In steam engine days, a train crew had five members, an engineer, a brakeman, and a fireman in the locomotive, and a conductor and a brakeman in the caboose. The steam was exhausted into the air, so the train would have to stop every so often (200 miles, or so)to take on water. With the advent of diesel locomotives, union rules kept the same crew sizes and exchange points even though the diesel operation and reliability eliminated the need for the brakemen and fireman.
The Florida East Coast was first to significantly challenge this pattern. They found they could run the entire length of their 350 mile route with a crew of two, both in the locomotive. They had just an automatic brake light on the caboose. This caused all kinds of consternation at the union. For a while, they were pushing an empty car ahead of the locomotive to detonate dynamite left on the tracks by the "protestors". Finally, the FBI, under one of the very few things President Johnson did right, caught the few perpetrators.
Now virtually all railroading in the US is run with only a crew of only two. It's too bad the railroad that caused this is no longer US owned.
Yes, the FEC did stand up to the murdering union savages. The strike lasted from January, 1963 to December, 1974.