Humans and Technology need to be balanced in railroading

Janesville, Wisconsin
October 10, 2016 9:11pm CST
Trains are not meant to be an one man operation! Most who know me know that all my life inspired to be a brakeman or conductor.. preferable working passenger cause I hate people lol... But people do tend to be fun on trains. I am to ill to chase these dreams due to health issues, but I can not express enough how important it is to keep trains ran by a crew and not a single person. It is impossible for one person to work 10-12 hrs a day and keep their minds on all the specific little safety checks that is needs to safely run the engine, and cars do proper maintenance to keep em rolling down the tracks. So everyone should be fighting for this safety, and for those who cry well we have positive train control!. I am going to say something clear right now. Many times they have had people believing in the new so called "Miracle technology, the safety technology that is suppose to do wonders to make and keep the railroads safer, new breaking systems, this and that, sure it can help prevent some human errors, but it is not good when there is so much of it, the train crews feel so safe they do not need to pay attention or do their jobs. The safety of the newer technology can and is to safe for some and makes the workers slack off become lazy, or become to trusting in this so called good technology that is suppose to cover their hinders, when the technology itself is not suppose to be the main function but is meant to be the emergency back up. But there is an issue in railroading where this emergency back up stuff is not becoming a indifference as railroad workers are becoming dependent losing focus and not doing their full jobs. Sometimes people need to condition themselves to be like a machine in order to run them well, and in he end Humans can do one thing machines can not do. They can think, they can feel, they need to learn to take heart and pride and have feel for their jobs and work again. Be proud of their part in transporting people and good from A to B Safely that helps keep our economy rolling. I firmly believe Trains need to go back to having more than just 2 man crews as well, as another thing about today's society is it is becoming so fast paced people are easily distracted, they are fatigued worn out and struggle to focus. This needs to be proper training and conditioning, and something needs to be done other than alerter buttons to help the train crews stay alert, and focused. Most people can not handle running a train alone for 10-12 hours a day, The Tracks and trains will eventually effect them via the white noise vagus nerve stimulation factor.. leading to sleep apnea, seizures, hypnosis type issues. There has to be other human to human interaction to keep a person alert enough to come back into beta wave state on and off.. What needs to be done is proper train crews set up to keep each other alert, entertained, for back up, to be able to carry out all the little maintenance tasks of the train, and not to fall into the lull of becoming to secure in the emergency back up technology. If you take the humanity out of the railroad, you will destroy the railroad. If you properly train the humanity, and use the right technology as back up to prevent human error, without making the workers become dependent on it. It will work. In this fast paced society where conditioning is not the same now as it once was. Things need to be closely looked at and evaluated, and put into proper balance between Workers and the Machine they work with, or as most railroaders know, if you do not properly handle and maintain the rails and machine, They will take over and run away on you.
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1 response
• India
17 Oct 16
This was informative.. Thanks for posting
1 person likes this