>Now you're telling UP how to interpret definitions? Going from one main to another even if in the same direction is moving on to another route (in the eyes of the UP).

What I said was that a facing movement over a switch to take a diverging route, whether onto a branch line or siding, or taking a turnout from one main track onto another (other than the straight direction), is "diverging", branching away from the straight route. Entering a main track from a siding or branchline, is not diverging, but converging. You're joining the main track.

Contrary to what the UP would like to think, the world does not revolve around Omaha. The King's English isn't theirs to twist out of shape. Otherwise, eventually nobody would understand anybody else.

If you think it's not our province to tell the UP they don't engage in proper English usage, or as Mel Brooks put it, "You don't correct the King", that's the same mentality which perpetuated the Governemnt's police and intelligence agencies head-in-the-sand attitudes which enabled U No Who to pull off the twin towers.

>And who cares what the UP's motivation is behind safety?

Apparently you do.

>They care about it and take it quite seriously.

Only in order to avoid lawsuits and the FRA's "prying eyes".

>Usually we complain about how the railroad doesn't care about safety, then when they make a change to enhance safety we all whine about how it doesn't work for us. My favorite example are the green vests. The company spends 10's of thousands of dollars to enhance visibility (which does work quite well) and all the employees do is complain about having to wear them. It drives me crazy. You (we) can't have it both ways...

Green vests, orange vests, whatever. One of the justifications for adopting them was that they would provide ready visual means to separate employees from non-employees when viewed from the locomotive cab. The only problem is that now everyone has one, so it's become difficult to discern your trainman from somebody digging a ditch for the local city -- even railfans have them. They're readily avaible on-line, so whose next?

In the days before pack sets, you had to develop the ability to keep your eyes peeled and recognize your crew from a distance (body language). Today there is almost total lack of "situational awareness", as it's so cutely put these days, because of no longer needing to keep your eyes peeled for hand signs. This lead to a lot of fatalities in the 1990s, which brought us SOFA, the red zone, 3-point protection, etc. There was always a "red zone", it just went unspoken. If you violated it, the old heads would chase you around with a brake club. When the rrs drove off all their experienced help after the 1985 manning agreement, this work ethic disappeared.

Nowadays, what you see out the windshield isn't real unless the DS or RMS tells you about it.