>We do not even have driverless cargo trains. These are definitely on the way, if they have not already arrived. Someone I know was a train driver for a mining

>We do not even have driverless cargo trains. These are definitely on the way, if they have not already arrived. Someone I know was a train driver for a mining company here in Australia. A lot of their trains are already essentially automated with a driver being present largely just in case. Bear in mind that this was several years ago and I doubt automation has halted since then as that specific kind of train driver are exceptionally expensive to have on the payroll. Even a few years back the drivers were either simply supervising the computer system or the human was driving however the computer system would alarm at the driver any time the human driver did something that it disagreed with. In particular, going too fast and being unsafe or going too slow and extending the trip time. The computer was supervising the human just as much as the human was supervising the computer. From memory, the system could even raise alarms with supervisors about what is happening with the train in some circumstances. Going from human only > human supervising computer > computer supervising human > computer only seems like a sensible progression and trains are a long way through it.