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Comment by 7thaccount | Hacker News Reader

Yeah it's crazy. The John Oliver segment was eye opening about the myriad of issues. At 3 miles long with 1 engineer, they sometimes have to walk miles to the end and then of course back in order to fix something. They frequently block roads and emergency responders for hours sometimes and people die. The trains are essentially ticking time bombs as they commonly carry flammable/toxic/explosive materials with no tracking and they go through towns where the tracks weren't designed for trains of that length. The end of the John Oliver skit has them do their own very dark episode of Thomas the Train that satirizes these issues.

Edit: I think there may be 2 staff, but they're trying to change it to 1 and you basically aren't allowed to ever call in sick or else you're fired.

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Trains shouldn't have any crew at all. They can't do anything useful when the train is moving now that we have modern automatic train control. (they cannot hit the brakes fast enough to stop if someone is on the tracks). Unlike cars, self driving trains is an easy problem that was solved 20 years ago. If a train brakes down send a mechanic to the train - they only need a couple in every state.

They train companies should still have crew, but they should be for use on secondary lines and the crew lives near that line and just works 1 week a month (most of that time doing mandatory training). With a little work on scheduling they can find local farmers looking for a side job when there isn't farming to do.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or an actual idea you are proposing.

Serious. Fully automated trains have been aroud for 20 years.

Yeah and it's an awful idea to not have any crew on a train. They should be shorter and have people that can be there for emergencies.

To do what that a mechanic one call cannot do?

Be present? Having someone capable to do most basic troubleshooting and mechanic can do being there when it breaks seems quite efficient and much faster response. No travel or alert time. Notify more skilled personnel if found issue not repairable on spot or can't find it.

At the cost of two humans on the train all the time. If that cost isn't greatly higher than the cost of mechanics to go to the train when there is a problem then you have a basic train maintenance issue to solve - or maybe you are running worn out trains that should have been replaced long ago.

> and just works 1 week a month (most of that time doing mandatory training)

This is so out of left field. In what sort of dystopia do we confront the end of scarcity with... more mandatory training? Also, why do you assert 1 week a month? Wouldn't you need four crews to work this section then?

There are a lot of short sections of track that go to something like a grain elevator. They are still worth minimal maintenance to keep operational, but you wouldn't build those tracks today or rebuild if something major happens. They often go more than a month without any trains, then other weeks where they have several. These sections are not worth upgrading to modern switches or computer controls, so you have a trained crew that section, but once the train hits the mainline the crew leaves to go home. Since this crew doesn't get much practice in the real world you need to give them training so that they haven't forgotten how to run a train when the next time comes.

Trains are not ticking time bombs any more than a car is. Do you imagine trains are just exploding left and right around the country? I think there's a lot of hyperbole in your position.

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