Bill, are you sure those are one-man crews and not a two man-crew? The only one-man job I know of is hostler, and that's a BN property thing only (former Santa Fe uses a Herder and Pilot, which is a two-man hostler crew).
Here in Fort Worth BNSF has several two man-crew RCO jobs, but no one-man jobs. Often the job will not activate the Remote Control Zone, so someone has to watch the point of the movement. In practice that works out to one person sitting in the cab while the other person does the work. Crews will often switch out at lunch so both of them take turns doing all the work.
One of the yards here has remotely controlled switches which are operated from a switch shanty that is used by one member of the two-man crew while the other person does the switching. Again, the crew members switch places at lunch so one person doesn't do all the work.
Now, as far as I'm concerned, Remote Control jobs are not as safe as engineer controlled jobs. I refuse to get my RCO qualification because I don't believe it is safe. Once a friend asked if I was going to put in for the RCO class and before I could answer an older engineer chimed in with, "do you think he went through 20 weeks of hell [the BNSF engine program] just so he could play Nintendo?!" My friend's face was priceless and all I could say was, "yeah, what Dave said!"
Too many times communication is interrupted between the operator and the locomotive. I've seen some extremely hard joints get made (I'm understating here) and some close calls with operators having to detrain in motion. You don't have all the controls at your disposal operating remotely versus operating from a control stand. I'm not perfect by any means, but I can respond to radio, hand or lantern commands quickly and take actions I deem necessary to control the movement safely. The controls are in my hands, not connected via an imperfect radio link (again, major understatement).
So, if I feel that way about two-man remote yard jobs compared to three-man yard jobs, you can only imagine how I feel about one-man road crews. It's a terrible idea that is penny wise and pound foolish. You are saving hundreds of dollars on one person's pay and putting millions of dollars of equipment, the crew member's life, any opposing crew members' lives, the surrounding environment and community and customers' freight in jeopardy.
Why it can't work:
First of all, the train must be stopped for the engineer to take a mandatory directive (get a warrant, talk through a Form B, take a verbal issued speed restriction, etc.), so when this comes up - and it comes up often - I must stop where ordinarily the conductor is doing the talking and the train keeps moving. These delays cost money and just one per train would cost more than all the conductors salary/benefit packages that wouldn't be paid otherwise.
Second, I need another set of eyes to look ahead when I can't. For example, I have to look at my track bulletins for speed restrictions, maintenance limits, etc. When I do that my eyes are off the rail. Example of how this works in practice: if I'm running in dense fog and looking for whistle boards (which is exhausting like nothing else over a 10-12 hour trip), I'm not able to look at my paperwork without stopping. Now that I've stopped and determined where the next restriction is, if I'm in signaled territory I must proceed delayed in a block per the rules. I did this a couple weeks ago and when I got up to 4 MPH on a 1% downhill grade, my conductor looked at me like, "are you sure you can stop in time?" Yes, but much faster than that and the answer would be no.
Third, there are times when you are not completely focused and miss something. With our poorly managed lineups, you can be held in an away-from-home terminal hotel for 24 hours or more, which will completely disrupt your sleep cycle and put you on your train when your body is ready to sleep again, virtually guaranteeing a 12 hour deathmarch of a trip. Any nap you can get in a siding along the way will be helpful, but one person must be awake and if there is only one person, nobody gets a nap. Exhausted crew members can keep each other awake and alert by talking about the job at hand, reminding each other of the previous signal, the limits of speed restrictions, etc. Anything to keep each other awake and alert. By yourself you don't stand a chance.
Fourth, accidents happen. Someone doesn't yield to the oncoming train and their car or their person is struck. People commit suicide. Derailments occur. Knuckles break. In those events, the engineer secures the locomotives while the conductor acts as first responder to those whose lives are in danger. If no life is in danger, the conductor secures the train and corrects the problem. Without the conductor there is no first responder until the train is secured unless the train is not to be secured while the engineer attends to the injured in which case everyone else is at risk from the unsecured train.
Recently a new crew consist agreement was put up for a vote on BN property which would have created the position of Master Conductor and allowed for one-man mainline trains in certain areas (this proposed agreement failed). The Master Conductor would have been performing conductor duties remotely from a vehicle and would have been responsible for several trains. In the event of a broken knuckle or having to tie a train down in a siding with crossings, the Master Conductor would have taken the vehicle to the train to perform the work.
It sounds like it might actually work. Except there are too many places where you can't get to a train with a road vehicle. What if one train is tying down in a siding with three crossings to cut (on a grade this can take over an hour to do) when another train in the Master Conductor's limits gets a knuckle? Do you leave the train that's blocking all the crossings in Pleasantville potentially shutting down emergency response so you can fix the knuckle? Or do you leave the train with the broken knuckle unsecured until you can get to it, potentially resulting in a roll-away like last month's incident?
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3588841
The costs have been cut as far as they need to be. In fact, I'd say they've been cut too far. Do we need five man crews to operate a train over the road anymore? Of course not. The FRED replaced the caboose and in many cases it adequately serves the purpose. FRED can't line behind or respond to a problem near the rear of the train quickly, but that's part of the trade-off. Can a two-man freight crew do the job adequately? In most cases, I'd say yes, but when switching is involved, no, a third crew member is required (and is provided in most cases on BNSF).
Now, should passenger trains have only one person in the cab, like they do now and have had for a long time? Definitely not! How many crew members were in the cab on the train without an alertness device that derailed in New York recently? What about the commuter train in the terrible Chatsworth incident? One person in each cab. Would the second set of eyes have saved the day and prevented an incident? There's no guarantee, but there's a good chance that's all that would be required to avert an incident.
I'll put it this way: Why are there two qualified pilots on an airplane?
Why aren't there two qualified engineers on a passenger train?