C-Train Driver Walks off Job

[ercchry]

Originally posted by btimbit
According to someone on CP ( note I have no idea who this poster is or how they know) the article missed some facta. Apparently the driver didn't just 'walk off' he just stopped running the train, but waited in the cab until a supervisor showed up. That global article has better terminology, simply says he refused to proceed, rather than walked off

Research and fact checking in journalism? Yeah right! Not since success has been measured in clicks...

[revelations]

Originally posted by Shlade
Most of these guys do split shifts. Maybe a 12 hour shift for the day with likely a large 4+ hour break in between. What this driver did in my personal opinion, is wrong. The steps he should of taken are call an on duty supervisor, and ask for relief. And that relief would of likely met him either a few stations down, or at the end of the line.

There is likely a previous disagreement between the driver/union and the city.

[FraserB]

Originally posted by revelations


There is likely a previous disagreement between the driver/union and the city.

Even if it is, once the worker states that he feels it is unsafe to continue working, works stops. He doesn't keep driving to the next stop for his supervisor to show up and conduct the investigation.

[theken]

I am sure there is rules and regs same as trucking that limits the amount of time you are legally allowed to drive a train, and I am assuming that is 12 hours. Trucks are 13 hours driving time, so technically he could be in more shit for continuing than stopping

[euro_racer]

Originally posted by Shlade
Most of these guys do split shifts. Maybe a 12 hour shift for the day with likely a large 4+ hour break in between.

Not always, it's also very common to get 3-way splits (some times 4 way).

Once you factor in travel time between those shifts (sometimes your one shift will end in the south end and you have to start in again in the north) and the fact that your "break" consists of spending it in some random lunch room or mall, how much rest do you really get?

Not defending the driver at all because for the most part the City of Calgary employees tend to be a little over-dramatic about their jobs as there is a lot of red tape always involved, plus the entitlement that comes with working for a union...but when it comes to safety vs inconvenience, you can't really argue with what this driver did.

[Shlade]

Originally posted by euro_racer


Not always, it's also very common to get 3-way splits (some times 4 way).

Once you factor in travel time between those shifts (sometimes your one shift will end in the south end and you have to start in again in the north) and the fact that your "break" consists of spending it in some random lunch room or mall, how much rest do you really get?

Not defending the driver at all because for the most part the City of Calgary employees tend to be a little over-dramatic about their jobs as there is a lot of red tape always involved, plus the entitlement that comes with working for a union...but when it comes to safety vs inconvenience, you can't really argue with what this driver did.

Yeah you've got a good point there. Those shifts are pretty stupid in my opinion... I don't disagree too much with the safety aspect but I'm sure there could of been a better way of him doing this. At least it wasn't during rush hour on a weekday.

[RealJimmyJames]

There should be a rule that your shift doesn't end until you get back to your starting point. Like what the fuck is the point of getting a break if you end up using half of it just trying to get around the goddamned city?

[btimbit]

If people didn't want stupid random delays, they wouldn't be taking public transit

[danno]

I don't know what transit does for driving time but we are able to drive for 14hrs.

Who knows what the driver was dealing with and why he chose to make that decision. Maybe he has hit a pedestrian or a car that chose to get in his way and is extra cautious now. Maybe the controller couldn't get him a relief driver and he was to tired to drive. Or maybe he just didn't care.

We had one guy at work actually do the full walk around the vehicle everyday and it would take 45 min a day. He may one of those guys that goes by the book and can't get passed it.

I still think he is wrong and cannot leave passengers stranded like that. It's a delay in service which will get a $5000 ticket.

[FraserB]

Originally posted by danno
I still think he is wrong and cannot leave passengers stranded like that. It's a delay in service which will get a $5000 ticket.

What would your solution be to the driver feeling that it was unsafe to continue driving? The driver believed that it was unsafe for him to continue driving at that time, the passengers on the train were not placed in any danger due to him stopping the train at a station.

If he had continued to drive and there had been an accident, people would be bitching that the driver should have stopped driving and told someone.

[Minimalist]

Why do we even need train drivers? In Japan there are many lines without a driver. I took a train for two years, 20 minutes, 10x/week before someone told me it was a driverless train. Security? Live camera and audio monitors to HQ.

Fire them all. If your job can be done by a computer or vending machine you're in trouble.

[Shlade]

Originally posted by Minimalist
Why do we even need train drivers? In Japan there are many lines without a driver. I took a train for two years, 20 minutes, 10x/week before someone told me it was a driverless train. Security? Live camera and audio monitors to HQ.

Fire them all. If your job can be done by a computer or vending machine you're in trouble.

As much as I'd love for this...

A) transit is very cheap
B) computer operated/driverless trains would be a problem with there being so many signal controlled intersections which the trains go through. So that will never happen in Calgary.

Now if we had an underground system however...

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by danno
I still think he is wrong and cannot leave passengers stranded like that. It's a delay in service which will get a $5000 ticket.

I think if he had voiced his concern and management continues to violate that rule, what he did is just.

He is just following a rule to expose management incompetence, and I would have no issue with that.

[J-hop]

Originally posted by Minimalist
Why do we even need train drivers? In Japan there are many lines without a driver. I took a train for two years, 20 minutes, 10x/week before someone told me it was a driverless train. Security? Live camera and audio monitors to HQ.

Fire them all. If your job can be done by a computer or vending machine you're in trouble.

So correct me if I'm wrong as I've never been to Japan but don't they man each train station instead to deal with problems and keep things running smoothly. That would be a horribly inefficient model for Calgary. The current system works just fine.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by J-hop


So correct me if I'm wrong as I've never been to Japan but don't they man each train station instead to deal with problems and keep things running smoothly. That would be a horribly inefficient model for Calgary. The current system works just fine.

You don't even have to go to Japan, Canada line in Vancouver is driverless and nobody even man the stations.

The difference is you can only go driverless only if you don't share the track with pedestrian and cars. Something not going to happen to C-Train ever. And until lidar/autonomous/AI tech is cheap and safe enough in the future, there will be no driverless LRTs.

Let's not kid ourselves, the LRT system is designed for Calgary circa 2000. We have out grown it for a long time now.

[J-D]

Originally posted by Xtrema


You don't even have to go to Japan, Canada line in Vancouver is driverless and nobody even man the stations.

The difference is you can only go driverless only if you don't share the track with pedestrian and cars. Something not going to happen to C-Train ever. And until lidar/autonomous/AI tech is cheap and safe enough in the future, there will be no driverless LRTs.

Let's not kid ourselves, the LRT system is designed for Calgary circa 2000. We have out grown it for a long time now.

And until lidar/autonomous/AI tech is cheap and safe enough in the future, there will be no driverless LRTs.

Like in a 100k Tesla? I feel like it shouldn't be super hard to price that into a $3.2 million LRT car.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by J-D




Like in a 100k Tesla? I feel like it shouldn't be super hard to price that into a $3.2 million LRT car.

Tesla doesn't use lidar. Only images and not 100% fool proof. Even if there is such a system, I think liability may prevent widespread adoption unless it's the insurance industry that pushes for it.

[J-D]

Originally posted by Xtrema


Tesla doesn't use lidar. Only images and not 100% fool proof. Even if there is such a system, I think liability may prevent widespread adoption unless it's the insurance industry that pushes for it.

Camera and front radar on the newer models although it might not be used in firmware yet, not sure on that. I know there are some $500-1000 lidar solutions (hardware only of course) on the market right now though.

[revelations]

Originally posted by J-D
Like in a 100k Tesla? I feel like it shouldn't be super hard to price that into a $3.2 million LRT car.

No, but the safety and testing of such an installation would be unique. There is no off-the-shelf system at present that one can just throw into a system that is designed for a human at the controls.

It would have to be designed and implemented from scratch. Then it would have to be tested for years in order to prove its viability in all our weather conditions. The SkyTrain in Vancouver stops working if there is more than 5cm on the tracks for eg. (after a heavy night snow fall).

Lidar does not work in shit weather BTW (rain or snow). The system would have to be radar-based.

Essentially, it would be a billion dollar undertaking for the CoC.

[OTown]

This is yet another story that the media has blown out of proportion without actually getting both sides of the story. Had the conductor continued and crashed, the liability would have been huge.

Its not his fault, its policy and law that mandates strict hours of work for conductors. If it was in fact at the end of his 12 hour shift and the company decided to keep him going then I commend him for that. Its not just a 'union' thing, its a requirement for safety. Do we really want a repeat of what happened at Tuscany?