06-17-2009, 10:16 AM
The simple explanation is that a century ago railroading was much more labor-intensive and required more manpower to get the trains over the road. Throughout the twentieth century technology made many of the jobs obsolete but because of government bureaucracy and union-led featherbedding crew sizes did not match the usual workload for decades.
Crew size was set through the 1970s by union contracts and government regulation. Some states, Indiana comes to mind first, required a third brakeman on trains over a certain length. Throughout the 1980s crew size was decreased to be in line with the requirements for the job.
Remember that a century ago railroading was a much more labor-intensive vocation. There was more paperwork for timetable and train order operation and spotting defects on a train was done manually. Today dispatchers control most signals and switches, train defects are spotted by trackside boxes, and paperwork isn't exchanged on the fly.
While the debate over crew size rages on, it's plain to see that keeping five member crews into the twenty-first century was overkill. If everything goes right then two man crews work fine, but rarely does a crew make a run where everything goes right.
Crew size was set through the 1970s by union contracts and government regulation. Some states, Indiana comes to mind first, required a third brakeman on trains over a certain length. Throughout the 1980s crew size was decreased to be in line with the requirements for the job.
Remember that a century ago railroading was a much more labor-intensive vocation. There was more paperwork for timetable and train order operation and spotting defects on a train was done manually. Today dispatchers control most signals and switches, train defects are spotted by trackside boxes, and paperwork isn't exchanged on the fly.
While the debate over crew size rages on, it's plain to see that keeping five member crews into the twenty-first century was overkill. If everything goes right then two man crews work fine, but rarely does a crew make a run where everything goes right.