Eli5: The train is on a track that determines where it will go, so what does the Engineer do?
In: Technology
The track has speed limits, it also has “traffic” in front or behind the train that has to be monitored.
There’s also remote controlled rail switches.
The engineer is watching all these things.
If the engineer is not operating the train properly, it may not stay on the track and you will not go to the next station today.
Like airline pilots, engineers are really there not for the mundane things. a lot of that can be and is automated. They are there when things really go sideways. When you need the general intelligence of a human to creatively figure out what to do next. It’s easy to program a computer to drive a train, but not so easy to get it reliably hit the emergency break when a tractor trailer gets stuck at a crossing. Sure its possible, but such a system would need to be more reliable than a human, and they aren’t yet. But that is just one thing. What if pneumatics are lost? What if a derailment happens? Things can be simply 99% of the time, but when they so sideways things escalate quick.
Edit: I’m more of an aviation guy but look at the movie Sulley. That is why you need two humans there. If it was one person or just computers, everyone would be dead.
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