Connect air hoses to cars, using wrenches.

“Connect air hoses to cars, using wrenches.” is a core task performed by Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers. Among the occupation's 28 rated tasks, workers place it 4th by importance (#25 most important). About 73% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Connect components or supply lines to equipment or tools. in Handling and Moving Objects

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Observe train signals along routes and verify their meanings for engineers. · importance 5.0
• Signal locomotive engineers to start or stop trains when coupling or uncoupling cars, using hand signals, lanterns, or radio communication. · importance 4.8
• Operate and drive locomotives, diesel switch engines, dinkey engines, flatcars, and railcars in train yards and at industrial sites. · importance 4.7
• Pull or push track switches to reroute cars. · importance 4.7
• Observe signals from other crew members so that work activities can be coordinated. · importance 4.7
• Monitor trains as they go around curves to detect dragging equipment and smoking journal boxes. · importance 4.6
• Inspect couplings, air hoses, journal boxes, and handbrakes to ensure that they are securely fastened and functioning properly. · importance 4.5
• Observe tracks from left sides of locomotives to detect obstructions on tracks. · importance 4.5
• Operate locomotives in emergency situations. · importance 4.5
• Raise levers to couple and uncouple cars for makeup and breakup of trains. · importance 4.5
• Climb ladders to tops of cars to set brakes. · importance 4.4
• Receive oral or written instructions from yardmasters or yard conductors indicating track assignments and cars to be switched. · importance 4.4
• Inspect locomotives to detect damaged or worn parts. · importance 4.4
• Signal other workers to set brakes and to throw track switches when switching cars from trains to way stations. · importance 4.3

See all tasks on the Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-23793,
  title  = {Connect air hoses to cars, using wrenches.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-23793}
}