First of all, I'm relieved to see that you interpreted this characterization less of a personal attack than the forum staff did. I didn't want to insult you, but I did want to express my shock, disbelief and speechlessness about your words. If I had the chance to change one thing I wrote in the (now deleted) post I wrote, I would have written "that all that taxpayer money wasn't spent on someone who
could have made better use of this education" than "who actually deserved this education", as I don't want to judge the quality of academic work which has entitled you to your degree.
I have no problem imagining that you will fit into your industry, but for someone who went into the intercity passenger rail industry (not that there is much of such an industry in Canada) to help the society and the environment by providing the citizens in this country with better and more sustainable transportation options, this kind of perspective onto one's professional path is very foreign to me - especially at such an early stage in both life and your professional career (I guess you are around 23 years old and graduating with a Bachelor's degree this year, ready to leverage the work experience you've gained during internships, whereas I'm 31 years old, have a one-and-a-half year old son and I believe that my Master's Thesis has already been circulated in this thread). Nevertheless, I don't want to place my CV and life choices over yours', but I would be curious to know how what (and how) you are going to answer when your own child starts asking you what you do for work and why you chose that work (to be sure: my own son is not yet able to ask me that - or any - question!
).
I explained to you back then and I will explain it again that the staff is required for assisting passengers to board and detrain the train and to aid the evacuation. I don't know how GO Transit would manage to safely evacuate more than 2000 passengers with only one member of staff (ignoring the Locomotive Engineers), but I am happy that we have at least a Service Manager and usually also a few other On-Train Staff members, which are definitely "contributing to the safe operation of the train".
These are actually concerns we share each other, I'm highly critically of how the respective governments seemingly sat on their hands when first Orleans Express and then Greyhound deserted the Corridor rather than providing extra funding and ensuring that the bus and train timetables would complement each other (rather than overlapping). I believe that the decision to suspend the Canadian and Ocean was basically forced by NB and BC closing their respective borders, but I was surprised to not see any remote service operating between Capreol and at least Sioux Lookout (if not: Winnipeg)...
I don't know if you've worn a face mask yet, but it turned my shopping trips at the local craft beer store and grocer into a demanding physical activity. I suspect that wearing a N95 mask really was an overkill, but I wasn't able to wear it for more than 3 continuous minutes and can't imagine having to work in one...
Concerning the suspension of services, it usually takes more than a month to implement a timetable change and we've seen four different changes within 23 days (March 8 was just the change to daylight-savings time, which is a routine change only affecting timings in Saskatchewan, but Corridor timetables were reduced to 50% effective March 17 and then to two-trains-per-day on March 23 and finally to the one-train-per-day schedule in effect since March 31), which meant that we had to spew out a new timetable every week, which was an unprecedented experience to everyone involved. In any case, as per our newest
travel advisory, we are going to restore the second train per day at least between Toronto and Ottawa or Montreal (and also the return of the Skeena has been announced for July):
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I will try to respond to some of the other points you've raised, but thank you for reacting calmly and patiently to my impulsive response. I won't deny that I still disagree with you on many counts, but at least your explanations make you now sound a lot less tone death to me...