dowlingm wrote:ApproachMedium wrote:Let me tell you from somebody whos qualified on hundreds of miles of railroad, it looks different during the day and the night. Completely. We are told to ride ONLY during the day, and those who have any sense will tell you that just once or twice you should ride at night and see the difference. it really wakes you up. But dong it in the dark is a very dangerous idea. There is a lot of detail to be missed. Landmarks that might not be able to be seen. the idea is you know where you are during the day and once the sun goes down you should be able to make out all of the silhouettes.
Approach, let's start by saying I'm not going to dispute your expertise on the railroad as it exists.
Well, then allow me to dispute his expertise. You can always tell a crew member that is confined to the NEC. They often forget that a great deal of the system and crews operate ONLY AT NIGHT. If the train sees daylight, it is because of a disruption. While he was trained by people that could read a book and know their exact location (and even if you were one or two miles over without looking up,) those SAME people always advised you to RIDE and LEARN the railroad at night. Your eyes can't see everything at speed so don't trust them. FEEL the train. FEEL your location because you may not see that grade crossing (your division doesn't have them but most others do) or the landmarks leading up them due to visibility issues. Qualifying at night was a no brainer and let me tell you about instructors. Prior to marking, some of them used to actually restrict you visibility (cover your eyes, pull the shade down and turn on all of the interior lights so inhibit visibility) and you'd better be RIGHT ON THE MONEY.....or you were OUT. PERIOD. If you weren't OUT, you were knocked out, because this was before the iron clad "training agreement." Before the agreement, you'd have to hope someone had mercy and bother to let you operate their training and guess what? You rode at night and put up with whatever they said and if that meant they rolled up a newspaper and hit you, threw water or water bottles at you, wrapped their hands around the back of your neck and grabbed you (among other things) and told you to get it together,you did it. PERIOD...otherwise no one would train you.
For the record, I could see Approach Medium being one of the people that would throw something at you because while I disagree with his stance, I KNOW he's not into the entitlement that had permeated the industry these days. I also know he's into knowledge and training....which is a problem at the upper levels. As Approach Medium stated, there is a reason why you're supposed to be professionals. However, that comes from training and or experience. Both of them are lacking and that is because the people at the top are people with no experience. They think this is a game.
The funny thing is so do people on the board. I may forget the names of my children (hey um...um....you....The girl....come over here. {the girl comes over}! I meant the boy, whatever his name is....tell him over here) but there are very few things on the railroad I forget. One of them are these threads:
Amtrak Tow/Rescue Procedures for Eqpmt Failures
Stranded... on the CORRIDOR?...
While the latter thread was locked by the time I encountered this board, I was present for and participated in the first thread. In it, you can see the casual disregard for equipment familiarity from employees and board members alike....and now some of those employees (they'll figure it out) are in charge.
And now, everyone has the audacity to be surprised that someone, with little experience on the equipment and territory had yet another accident. Does anyone REALLY think 188 would have occurred with a diesel or an AEM-7? It might have been rough but that speed wouldn't have been achieved.
I can believe 60 seconds on a locomotive would be enough for some. If you read the posts in the above threads, a LOT of you would have been satisfied with less time. Just get on and go, right?