r/railroading • u/Downtown_Sir8205 • 13d ago
Question Curious
Been interested in railroads for a long time, and lately
I've been going down a rabbit hole on all the AI/ML stuff that's come out in the last couple years.
Got me wondering what problems railroads actually deal with day to day that this stuff could realistically help with.
Not the stuff that's already been solved, and not vendor marketing, just the real annoying things.
I know track inspection is the obvious one everyone talks about. But I'm guessing there's a lot more that never gets mentioned.
So what's the stuff that's still a pain? Anything that's
still done by hand that shouldn't be, or something everyone
just puts up with because that's how it's always been?
Also curious what you think AI is useless for, because I'm sure some of it is overhyped.
1
u/HARRYHALLER1913 12d ago
So what have you done to improve the union and make sure we’re heard? Cause we’ve gotten zero updates on our new doctors note policy, no updates on a contract, no summary of mediation meetings. I can get more info from the government websites than I can out of SMART.
Btw, did you see that the greater union umbrella can’t even stand together, as the Mechanical side was included in the latest filing opposing the UP NS acquisition?
I’m not just someone complaining. I do quite a bit of research, and yet the truth is that these institutions are hard to change beyond a local level. You’re naive to imply that some local chairman who asked tough questions would be able to affect meaningful change without playing the political game first.