Brother, thank you.
Your first point is a popular one - many folks remember five-person crews and the last twenty years has seen three-person crews continue in railyard jobs and industry jobs, because of practicality and safety, thank goodness. The two-person crew arrangement has been the norm for long-distance freight trains these last twelve years.
Next, your observation of medical emergency is a very important one, also shared by many who learn of this topic - and man, it's very real, given that though our trips seem lengthy and often uneventful, when something does occur, it's instant, emergent, and in the middle of nowhere.
Third, you wouldn't think the income of one trainman or engineer would have an effect on company profitability at large, yet our railroad's operations population (conductors, brakemen, switchmen, engineers) numbers just under 54,000 - and not a shift goes by when many of our pay claims for work performed and services rendered are delayed pending further investigation or verification, or outright declined, despite being supported by labor contract (overtime, road crews performing yard work, yard crews working their rest days). Imagine the sums resulting from such arbitrary nickel-and-dime'ing of 54,000 employees, or hell, the outright implementation of advancing technology justifying the removal of half such workforce and their salaries, individual and family health benefits, contractual benefits (paid leave days, vacations), and retirements.
Lastly, my friend, I thank you for taking the time not only to read this but to take it to heart and share it. This isn't your father's railroad, nor even the one I hired out under sixteen years ago - a corporation now stereotypically about bottom line, even at the cost of its very employees. Like I tell folks, yes, I'm sure it's difficult to sympathize with us when it's well-known we make a good living and all, and unions this and that, all the popular tripe -but now our professionalism, our very Americanism is being nickel-and-dime'd into submission, Ken.
I still wave to the kids sitting atop their parents' shoulders as they wave from cars and crossings, parents who still enjoy the romance of the rails, the Americana of movement, progress, and tradition, despite the policies enacted by white-collars and lawyers who've never even seen a train, and to whom its workers are expensive nuisances or replaceable cogs in the machine, not men and women, fathers and brothers like you and me, trying to provide for our families and a little pride in ourselves. A young general manager at a meeting one day who was fed up at hearing our safety issues pointed out to my father, "Yeah, yeah, Joe, but hell, at least you've still got a good job!" My father calmly replied, "They used to be great jobs."
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