Are you talking about the greedy corporations or the greedy individuals?
Both, actually. The corporations were (and most likely still are) merciless when it came to their profits. If an employee of any of the type of railway organisations I mentioned previously cost the bosses money by way damage or compensation for injuries (including to themselves) then they very quickly found themselves on the road out of town.
Many of the drivers I knew who went out to those places (less than 10 to be fair) saw only the package that was put on the table and they were sold on the idea of luxury immediately. One of our drivers came to work one day and showed us the brochures (yes brochures) that he had received in the post from one particular South African mining company. In the late 70's and early 80's many of these overseas companies advertised heavily for rail staff of all grades in the British Rail internal newspaper (called Railnews.) The brochure (this one aimed specifically at drivers) promised the successful applicant "a handsome monthly financial reward" for delivering the company's products safely to their destination as well as luxury rent free accommodation with a swimming pool and full housekeeping staff included for the whole term of their employment. Some married men were even promised chauffers to drive their kids to private schools, though I don't know if that was ever a reality. I don't see why not. The handsome rewards were phenomenal - about 5 or 6 times the monthly pay of a driver in England (working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week) for a standard 10 hour day, 6 days a week. The company would also pay for flights home twice a year for two weeks at a time.
The downside, of course, I mentioned in my previous post. Absolutely no employee protection whatsoever and no sick pay. Many of the contracts weren't worth the paper they were written on. They were usually titled 5 year rollover contracts but, as I've intimated more than once, they could be terminated in the blink of an eye. So many men only read the kind of stuff I've written above though and couldn't wait to get out there. Two of them in particular, I met at London's Euston station one morning following their recent return from Australia, a mere three years after they left us. They'd been involved in some kind of mishap in a yard somewhere and the whole lot of them had been sacked; drivers, shunters, foreman, you name it. All gone, no messing about, no finding out whose fault it was. Merciless.
These two were hoping to get an interview for a lowly job back on British Rail somewhere at some point but had yet to hear any news on that score at the time I spoke to them (once a driver left BR in those days you could never return as a driver.) One eventually became a conductor at Watford Junction but I've no idea what happened to the other one.
Returning to the point of autonomous operation though, I really don't see the point of it if you have to keep a human being on board to be convinced of total safety. Excluding freight traffic, current trains in the UK (and I include Channel Tunnel trains to Paris and Brussels in that statement and probably more than half of Europe too) have so much computerised stuff on board these days that the driver cannot so much as take a deep breath without it being monitored or authorised by an onboard system somewhere. I've said it before, many times, but you could train a monkey to drive a modern train. It is that simple now. Even the fastest high speed trains have fully electronic braking systems that apply and release the brakes instantly on every vehicle at exactly the same time. Unit trains bolted together so that there is no coupling to worry about. And if a driver approaches a caution signal too fast (in the opinion of the onboard software) the computer takes over and puts the brakes on even harder until a speed acceptable to "it" is achieved. It is nigh on impossible now (unless these systems are isolated for any reason) to pass a signal in a danger state unless fully authorised to do so. The human onboard instigates stop and go, little else. As long as he/she stays within the set parameters they can have some kind of limited control; but overall, the computer is boss.
So you see, automation is but a single step away anyway. Everything is already monitored or overridden by or dictated by computers. Yes, aeroplanes have been heavilyy automated for years now but, arguably, there's less to bump into "up there." And I really don't see autonomous road vehicles being a big thing in the near future. Not because the capability isn't there. The problem is that too many people love their cars so much and the act of driving them.
Without the will of the people automation is not possible - and, IMHO, artificial intelligence is anything but intelligent at this time. How many of you remember our childhood comics with their "flying cars" and high speed monorail systems? I'm still waiting to see them, how about you? I doubt I will in my lifetime.
Cheers
Dave
