Posted on 05/14/2015 2:03:33 AM PDT by Reaganite Republican
Amtrak employs more than 20,000 people and understands the value of diversity as a social and business imperative. Its corporate culture includes a commitment to diversity in all areas of the organization. "Key to maintaining this appreciation is Amtrak's diversity training program, which makes clear the corporation's position on diversity and provides the background, information and resources necessary to work successfully in a diverse environment," Marshall notes.
"Our diversity training program is designed to be an ongoing journey that emphasizes key principles of diversity and inclusion. Since its inception it has been an important vehicle used to make certain that employees have a clear understanding of the company's expectations for sustaining a diverse, inclusive environment."
Amtrak's numbers are impressive. Overall, a quarter of its employees are women and two out of five are persons of color. In the management ranks almost a third are women and a third are persons of color. African Americans make up the largest minority group, followed by Hispanics.
For new hires in Amtrak management, 37 percent are women and 37 percent persons of color. After African Americans, Asians and Hispanics are best represented.
IQ does correlate with passing professional tests.
But I’d posit that gays are positively correlated with obsessive behavior and precision in completing tasks—which would correlate with your description.
My point was simply to debunk the idea that gays would need AA to become train engineers.
I’m normally on your side, but here, I think you’re reaching a bit much in trying to infer socio-political motives to a guy’s getting a job.
They may be facts you’re stating, but I seriously doubt that they represent the truth.
Train service jobs are union positions, and there’s lots (and I mean LOTS) of training these folks go through before they can qualify for an engineer’s position. I speak from experience here - I’ve been in the rail industry for 40 years and know first-hand how rigorous the training and ongoing testing is for positions like these.
“Diversity and inclusion” are key principles for Amtrack, apparently more key than not killing customers.
Harder than you might think. Although passenger trains are 'easier' to drive than freight trains, it's still not like driving a car.
When you look at the AIDS numbers, it sure indicates that gays have a tendency to pull a train.
Passing the test doesn't always correlate to doing the job reliably.
O.M.G. Stop the stupidity, will you? This thread is SO full of wild, baseless, ignorant speculations that I could spend ALL DAY trying to refute them.
And, btw, it's spelled 'brake', not 'break'.
I rest my case.
Wasn’t he in Bonnie and Clyde?
Question for the group: All the stories I’ve read say that he refused to speak with NTSB investigators. But was he forced to give blood and urine for toxicology testing? I didn’t see that mentioned anywheres..
“I’m going to suggest this was intentional, and he ‘chickened out’ at the last second.
Domestic fight with his lover started this ,I’ll bet.”
Copy cat of the pilot intentionally crashing?
I’m 32 and single and so many of my generation are f—kups and failures.
Honest questions here:
Is the title of "Engineer" a misnomer here? Does one need a background in classical engineering to be qualified to be an "engineer" on a train? You know, knowledge in energy transfer, propulsion, heat, pressure, force, etc.? If so, how does a conductor (glorified ticket taker?) find himself on a career path to engineer? What is it about being a conductor that prepares one with the study of engineering and physics to operate a train?
Or do the titles no longer have the meaning they did in the steam engine days?
-PJ
First, the conductor is NOT a ‘glorified ticket taker.’ The conductor is the senior employee on the train and is in charge of it. the fact that he or she collects tickets on a passenger train doesn’t change that.
As far as an engineer being an ‘engineer’ - equivalent terms might be ‘engineman’, train driver’, etc. Train engineers never had to have engineering backgrounds or degrees. They have always learned ‘on the job’, although these days, there are highly-sophisticated simulators that help them learn how to handle trains that are up to 2 MILES LONG.
As far as career path from conductor to engineer, all train service employees are required to learn and demonstrate proficiency with hundreds of pages of operating and safety rules, as do those of us in the design and engineering departments of railroads and consulting firms that do work for them.
“BUT have you ever heard of an airline stewardess getting promoted to pilot?”
Train engineers are not equivalent to pilots, and conductors are not equivalent to flight attendants. Working as a conductor is a typical part of a career path towards becoming a train engineer.
So by your standards, if there is a misspelled word in the encyclopedia that makes everything in the encyclopedia wrong.
Great logic you got there.
So much for your opinion.
Throwing the brake(there are you happy now) on at 50 in a turn the inertia could possibly have caused the train to flip.
-PJ
Local 6ABC News reports that this guy was with Amtrak for 9 years, an engineer since December 2010 and a conductor before that. At age 32, that would make him 23 when he started.
By your definition of "conductor," how does a 23 year old become "the senior employee on the train and is in charge of it?"
-PJ
Doesn’t say he was a conductor at 23, just that he was a conductor prior to becoming an engineer.
We all started somewhere. I started learning how to design railroad signal systems at the age of 20.
Offended much today? That's not what I said, and you know it.
As far as your comment that throwing the brake (and thank you for correcting your spelling) at 50 MPH in a turn could possibly cause the train to flip, did you mean at 100+ MPH? At that speed, yes. At 50 MPH, absolutely no. I'm a railroad design engineer with 40 years in the industry, so I understand velocity, momentum, superelevation, balance and overturning velocities in curves, and all other manner of things relevant to the conversation.
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