Atomic Train
I’m in Las Vegas for my company’s national sales conference. Last night, I curled up on the couch in my room and watched “Atomic Train” on the Sci Fi channel. Interestingly, this trashy action movie provided a perspective on today’s expectations of expertise, resonating with my role in the sales conference. Essentially, in the movie, everybody did their best to stop a disaster. The movie was rife with the typical American individualism but, instead of the entrepreneurial spirit saving the day as it would have 20 or 50 years ago, the best and heroic efforts of the non-experts defeated the efforts of the experts until the situation was snafued beyond all redemption.
The plot started out blandly enough – the owner of a business that decommissioned nuclear weapons put an old Russian nuke on a freight train, but hid it on the manifest to avoid a $2000 insurance fee. This caused the shipment to bypass many safety regulations. The action started when the brakes on the train got disconnected due to some chemical dripping on them. The train starts speeding out-of-control, downhill towards Denver.
An out-of-control train is an extremely complex problem with every potential for disaster, even without a nuclear weapon. The train is expensive, the chemicals it carries are hazardous, there are five people on the train who can lose their lives and, if the train reaches Denver, all bets are off. The distance to Denver also puts a tight timeframe on the problem – the train is going 70 miles an hour, Denver is 300 miles away - simple math give a mere couple of hours for a solution. Everybody in the movie slaps together all of the options that they can.
The first options: a train crash expert boards a train behind the runaway with the plan to couple with it and brake it from behind. The railroad also makes plans to slow the train with sand piled on the tracks or to derail the train in a spot that minimizes the catastrophe.
At this point, an employee from the nuclear decommissioning company calls the railroad and informs them of the contraband nuke. The derailment is called off as the impact might set off the old, poorly-made nuke. Time is lost, the White House gets involved and everybody tries to find a way of either stopping, or minimizing the impact from a possible nuclear explosion. Every expert came up with solutions based on their perspective and expertise. The solutions had a wide range, from braking the train with the second train to bombing the train into a crater – which would guarantee a nuclear explosion, reduce the airborne fallout and would cause permanent damage to the groundwater. This last option would be a last-ditch effort, but bombers become airborne to keep all options open.
The first options are ineffectual. The sand doesn’t slow the train and the braking attempt fails, shearing a piece off of the second train, and a brakeman dies after heroically risking his life to couple the trains. The crash expert uses the brief joining to board the runaway train. The second train continues to pursue the runaway, attempting to save the remaining two brakemen. This attempt to save lives backfires after the second engineer is told to “back off” because of the quickly changing situation. He turns down his radio and succeeds in saving one man. The silent radio cuts off communication with the people who have the big picture. Missing this strategic viewpoint, he destroys the one opportunity to save the situation. The runaway train engineer and the crash expert successfully lock the breaks on an uphill grade. The runaway slows to less than 25 miles an hour. Since the second train cannot hear this information or any warnings, he rear-ends the runaway, unlocking its brakes and sending the train careening toward disaster. The message here is clear: even if the commonsense course seems clear and ethical, it is still better to listen to the experts with the big picture.
All survivors escaped when the train slowed, so loss of life was no longer a factor in derailment, so that became the next option. The bomb, luckily, does not go off in the impact. On the other hand, some of the chemicals and other items on the train catch fire. As an extra twist, some of the chemicals in the same car with the bomb react explosively with water so the fire suppressant brought in with helicopters is the only thing that can be used to control the flames.
Unfortunately, the bomb cannot be removed from the boxcar, so an expert with the ability to decommission the bomb braves the fires and explosions to dismantle the trigger. The value from this attempt is voided by two helicopter pilots who attempt to save the situation themselves. They load up with water and decide to go directly to the crash site as it is between them and the command center. On the way, they hear that fire suppressant is being used. Taking the attitude “water is better than nothing,” they explosively dump their water directly on the volatile chemicals thereby killing the bomb expert and setting off the nuke. Once again, people trying to save the day without the needed specialized knowledge or advice worsen the situation.
In opposition to the demonstrations of the harm that laypeople can do, there were several demonstrations of effective heroism possible with expertise:
The plot started out blandly enough – the owner of a business that decommissioned nuclear weapons put an old Russian nuke on a freight train, but hid it on the manifest to avoid a $2000 insurance fee. This caused the shipment to bypass many safety regulations. The action started when the brakes on the train got disconnected due to some chemical dripping on them. The train starts speeding out-of-control, downhill towards Denver.
An out-of-control train is an extremely complex problem with every potential for disaster, even without a nuclear weapon. The train is expensive, the chemicals it carries are hazardous, there are five people on the train who can lose their lives and, if the train reaches Denver, all bets are off. The distance to Denver also puts a tight timeframe on the problem – the train is going 70 miles an hour, Denver is 300 miles away - simple math give a mere couple of hours for a solution. Everybody in the movie slaps together all of the options that they can.
The first options: a train crash expert boards a train behind the runaway with the plan to couple with it and brake it from behind. The railroad also makes plans to slow the train with sand piled on the tracks or to derail the train in a spot that minimizes the catastrophe.
At this point, an employee from the nuclear decommissioning company calls the railroad and informs them of the contraband nuke. The derailment is called off as the impact might set off the old, poorly-made nuke. Time is lost, the White House gets involved and everybody tries to find a way of either stopping, or minimizing the impact from a possible nuclear explosion. Every expert came up with solutions based on their perspective and expertise. The solutions had a wide range, from braking the train with the second train to bombing the train into a crater – which would guarantee a nuclear explosion, reduce the airborne fallout and would cause permanent damage to the groundwater. This last option would be a last-ditch effort, but bombers become airborne to keep all options open.
The first options are ineffectual. The sand doesn’t slow the train and the braking attempt fails, shearing a piece off of the second train, and a brakeman dies after heroically risking his life to couple the trains. The crash expert uses the brief joining to board the runaway train. The second train continues to pursue the runaway, attempting to save the remaining two brakemen. This attempt to save lives backfires after the second engineer is told to “back off” because of the quickly changing situation. He turns down his radio and succeeds in saving one man. The silent radio cuts off communication with the people who have the big picture. Missing this strategic viewpoint, he destroys the one opportunity to save the situation. The runaway train engineer and the crash expert successfully lock the breaks on an uphill grade. The runaway slows to less than 25 miles an hour. Since the second train cannot hear this information or any warnings, he rear-ends the runaway, unlocking its brakes and sending the train careening toward disaster. The message here is clear: even if the commonsense course seems clear and ethical, it is still better to listen to the experts with the big picture.
All survivors escaped when the train slowed, so loss of life was no longer a factor in derailment, so that became the next option. The bomb, luckily, does not go off in the impact. On the other hand, some of the chemicals and other items on the train catch fire. As an extra twist, some of the chemicals in the same car with the bomb react explosively with water so the fire suppressant brought in with helicopters is the only thing that can be used to control the flames.
Unfortunately, the bomb cannot be removed from the boxcar, so an expert with the ability to decommission the bomb braves the fires and explosions to dismantle the trigger. The value from this attempt is voided by two helicopter pilots who attempt to save the situation themselves. They load up with water and decide to go directly to the crash site as it is between them and the command center. On the way, they hear that fire suppressant is being used. Taking the attitude “water is better than nothing,” they explosively dump their water directly on the volatile chemicals thereby killing the bomb expert and setting off the nuke. Once again, people trying to save the day without the needed specialized knowledge or advice worsen the situation.
In opposition to the demonstrations of the harm that laypeople can do, there were several demonstrations of effective heroism possible with expertise:
- A police officer resolves a traffic situation then forcibly slows evacuation traffic to 40 M.P.H. to eliminate potential accidents. After the blast destroys a crucial bridge, he leads people on foot across country using a compass, finally saving them.
- Knowledge of knot-tying is key to a rescue and the information that electromagnetic force will knock out microchips, including those in cars, helps a family find a vehicle that helps them get to safety.
- Some railroad personnel risk, and lose, their lives to successfully get four other trains out of the area.
- News personnel remain in the area during the derailment so they can provide essential information to the people of Denver.
Thus, by doing their job beyond the call of duty; and using and sharing their specialized knowledge; people were able to help others and make the situation better. By stepping outside of their job role or acting without the strategic view, people effectively killed thousands.
As I mentioned earlier, the message in this movie resonated with my role at the sales conference. Our main initiative is to roll out the next word in sales techniques. What this means is that we, as a company, don’t feel that our salespeople can maximize their sales as novices and laypeople. We provide substantial training to make sure that they are experts not only on our products but on a strategic sales process. Sales and sales strategy, as well as business and business strategy, have become so complex that specialized skills are needed to develop an optimal sales or business strategy.
posted by Varda Lobanov | 12:26 PM
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