting Is What Subject Matter WON'T Be Discussed
Author: Holly Gibson
Date: 02-11-2009 - 23:05
I wonder if they'll bother to discuss the phenomena of "lonesome cab" (i.e., one person up on the locomotive), all in the name of saving labor costs?
I read this thought-provoking comment on the Chatsworth wreck on another bulletin board:
There's only a limited amount of ability that a conductor has to police the activity of his engineer. Blame it on two-man crews. Blame it on "lonesome cab". Once upon a time, there was an assistant engineer who could look over to the other side of the cab and observe whether or not the engineer was choosing to flagrantly violate the rules about cellphone use. If need be, the assistant engineer could walk over to the engineer, grab the cellphone from his hands, and toss it out the window.
No more.
In the interests of keeping labor costs down, there are many examples of just an engineer, all by his lonesome self, up on the engine. He can pretty much chat or text away to his heart's content until some supervisor observes it from a wayside position. These people are addicted to those things. Believe me, like any addiction, they'll find some lame-ass justification why the rules about cellphone use apply to everyone except them.
With a two-man crew consisting of Bob Hildenbrand and Rob Sanchez, how was Bob supposed to police Rob's activities while the train was in pull mode? When the train was in push mode, how was Bob supposed to police Rob's activities when the cab car control compartment door was closed and the window shade was drawn down?
It blows my mind at the amount of responsibilities and expectations that are suddenly being thrust upon conductors. Much as management would like it to be, one conductor can't be in two or three or four places simultaneously.
Even though we should still wait for the NTSB's official report, I imagine they will examine the fact that there was only one person on the locomotive. It's pretty much an established fact that he was text messaging against company rules that were already on the books. He was doing it because there was no one up there with him who would tell him that he shouldn't be doing it.
The Chatsworth disaster was a very, very high price that was paid for "lonesome cab". There was nobody to observe and "babysit" Rob, and without any supervision, he chose to mis-behave with his little toy, otherwise known as a cellphone. If the signaling system was working 100 percent perfectly, there was no second person to remind Rob that CP Topanga had a red signal.
I read this thought-provoking comment on the Chatsworth wreck on another bulletin board:
There's only a limited amount of ability that a conductor has to police the activity of his engineer. Blame it on two-man crews. Blame it on "lonesome cab". Once upon a time, there was an assistant engineer who could look over to the other side of the cab and observe whether or not the engineer was choosing to flagrantly violate the rules about cellphone use. If need be, the assistant engineer could walk over to the engineer, grab the cellphone from his hands, and toss it out the window.
No more.
In the interests of keeping labor costs down, there are many examples of just an engineer, all by his lonesome self, up on the engine. He can pretty much chat or text away to his heart's content until some supervisor observes it from a wayside position. These people are addicted to those things. Believe me, like any addiction, they'll find some lame-ass justification why the rules about cellphone use apply to everyone except them.
With a two-man crew consisting of Bob Hildenbrand and Rob Sanchez, how was Bob supposed to police Rob's activities while the train was in pull mode? When the train was in push mode, how was Bob supposed to police Rob's activities when the cab car control compartment door was closed and the window shade was drawn down?
It blows my mind at the amount of responsibilities and expectations that are suddenly being thrust upon conductors. Much as management would like it to be, one conductor can't be in two or three or four places simultaneously.
Even though we should still wait for the NTSB's official report, I imagine they will examine the fact that there was only one person on the locomotive. It's pretty much an established fact that he was text messaging against company rules that were already on the books. He was doing it because there was no one up there with him who would tell him that he shouldn't be doing it.
The Chatsworth disaster was a very, very high price that was paid for "lonesome cab". There was nobody to observe and "babysit" Rob, and without any supervision, he chose to mis-behave with his little toy, otherwise known as a cellphone. If the signaling system was working 100 percent perfectly, there was no second person to remind Rob that CP Topanga had a red signal.
