My niece's husband (and most of his family) work for BNSF here in Galesburg. The long trains that I see mostly run between Chicago and Kansas City - and all the terminals in between.
Not only engines in front/back, we see a lot of trains with engines in the middle now too. Biggest problem with the length is the trains don't fit on side rails or between crossings like they used to. Very common in Galesburg to have crossings blocked for extended periods of time. The same with rural crossings - they just park the train and leave it until a track clears, or, the current crew has timed out and they are waiting for a new crew to be shuttled to it. The cities, farmers and especially emergency response don't like it, but there is little they can do. There are regulations on blocking crossings, but for the railroad it is cheaper to pay the fines than hire more crews/ develop infrastructure.
The bottom line is the trains are getting longer because they have fewer people to drive them.
I could go on and on discussing problems (from conductor/engineer perspective), but the bottom line is the railroads need more people and can't find and/or retain them. The railroad really wants to go to one man crew (engineer) using Positive Train Control (i.e. computers) to control the train, but it isn't reliable enough on all routes.
Recently, there was conductor training for up to 75 new hires. The training had to be postponed twice because of low numbers of people who applied for the job. When the training was finally held, ~ 50 people started the training, and fewer than 10 completed it and were hired.
It is difficult work, but many who work there routinely make $100,000 plus depending on how much overtime, etc. Not bad for a job that only requires a high school diploma - and of course railroad training - and drug testing.
