Back when train crews had three to five people on a regular basis, chances were at least one of them had at least 10 years experience. Now, you might have a conductor and engineer that don't have 3 years between them. Remote Control operators are a whole other issue.

Unfortunately the "attitude" problem can be at either end. I've worked with a couple of the most arrogant @)$&#! that demanded respect solely based on their seniority, yet their skills were lacking in proportion. One of my many railroad jobs was in an air brake shop that had a layoff. They paid every Thursday, so you can imagine the empty benches due to the "brown bottle flu" every Friday. Imagine their surprise when almost every one of those "senior" employees were laid off.

I'm not sure the forced promotion from conductor to engineer is the best idea. That insures that eventually there will never be a conductor with experience (after all the pre-1985 conductors retire), even though they are equally responsible with the engineer. I once was force assigned as switch foreman to a 10pm switch job. The brakeman had 30 years and was grandfathered in, I had 2 months seniority as a temp employee (but a few years experience). Even though I was responsible, guess who I listened to?

I know a guy that ran trains for 60+ years. He experience included VP-Operations for Class 1, President of a shortline, and a co-owner of a shortline group. His belief for engineers is that nothing beat a few years on the left hand side of the cab as a fireman/student before taking a full promotion.

I guess it doesn't really matter. Within another decade the trains will only have a single "operator" whose only job is to override the computer and waste the investors money. But you will probably need an attorney ride with you to interpert the million pages of FRA rules.

Don't even get me started on the "All accidents are preventable" BS. It isn't always an employees fault. The only acceptable accident rate is zero, but "it" happens anyway so deal with it. I once asked a Class 1's company safety officer (college boy company cheerleader) why they couldn't provice an improved switchpath at least on one side of the track for a couple miles in both directions from a detector, since the odds were someone would be having to walk their train. (It was a swampy area in places.) His answer was basically it was too expensive for him to recommend because there were too many detectors.

Don't know whether I love to hate the job, or hate to love the job?