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Re: UP collision in Kansas this morning.
Author: Dr Zarkoff
Date: 07-18-2013 - 16:58
>Leaving a mainline switch open should strike the fear that running a red block does yet for some reason it happens much too often.
This is because after the 1985 manning agreement, the RRs drove off all the experienced help, and what I mean by this is the RRs killed off 150+ years of RR operating culture, all of it garnered by "blood" (accidents, etc.). No more kicking cars, no more drops, and saddest and most discouraging of all, no more getting on and off moving equipment. When the RRs said "no more getting on and off moving equipment", they were admitting they lost it.
I never cease to be amazed by what I hear, see, and read of the post-manning agreement types. It's not that they are stupid nor can't learn, it's just that they never had the exposure to the old ways, never had an ornery old conductor chase them around with a brake club for doing something downright stupid, like walking off and leaving a main line switch open; nor endured the educational erudition of the a** chewing after "standing 'em up and then sitting 'em right back down [in the caboose]". And no, I'm sorry, one or two years as a trainman isn't sufficient work experience to be promoted to conductor, let alone and engineer.
This is because after the 1985 manning agreement, the RRs drove off all the experienced help, and what I mean by this is the RRs killed off 150+ years of RR operating culture, all of it garnered by "blood" (accidents, etc.). No more kicking cars, no more drops, and saddest and most discouraging of all, no more getting on and off moving equipment. When the RRs said "no more getting on and off moving equipment", they were admitting they lost it.
I never cease to be amazed by what I hear, see, and read of the post-manning agreement types. It's not that they are stupid nor can't learn, it's just that they never had the exposure to the old ways, never had an ornery old conductor chase them around with a brake club for doing something downright stupid, like walking off and leaving a main line switch open; nor endured the educational erudition of the a** chewing after "standing 'em up and then sitting 'em right back down [in the caboose]". And no, I'm sorry, one or two years as a trainman isn't sufficient work experience to be promoted to conductor, let alone and engineer.
