[HN Gopher] AWS for Industry, but Better: The Railroad Investmen... ___________________________________________________________________ AWS for Industry, but Better: The Railroad Investment Case Author : mxschumacher Score : 15 points Date : 2022-06-01 21:26 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.thediff.co) (TXT) w3m dump (www.thediff.co) | secabeen wrote: | Precision Scheduled Railroading can work, but the changes it | entails need to accrue down to the workers, who are still running | on a very draining call-based system that produces a lot of burn- | out. If the railroads want to run a firm schedule, where trains | run without waiting for cars from customers, they need to make | the same commitment to their staff; paying them fixed schedules | that don't change at the last moment, with overtime if the trains | run late or over. | rektide wrote: | I've heard a lot of tension & angst from workers in this | industry, growingly so. One question I really don't have any | idea about is what kind of headcount it takes. How big is the | crew of a train? If you're picking up or dropping off some | trains from a factory or warehouse or whatever, are there also | on the ground people? They're part of the same union? Are they | employed by the people running the train? How many might there | be? | | I have so little knowledge. But I imagine like 2, 3 people tops | working on a huge huge train. I understand that it's completely | bogus that the company just can't plan ahead, that they're so | unprepared when a delay causes the crew to hit their maximum | allowed hours for a stretch. But I also have so little idea how | many people it takes. If it indeed is like 2-3 people, holy | shit, these companies just need to employ standby people at | some significant volume, and stop being total cheapasses. | secabeen wrote: | From what I can gather, the current crew for most trains is | 2. There are no cabooses anymore, so it's just what crew can | fit in the engine compartment, and there is no provision for | crew rest or sleeping on the train. Engineers and crew are | swapped out at specific points, when the train arrives at | that spot. | | The workers suspect that the railroads want to go down to | 1-man crews on the trains, for cost savings, but they feel | (and I agree) that that's probably unsafe. There are on-the- | ground people at endpoints, some bridges, critical crossings, | etc., and the number of fixed ground staff would go up with | 1-man crews, but that doesn't help when you have a problem 60 | miles into the cascades. | | Standby people is a possibility, but trains are often out in | rural, or even inaccessible places; it may not be possible to | get a supplementary crew member to a train without a | helicopter or at least a multi-hour drive. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-01 23:01 UTC)