>>1245851You don't have to maintain an extra board of conductors to fix trains. You get a responder in a company truck, just sitting out there waiting for something to mess up. We had them on my line. Yes it will tie up the main way longer than having a conductor walk back and do the work, but that is easily offset by nearly halving your overall labor cost.
>sleepy engineersI understand. The company doesn't care, just like they don't now. That's why this PTC stuff is being developed.
>mandatory directivesIf you're running CTC you generally don't copy mandatory directives much. TWC yeah, but they'll come up with a way around that too (or just stop a bunch).
They want that crew consist agreement gone so bad they can taste it. All the stuff you mentioned is small potatoes to the carriers.
