Is it true that it takes 3 years to learn how to drive a train? Why?

there are a lot of very specific cases that you don't normally see. the only way to get exposed to them enough to learn what is going on is through practice.

though you can learn to drive a car or truck very quickly, it still takes a couple years of practice to start to pick up on small patterns that hint at something else coming.

take for example a driver being cautious around someone else. a new driver will generally have very little experience recognizing how other cars on the road normally behave. that means that if another driver is swerving in and out of traffic, they may get caught off guard and easily get cut off without expecting it.

a more experienced driver will be able to recognize some of the weaving behavior much earlier and mentally prepare themselves for the possibility that the other driver may cut them off. this generally means that the more experienced driver will start to veer away from the weaving driver. the experienced driver may also let off the accelerator to give the other weaving driver more space.

this sort of this you can only pick up with practice and the same thing happens with trains, planes and basically any other complex skill.

you can learn the basics very quickly but to really gain experience to cover most of the things that you could possibly see takes a long time. especially long if the activity you are doing takes a long time to complete.

if I were to for some reason become an expert in watching paint dry, I would need to watch a lot of paint drying to really learn the subtle differences that could come from all sorts of variables. this takes a long time.

meanwhile if I were to want to become an expert in clicking a computer mouse, each cycle of practice can take very little. exploring all the differences would take no time at all.

Trains are very hard to steer. Takes lots of practice.