I want someone who cares to be driving the train I'm on. They also require in person participation which make outsourcing hard. I'm fine with self driving when the line is designed for it. It will be a very long time before existing lines are self driving, and its not because on unions.

Not really sure why people like moaning about train drivers. Are they jealous a train driver is making more than them? While in the case of tech workers they sit quietly and watch their £65k jobs go to India.