I was kind of bothered by that as well. You would think the producers would have found an
Engineer to host a show about locomotives and the difficulties involved in moving trains. No offense to Conductors, but on road trains, once moving, a Conductor is nothing more then an extra set of eyes to look out for signals and danger. They do not in any way, shape or form have ANYTHING to do with running a train. And i can count on one hand the number of Conductors i have met in 10+ years who know even a 1/4 of the grades on my division and about the same number who even understand air brakes to the point they could run a train. It's not even in their job description. A Conductor does the ground work and the paperwork. Once moving, he is a set of eyes and handles the radio chores.
Thats it. And to add insult to injury, the person they chose works for a regional most famous for incredibly slow, short, underpowered trains. The average train on PAR is around 50 cars. I have seen MANY that are 30 or less. And he works in an area with less then 10 trains a day in mostly DCS territory. It's like a shortline up there. This is the best guy they can find? He does not even know the track gauge and he is supposed to host a show about Locomotives? You would think CSX would have been able to provide plenty of great choices since after all, it is a real railroad.
The whole idea is to me, just as stupid as having a show about airplanes hosted by a flight attendant. Or a show about saling ships hosted by a deckhand. If you get my drift.
Congrats to Mr. Bown for landing the gig, but without even seeing the show yet, it's clear the producers are off to a bad start.[/quote]
And the conductors RUNS the REMOTE BOX on ALL Class 1 Railroads, because they say the ENGINEER is just another TOOL for the conductor to use. Like a radio or a switch key. It does not matter if its a monkey, human, or computer! He, I don't make this stuff up this went to court both in the US and Canada, and they both said the CONDUCTOR RUNS the train and the engineer is his tool to operate the controls. Do i think it is correct, NO! But the Conductor runs the train! The hogger is just my tool. I dont agree with it, but the railroads do.
A Famous Quote from the AVP of the BNSF:
To surmise, the carriers stated, “…. it is ground service employees that control locomotives in conventional operations. They have the skill and the judgment about when to start, how fast to go, when to stop. That's all within the purview of ground service employees.”
http://www.bletgcacnic.org/Remote%20Con ... istory.htm
Conductors are in Charge! Thats why we got the "belt pack" and the engineers got the street!!!