You might think that a good knowledge of engineering and locomotives is essential to work successfully with trains – and you’d be right – but did you know how important it is for train drivers to have good language skills too?
Think about it: often, trains travel across borders from one country to another, or sometimes even across various different borders. And if the driver and other staff members don’t change, that often also means they’re also passing from one linguistic environment into another. Now they need to be able to not just hear, but also understand, the essential safety and other messaging they receive from ground and station staff.
When train drivers don’t understand the language of the country they’re travelling through, that’s a serious safety issue – and it is one that periodically raises concerns. For example, train crews from Mexico are allowed, under certain circumstances, to travel about 10 km across the border into the United States, but only if they can demonstrate that they speak English well enough to understand any instructions they receive about safety.
Of course, one also hopes that similar essential rules apply to any American operatives working south of the border!
Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/orange-train-between-fall-trees-El5zuQAtfeo
