Railroad Badge Evolution

I love hat badges. These are items that had a personal connection to somebody who made railroading their life's work. I have favorite railroads and is those instances I try to collect variations to those companies badges through the years. We have Amtrak, the Erie Railroad and NJ Transit. The triangular Amtrak badge is about the latest style and in the NJT collection the one with position and employee number is the last style to display the employee's rank in the company. Many of this style are still in use on NJT. The current NJT badge eliminates the job title. This is probably to cut costs, since the employee doesn't need a new badge as they move up through the ranks. Their ranks appear on paper only. Assistant Conductor replaced the TRAINMAN and BRAKEMAN badges most likely due to many women entering the railroad workforces and also cuts down on the number of badges needed. Again, on paper, the positions of trainman, brakeman and flagman still exist. The Erie diamond logo was the last one used by the Erie and dates from 1950. The railroad merged into Erie Lackawanna in 1960. My understanding is that EL never made badges for train employees, as with trainoffs and retirements there were many extra badges to go around.