only two,
of the 10 largest cities,
in America,
are in the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_Americas
guns kill people,
like spoons made rush limbaugh,
fat ....
only two,
of the 10 largest cities,
in America,
are in the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_Americas
guns kill people,
like spoons made rush limbaugh,
fat ....
guns kill people,
like spoons made rush limbaugh,
fat ....
guns kill people,
like spoons made rush limbaugh,
fat ....
try to get things in order and achieve some pricing power, prompting analyst Hatch to declare his Railroad Renaissance. But this has turned into a renaissance only for the owners, who suck the cash out of railroad treasuries instead of reinvesting it. The trucking companies are growing with the economy while railroads, once again, are not. Instead, they become less and less relevant to the economy and to the American people. Who will be the railroad executive who reverses this decline?—Fred W. Frailey
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Added 2 years ago
Jimblaze said:
Fred. Thank you for your concise commentary.
Cheers, from Jim Blaze
Added 2 years ago
mitch5albert said:
Hi, I'd like to question the axiom of expanded rail growth requires more capital investment. I've spent 45 years exploring for new mineral sites susceptible to "real" unit train usage. (Real means exactly like coal unit trains continuously running but with much greater car turnarounds due to fewer rt miles.) UP's approach in recent 5 years was that unit trains are "premium" service and therefore cost more than individual cars or car sets. (ha ha) Why shouldn't the railroads welcome a shipper who pays fore their own loop track at origin and destination, probably any switches and provides their own cars. UP or others only supply labor and track time/maintenance which of course means NO yard time. I've even set up crew quarters, lube-sand-fuel-bathroom services at OD's. The big problem is staff below executive level doesn't measure and can't look at total profit from such moves. They might look at $/car but then won't acknowledge the +3 times as many car moves/yr versus a coal unit train. It isn't hard to demonstrate that such unit trains generate more "free cash flow" or profit than a coal train and since no yards are used and all capital is paid for by customer, why don't Class 1's and investors applaud such customers? There is no doubt that such projects exceed all Class 1 benchmarks of mph velocity, dwell times, locomotive productivity in GTM/hpDay, recrew %, Car cycle times and miles/gal ton. Want to reduce the operating ratio, increase revenues-profits and not invest capital? (Of course, this doesn't mean many such projects are set up by the railroad or customer to NOT be "real" unit trains and so they both shoot themselves frequently in the "foot".)
mitch albert
Added 2 years ago
SD60MAC9500 said:
Oops! Wrong link here's the right one
onlinepubs.trb.org/.../1029.pdf
Added 2 years ago
SD60MAC9500 said:
Let's take a step back in time here, and find out what was going on in 1985. I was only 3 but this paper is very interesting and still applies to this day
onlinepubs.trb.org/.../1029-007.pdf
Added 2 years ago
tomstamey said:
The STB is going to hold hearings on the Class one's demurrage charges which have been the subject of shippers complaints. PSR is blamed by shippers for excessive charges due to irregular arrival of cars.. Will this be the start of shippers success against heavy handed charges?
www.progressiverailroading.com/.../STB-proposes-new-policy-rules-for-rail-demurrage-charges--58774
Added 2 years ago
tomstamey said:
Here is some more on PSR from a Penn State Prof.www.railwayage.com/.../what-psr-is-and-isnt-nears-talk,
He doesn't care for it either, especially from the customer side.
Added 2 years ago
Idaho rough rider said:
How many businesses/corporations are out there who do not look for the highest return ASAP!!? And is it driven by "Wall-Alley" wanna-bees looking for the quickest return on rich investor's money?
As mentioned in an earlier comment, a 5-year capital budget must be adjusted for conditions; unless you have a fortune-telling ball that clues a biz into what's going to happen. Money up front will always be a mitigating factor in business financial decisions.
Railroads by nature, as noted earlier, can be flexible only to a certain point. Operational issues with routing were created decades ago by the lack of vision. Or simply greed by their builders.
The successful business generating more cash flow needs to "take the risk." And that takes support from everyone
involved, and Money! There is no easy answer.
Added 2 years ago
A McIntosh said:
I wonder if a sign that the end may be in sight will be if the railroads start to diversify into other more lucrative businesses a la the 1960's
Added 2 years ago
JohnMann said:
There was book published some years ago called "The Men Who Loved Trains."
"The Men Indifferent to Trains Who Love Only Money" is a book soon to be written.
Pardon my snarky attitude, but besides having read "The Investor Pays" I have next to no patience for business leaders who do not play the long game or have no "liking" or "feel" for the businesses they are in.
Under what assumptions are today's rail managers operating? There was, if I recall correctly, a head of Southern Pacific in the 50s who managed with the expectation of nationalization. Is losing business the unstated goal? I think this was the tactic used by the Milwaukee Road on the far left end. Is autonomous trucking seen as a real threat?
Added 2 years ago
tomstamey said:
Here is some more on loss of traffic by Tony Hatch, including PSR targeted losses.
www.progressiverailroading.com/.../Why-rail-traffic-volumes-have-been-so-weak-analysis-by-Tony-Hatch--58320
Added 2 years ago
oltmannd said:
Too much of the industry's infrastructure and technology is still rooted in the 19th century.
Too much ROW is curvy, "laid on the dirt", over hill and dale and slow.
There are too many cheaply laid out, slow speed connections between lines that were formerly independent.
Braking is still just spiffed up 19th century technology. No other industry uses pneumatic control for anything anymore.
The industry didn't used to be this timid. The PRR "bet the farm" twice. Once building Penn Station and the Hudson and East River tunnels (and **** Gate Bridge). Again in the 1930s with NEC modernization and electrification. We are still cashing in on this success. The NYC "bet the farm" installing CTC and automated hump yards in the 1950s and 60s. Conrail owed their success in large part due to this foresight. The DL&W had a massive infrastructure program building "the cutoff" and the Tunkhannock viaduct in massive modernization program in the early 20th century.
All these things required vision and risk taking. I'm sure others can name other "bet the farm" investments made on other roads.
A truck driver can make 500 miles a day. It takes 8 crews and 40 hours to go less than 1000 miles from Harrisburg to Memphis. ...and this is okay?
Maybe its time to require "excess profits" to be plowed back in as capital or otherwise be confiscated, again? (I can't believe I'm even typing this....)
Added 2 years ago
Bruce D Gillings said:
Change was needed in railroading. The loss of cash-cow coal traffic, the realization that never-ending double-digit international intermodal business growth was mathematically unsustainable, and the discovery of asset-rich railroads by predatory institutional investors, made it inevitable.
Is the change we are getting healthy? Under the guise of “PSR” (****-off Shippers Relentlessly???), management has been focused on improving financials. But will the results that are driving away customers and shrinking market penetration build long-term franchises that will CONTINUE to have improving financial results? Sorry, I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid. The financial gains are short-term: the primary goal is to reward institutional investors who will sell out their spiked stock (and appear to have started doing so), leaving an industry in a downward spiral of market share. No other industry relies so heavily on investing in its physical plant, and protecting that physical plant from loss of real estate and lack of modernization, as railroading. A factory, or a DC, can move and find new land, anytime and anywhere. Be it an automobile assembly plant or a food processor, it can move. By its very nature a railroad practically cannot. A railroad’s ROW, including its routes and its yards and terminals, are its lifeblood. Fail to adapt and modernize those to the markets and you doom the long-term prospects of your franchise. It is as important as adapting and modernizing your operations to the markets. Call it a paradigm shift, or call it a cultural shift: a new way of thinking of how to stay relevant in an ever-evolving world is mandatory. What we are getting with “PSR” is not that, period.
What railroad management has demonstrated is an inability to adapt to an evolving world in a manner that builds a healthy future. To do so demands top-notch management and a top-to-bottom re-inventing of organization, and that is not worth the effort for short-term-focused leaders. The Railroad Renaissance that Anthony Hatch identifies was based on deregulation, coal, and then international intermodal traffic. A new Railroad Renaissance is needed based on a restructuring of intermodal services and asset utilization, matching train size to plant constraints, information integration, cultural shift in treatment of all stakeholders, and government treatment of railroad infrastructure investment. Lots of fancy terms and words, but regardless, it is the new reality. I don’t think today’s railroad executives are up to the challenge. Not even a Matt Rose.
It is easy to run 12,000’ land-barges that clog up the railroad with one crew where two 6000’ trains needed two, and as long as the never-ending re-crews don’t reach 100%, you’re “ahead”, at least in a cost sense. But yards are clogged with fewer schedules and it takes far longer to build the trains; service falls. Rates keep rising or stay flat, relative to demand and competition from OTR. Cost per unit of freight handled goes down, financials look great. Cost to shippers goes up, both from rates and the unpredictability of rail transport equating to higher supply chain costs than OTR trucking. More carload traffic ends up on highways, and intermodal reverse conversion occurs. Assets (yards, sidings, power) are reduced. Labor is reduced (though not proportional to train size due to velocity and congestion issues). Again: cost per unit of freight handled goes down, and as long as that delta exceeds the loss of freight (for now), balance sheets look great. Investors see distributions and stock values go up. But at some point savvy investors will know when the last has been squeezed out, and will get out. What will be left is shrinking market share, and supply chains that have less and less need for (or, more aptly put, less patience for the true costs of) using railroads.
Railroads don’t need to provide door-to-door seamless service: they need to provide cost-effective (different from rates) integrated service to door-to-door logistics providers, be they truckers, IMCs, or even the asset-based freight arms of Walmart, Amazon and the like. Execute your role in the supply chain with excellence, predictably so that whoever is up the food chain from you can rely on you and does not have to factor in your failures, and integrate your information system into theirs so you become transparent. Be instrumental in making THEIR performance successful vis-à-vis their customers, period. Be known for what you do by excellence, not for disruption. Otherwise, you will continue to lose business to OTR trucking. Period. And OTR trucking, or more so the end users who are demanding excellence from OTR trucking, will demand our nation provide them better, faster, greater-capacity, heavier-load bearing highways linking every possible lane and type of user. Including a lot of bulk that currently goes in less than unit train volumes. The sweet spots of railroading will disappear. I have clients who are on the forefront of pushing for nationwide LCVs and heavier allowable weights, and that does not bode well for railroads.
For carload traffic, much has already been lost, so much that perhaps the critical mass point no longer exists and carload freight will for the most part cease to exist beyond a boutique network. For how much has been lost by current practices, why not sell off or lease out or contract the remaining local services to shortlines and regionals whose lifeblood depends on service and asset utilization – all of it, nation-wide? And with each sale/lease, performance standards by the long-haul Class Is needs to memorialized, with penalties for non-performance. Let the Class Is provide major yards, long-haul, and haulers that pick up and set out volumes to the smaller roads. For example, UP and BNSF continue to hemorrhage carload business in the LA Basin, cutting back service, letting tracks fall into disrepair. Part of that is the changing industrial landscape, but part of it service. Let the LA Basin be about haulers out of West Colton and Barstow, intermodal, vehicles and intermodal. Let shortlines switch all of it. And make UP and BNSF pay for service failures to the shortlines.
Intermodal focus needs to be on multiple schedules in most lanes, service in primary trucking lanes (not just a handful of long-haul routes), and meeting schedules with such precision that truckers and others no longer need to use ramps as parking lots as their hedge against unpredictable service. Train length should be factored based on blocks and lane requirements, and getting in and out of terminals quickly, without spending an hour or two or longer building trains. Schedules that are reasonably fast, and that are met at or better than OTR performance, are a must. No more shortage of chassis, no more driving around a ramp parking area for a half-hour looking for where your load is. GPS-based YMS are readily available now and moderately priced. Lifts per acre need to go up, a lot at most terminals. Provide better service that is predictable. Rail rates plus drayage won’t need to be significantly lower than OTR; meaning more revenue for the railroad. Eliminate re-crews. Reduce asset dwell time (power and rolling stock) and asset utilization (reduced trailer/container/chassis dwell time and higher lifts).
Too much to ask? Probably. Necessary? Absolutely. Will it happen? Doubt it.
Added 2 years ago
Sunnyland said:
Reading Maury Klein's final book in his series about UP and he talks about the problems they had to work out about pricing. Ops had a problem working well with others including their marketing dept.
Added 2 years ago
RailAdvisor said:
The management of large carriers has been chasing off small consignors and consignees and short line interchange traffic ever since I was a teen my Dad would come home and tell me how the carriers really didn't want car load business that a drill crew would have to spot one or two cars every third day. I am now 72 and have a MA in Transportation Policy, Operations and Logistics. So I have some so-called academic gravitas to go along with what I am saying. I also am retired from the railroad industry and was an elected union official. I also served 2 miserable years in management. Amtrak's management ethos with one or two glaring exceptions mirrors the short sighted freight carriers. The management culture in the industry is all too often "yes sir, yes sir 3 bags full sir". Excellent customer service for all shippers builds loyalty both directions. Ingenuity creates freight. I first saw this in 1969 when employed as a station agent for a now fallen flag freight carrier. The TOFC folks wouldn't go after outbound condiment shipments because they would have to dray the trailers from Bergen County to Hudson County for shipment west. Those condiment products had originally left the plant via box car but truckers stepped in with more timely service. Ironically the carriers west bound hot shot would have won the business back. My father a NYU graduate Industrial Engineer even helped me with a presentation for the so called TOFC experts. They were firm in their NO. The so called TOFC experts were embarrassed by a summer employee. So forgive me if I seem to be jaundiced in my views. What I read here in 2019 is the same lack of common sense I found during the summer of 1969. OBTW every time I hear about a freight carrier guru with an MBA I really wonder what he knows about rail shipper/receiver service. One of my idols in the freight industry who pioneered much traffic was chased off at the mandatory corporate retirement of 60 years old. He has an MBA from a prestigious school and started as a brakemen in the freight carrier side of the industry.
Added 2 years ago
solar said:
I can't see why cooperation between the railroads has to be so hard.
I bring electronics in from China. I can choose Ups, Fedex,Dhl etc as the carrier. None of them have a van servicing my town, or even most cities in NZ. Yet they can get a parcel from China to little old Paeroa, for $10 , in as little as 3 days, door to door. I can track it every step of the way, often the first step is state run China Post. Sometimes it goes via Malaysia , a regional hub taking business from Singapore. The point is the technology is there , even for a $2 shipment taking a month by mail, tracked and presumably billed all the way .
Added 2 years ago
tomstamey said:
Jeff: Just further evidence of railroads turning their back on small but, not to small, shippers isn't it?
Added 2 years ago
jeffhergert said:
The railroad I work for over the last 5 to 10 years has passed on business opportunities. Many being developed by local railroad managers with local customers. Some of this business could've been handled in existing trains. One was for a grain shuttle train service on the lightly used grain lines, all the railroad had to supply was engines and crew. The ag processor would've supplied there own cars. Each proposal would've netted between $5 and $10 million a year. Maybe not a UPS contract, which sounds like the railroads are going to lose, but money in the bank.
It was related to me that fairly recently a cereal manufacturer, working with local management at an intermediate terminal, had come up with a plan to load a couple of 5-pack stack cars a few times a week. Someone higher in the railroad food chain told the local management they weren't going to do it and to mind his own business.
Yet, they've also asked for employee input on business opportunities we might see. I guess that only applies to business that is long haul and doesn't require much, if any, switching.
Store equipment, furlough employees, rip up yards and sell off the land, charge the remaining customers more in rates and fees. Yes sir, a rosy future for the industry.
Added 2 years ago
pbouzide said:
Disagree BNSF Foamer.
Balkanization on that artificial east-west boundary (that no trucker even thinks about) has real friction effects. Steel wheel interchange is still interchange and ensuring a crew is available for a move at a terminal adds latency *even on the same carrier* let alone between carriers. And need I mention the cost and time spent in rubber tire interchange?
It also biases east-west movement over Chicago to maximize each carrier’s length of hauls, even when it adds circuity. Sure the highest capacity trunk lines converge there, but you could argue alternative routes are underutilized.
And finally there are some pretty long drays that reduce length of rail haul. Examples include auto parts from Asia or Mexico bound for assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio and Louisville grounding in Chicago or Memphis. Or goods from Harrisburg area DCs bound for the Twin Cities grounding in Chicago. The short haul partner in these examples would seemingly not have a lot of incentive to hustle their end, otherwise they wouldn’t ground the boxes that far away from destination.
So there’s in my opinion real economic benefit to these mergers, and not just for the rail carriers but potentially for the entire supply chain. But obviously they concentrate the rail market further. But perhaps you missed the other point I was making. There ***wouldn’t even be a duopoly*** if one of the transcons was mainly serving the service dependent domestic intermodal market and the other the bulk heavy haul one. But the competition is still strong for each. Trucking for the first, and commodity substitution (you heard coal was dying right? You heard about locally sourced fracking sand reducing Upper Midwest sand loadings right?) for the second.
Added 2 years ago
BNSF Foamer said:
PBOUZIDE - The only path railroads ever see is merging, merging, merging. How about what the airlines do - code share alliances. Seems to work real well.
If railroads haven't figured out by now how to move a box through or around Chicago (they haven't) another and final round of mergers won't help.
Added 2 years ago
pbouzide said:
Let’s suppose what Fred suggests is true, that UP and CSX are gravitating to one approach (service only large bulk heavy-haul shippers or less service dependent international intermodal) and NS and (especially) BNSF are gravitating to another, Evidence seems clear for the former pair, as well as BNSF. NS is questionable to
me in this regard but they seem to at least give lip service to growing Intermodal (apart from doing anything to make the I-81 corridor semi-viable) and their “daily local service” aspect of TOP-21 at least feels like “we’re trying to spend money on service” on the last mile side.
So given this conjecture, I’d further observe that we are now living on the extreme end of the anti-regulation and anti-antitrust pendulum swing, so let’s let those two pairs of roads merge to remove the interline and Chicago gateway friction element and see how each approach fares. Maybe then, combined with the PSR trend to increasing line haul capacity by reducing train count we might achieve dual *segregated* transcontinental “go everywhere” networks. With one network supporting tightly and reliably scheduled domestic intermodal service on a critical mass of lanes and the other supporting the slower land barges. Because unless you have well dispatched 2MT with long lead terminals and the occasional third intermediate sidings, the two types of service don’t mix very well at all.
Yeah I know, it’s a pipe dream politically because shippers won’t support it (and truckers will fight it) even though it could form the foundation of something a lot more shipper friendly. And to prevent that better shipper outcome from failing to develop, the permission to merge should come with strings attached like some form of open access for carload or reimposing common carrier obligations or targeted rate ceilings and/or minimum service requirements.
Added 2 years ago
tomstamey said:
Don't you hope that the next time someone interviews the head man at any railroad, particularly the CEO, that they be questioned in line with what Chris and Numb Shipper have said? Would it do any good? Sometimes those in high up offices have no idea of what really goes on in some areas of the business.
Maybe the first good question is do they read this blog?.
Added 2 years ago
solar said:
I think if there's any case for open access in the USA, it would be the treatment of short lines and other interline movements.
Can a shortline take a Class 1 or other railroad to the STB or other entity over rates / access?
Added 2 years ago
Fred Frailey said:
Chris I’m going to guess that short line connects with CSX. Do I get a second guess? Union Pacific.
Fred
Added 2 years ago
CHRIS B THOMPSON said:
A shortline railroad manager fiend of mine told me yesterday of the problems his railroad is having with their class one connection. Every time in the past couple of years his railroad has worked with a new customer to gain business, the class one over priced their part of the deal so as to run off the potential customer. His interchange pickups and setouts have become irregular and at times he can’t get cars for his customers, and has lost business to trucks. He’s a long time railroader and is convinced the class one is trying to kill of everything but the large industries on the class ones main line. He’s frustrated and it’s understandable. Maybe it’s time for some sort of re-regulation at least when it can be proven that a railroad is pricing out business just because they don’t want it. Or they should be forced to give up their common carrier status and the advantages that may go with it.
Added 2 years ago
The Numb Shipper said:
Thanks tomstamey for posting that link regarding the STB's work on rate reform for small shippers. As a small chemical shipper, we participated in the Rate Reform Task Force information gathering survey last year. Of particular importance to us is the small rate dispute methodology. We rarely dispute because the cost of disputing is prohibitive. Any monetary compensation is consumed by legal costs. We're for anything that brings an element of fairness to the process. Heaven knows the railroads don't want to treat us fairly unless forced to do so. When you're captive, you get milked for all they can get. Yet another reason why no one I know wants to use the railroad.
Added 2 years ago
tomstamey said:
I should have examination not changing.
Added 2 years ago
tomstamey said:
Well, maybe here it comes. The STB is changing freight rate reviews for Chemical shippers, especially for small customers. www.progressiverailroading.com/.../Chemical-shippers-endorse-STB-effort-to-reform-freight-rail-ship-rates--58589
It will be interesting to see the out come of this. High freight rates and lack of competitive shipping alternatives are cited. Could this be the first step in re-regulation of freight rates??
Added 2 years ago
ELGonzo84 said:
Ulrich,
What??! You mean do what they used to do before a d just after WW2? Hire marketing guys to go find the customer? Spend money to make money? Imagine the thought. Ok, excuse me a moment so I can wipe up the sarcasm that's dripping from my mouth before I get accused of being rabid.
On a serious note, I couldn't help but think about this blog a few days ago with the story on newswire about Amazon trying to take control of their own transportation and going direct to the RR. That article also mentioned that Amazon tends to eventually go into direct competition with it's service providers, already has their own airport hub, already has a shipping vessel, etc.
I postulated that given their demands on logistics, and the other steps they've already taken, and given what either Amazon owns (Whole Foods) or what Bezos owns (Amazon, Washington Post, Blue Orion) that I'm wondering if we are seeing what could be the start of Amazon taking a controlling interest in a RR. BNSF is already privately held by Berkshire Hathaway (more on that in a bit), I doubt KCS is big enough to do anything that Amazon would remotely need, and while NS or CSX do serve some major population centers along the east coast, I still question if they have a wide enough reach to do much good. I'm not sure how much business Amazon does in Canada or if they would want to tackle the nightmares of the CN lines.
That leaves UP. Of course, a smaller road could be purchased first as a proof of concept, but then that would mean either selling off that road, or going through the regulatory hurdles of a merger.
I can't help but draw a comparison with Berkshire Hathaway. They own coal mines, BNSF, and electric utilities. They control the entire process. Now, I dint see a rail spur going up at Whole Foods, but again, taking the Amazon shipping model, I can see DCs being built around rail and air for delivery.
To Fred's question in the past about who will be the next major game changer to shake up the industry, can you imagine if Amazon did do it, then mold the railroad to it's style of shipping needs.... Short and fast. If the ATSF could get the Death Valley Scotty Special from LA to Chicago in about 45 hours (using steam no less) and the Super C in about the same time as the Super Chief (around 39 hours) why can't the same be done today? It would make rail relevant again.
Added 2 years ago
Ulrich said:
The railroads need to start thinking of themselves as transportation providers instead of just purveyors of rail services. Second, they need to ramp up their sales efforts along the lines of what the truckers are doing. Go after all accounts, big and small, and make them fit. Go after the retail business.. go after that small metal stamping plant that employs 20 people (and which is more representative of the typical manufacturer than GM is).. Leave no stone unturned. Tackle complex transportation porblems regardless of whether or not they involve a rail solution.. What's true for the burgeoning entrepreneur holds equally true for the establish Fortune 500 corporation: find your customer first, and then satisfy their needs by adjusting your capacity, physical plant and various resources accordingly.
Added 2 years ago
oltmannd said:
Work an intermediate location in 20 minutes? Haha. That's what a step-on, step-off crew change takes these days, with job briefings, et. al.
It's ridiculous.
Added 2 years ago
greyhounds said:
Old Head: With regards to your comment:
" @greyhounds suggests adding a block of shorter-haul traffic to a long-haul intermodal train. But first you have to overcome the operating department's resistance to adding stops and managing connections. The service planning gurus chime in that every stop sucks up capacity and raises the risk of service failure. Everybody wants to run straight through, A to B. "
Yes, I know. Operating departments have way too much say in what the railroad markets. They do have a difficult task, but the goal is to make money hauling freight. The goal is not to simplify operations. But that's their silo.
As far as destroying capacity, that's a goal. If you've got capacity, use it to make money. It does no good unused. If the operating folks can't make a set out and pick up in a major terminal such as E. St. Louis fire them and replace them with some folks that can do it in 20 minutes.
Added 2 years ago
oltmannd said:
Fred - The reason there is no one you know in the industry that would touch MAC's ideas is there is no one with the vision or imagination to look more than a few years down the road to see what the future holds.
Most capital spending plans have a 5 year horizon. It is really difficult to know with any kind of accuracy what the 5th year of such a plan will really look like. Things can change quickly. For example, who know coal would die this quickly?
However, if you don't pick your head up and look 10-20 years out, you can easily go down a 5 year path that is a dead end.
I think that's exactly what's going on now.
Added 2 years ago
solar said:
CAHSR, of course.
Timeline , one year before Trainsmag gets an edit function on the blogs.
Added 2 years ago
solar said:
Love to see it on one demo line at least .
There is a possible candidate, The proposed ****** "HSR" line , Victorville to Vegas, A bit short, but combined Freight and Passenger may pay for a extension into the LA basin, making both more viable. Then , there's CASHR, but I think many would balk at the idea of a state owned operation competing with private. A franchise perhaps.
Added 2 years ago
Fred Frailey said:
Kudos to you, MAC, for some imaginative ideas. Let's put aside that there's nobody I know in this business who would touch these ideas. I like them.
Fred
Added 2 years ago
SD60MAC9500 said:
So .. Here's some off the wall futuristic idea to get the Railroad Renaissance back in gear.... BNSF buys NS. UP buys CSX. Now we can finally have a true coast-to-coast rail system. After this transaction. BNSF, and UP can combine both their physical plant's, then spin it off into a separate infrastructure entity that can apply for and acquire a low interest private and/or government backed loan's..
Hmmm... Let's revitalize an old name for this fictional infrastructure entity USRA (United States Railway Administration). Now time for some plant rationalization... Only the most efficient and strategic routes that remain will be upgraded with electrification and multi-tracking. Everything else will be sold off, abandoned, Rails-to-Trails, etc.. Some examples.. The ex-NKP can be sold, or abandoned between Cleveland, OH and Calumet City, IL . All of the ex-SP, and ATSF RoW over Cajon Pass can be eliminated. Once a new route is surveyed to connect the old ATSF from Needles, CA through the Mojave, under the Little San Bernardino Mts. with a 25 mile long tunnel. Were it will connect with UP's current Sunset Route in the Coachella Valley. They better hurry up though! Land is going fast! The ex-B&O Sand Patch can be pulled up and converted into Rails-to-Trails. There's many other places, but I just wanted to give a few small samples..
All trains run with one man, due to renegotiated union contracts, and... Thanks to the Intelli-train system which combines a truly vitalized PTC system, and wireless ECP, all railcars have fully automated coupling/uncoupling.. Each railcar also includes cameras on the A and B end to facilitate switching from the in cab display. All coupler's have integrated ABV hookup's.. By the way.. Type F tight lock coupler's are now standard..Remote setting of hand brakes, you name it. The intelli-train system has the works!
What is left of carload get's merged into the IM network. Coal is gone so we don't have to deal with it. The only unit trains left are those from high output terminals that generate a train a day: grain, sulfur, and aggregate. Everything else keeps the PSR treatment and blocked with non premium IM traffic.
BNSF, and UP can combine what hump yards are left to get the most throughput. Or the humps can be managed and ran by contract.. IM terminals can be contracted out as well. Railserve? Patriot Rail? Possibilities are endless... An established Ro-Ro TOFC service is flourishing. The 500 Mile barrier is broken. On man can now take 100 trailers 500 miles in 10 hours or less ..Thanks to a much improved RoW that includes: Grade separation projects, tunneling, improved bridges, and grades that don't exceed %1.2. Mileage is reduced by quite a margin.
So there you have it.. Conjecture? Of course! Off the wall? You bet! Expensive? Hmm yes.. The Rail Renaissance, RIP? Nope! Just stalled out for the moment..
Added 2 years ago
Old Head said:
@oltmannd: Pre-blocking is certainly one of the tools in the bag. However, back when the New York Central was opening a new hump yard at the rate of about once a year, they touted the fact that Elkhart and Avon saved hours of pre-blocking and en-route switching, allowing train schedules to be tightened. I think of that when I see notices that such-and-such hump yard is being closed.
A lot of the critical attention aimed at hump yards now relates to the fact that they have a breakeven point versus flat switching, usually estimated at 1,000 or 1,500 cars humped per day, and the decline in carload has reduced the volumes such yards handle. Which I am sure you know already.
Added 2 years ago
oltmannd said:
Old Head - PSR means lots of line of road work pick up and set outs. The serving yards make lot of long-haul blocks which the road trains pick up and then block swap all over the place.
Added 2 years ago
tomstamey said:
Old Head: Right on.
Added 2 years ago
Old Head said:
Short line railroads manage to make carload work, despite lackluster support on the part of their Class I connections. Any good short line manager can tell you stories about how a neighboring Class I chased away business--maybe a former customer that wanted to reactivate a sidetrack--to the short line. And maybe that's the better solution, if mainline track capacity is so precious.
But something has changed over recent decades. It's like what you hear from people who dispatch trains in commuter territory. Back in the day, they could thread at least some hot manifest and intermodal trains through the commuters. No more. Now the window slams shut at a certain hour, and if the hotshot shows up too late, it waits. Partly this is because the commuters are now managed by a separate agency, just like the way railroads have established intermodal and automotive networks that are accustomed to owning the railroad, carload freight be damned. Everybody's in their silo, and those who have priority do not feel the need to compromise on a daily basis. So everyone involved loses the habit and skills associated with making such compromises work--with better reliability, need it be said, than is typically the case today.
Even the short line is in effect a separate silo. Interline service agreements are supposed to manage the interchange, but they are more talk than reality in a lot of places. The short line struggles to adjust to changing drop times and Class I crewing and capacity issues, while the Class I seldom acknowledges its responsibility to show up at the agreed time. Silos again.
The accumulation of operating rules contributes to this rigidity. Few would question that the roadway worker rules that took effect two decades ago, and which have become more complex over time, protect roadway workers better than old-fashioned lineups. But they exact a price in delays.
Finally, the deliberate hollowing-out of railroad management (coupled with increasing difficulty in finding replacements) means that there are fewer trainmasters to bird-dog problems. @greyhounds suggests adding a block of shorter-haul traffic to a long-haul intermodal train. But first you have to overcome the operating department's resistance to adding stops and managing connections. The service planning gurus chime in that every stop sucks up capacity and raises the risk of service failure. Everybody wants to run straight through, A to B.
So the kind of thing that New York Central pulled off with the SuperVan trains, building a highly profitable, dense network of short to medium haul intermodal, is out of the question now. How did the Central's operating department do it? With a highly disciplined management effort, more intensive than most railroads could mount today. The last time we saw this attempted was Triple Crown, and for years before NS declined to reinvest in it, Triple Crown suffered from the service issues all around it.
It will take more than infrastructure investment to change this.
Added 2 years ago
Saturnalia said: @Jimnorton. No, the Staggers Act was NOT about allowing railroads to gain back market share. It was to make them solvent corporations and ferment competition. Yes a key side effect was in part gaining market share from trucking but that was only a handy side-effect. Similar circumstances with airline deregulation.
Blows my mind that people would think that railroads focusing on their core lanes and profit centers would be a reason to re-regulate. Regulation happened in the first place due to the practices of the gilded age where monopolistic practices and severe rate undercutting were super common. That is simply not happening today. Re-regulation would do the exact opposite of what you state to desire: railroad investment would dry up, service would degrade and there certainly would be no capex.
You cannot force private investors to spend money. No matter how brilliant your command-economic plan may sound to you or anybody else, the free market in concert with private ownership will always provide the services the market desires at prices that make sense. Anything else requires government subsidy. Why on Earth would be take a profitable private industry, strangle it with regulations and then subsidize it?
But I guess that's what's all the rage on the political left today. Too many dreams of spending everybody else's money!
Added 2 years ago
jimnorton said:
The Staggers Act was supposed to allow the railroads to win back traffic lost to trucks and grow market share. Today, it appears the railroads are interested in neither. Maybe its time for re-requlation?
Added 2 years ago
Saturnalia said:
To add to what oltmannd pointed out, I'd be curious to know how much intermodal is in fact railroad carload conversion. There are tons of freight modes and lanes where it would make more sense for a shipper to containerize everything and ship to the nearest intermodal yard. Cuts out the switching fees, switching days, and the classification slowdowns.
Honestly, I care not in carload declines, as long as most of it is picked up as intermodal. It's easier for the railroads to handle and fits their operations better in many ways. Carload handling is very, very messy. Intermodal is much more streamlined - except in interchange.
Added 2 years ago
Jimblaze said:
Well written Fred
Count me as a supporter of this market commentary by you
Cheers!
Jim
Added 2 years ago
oltmannd said:
Just some more color... Currently, on a 140 mile district of single track, there are 6 locals out working. Many of them are working off the main requiring through trains to snake through sidings or wait for them to clear to get by. Add in four works zones where track and signal folk are trying to get their inspection and work done and you don't exactly have recipe for a high performance railroad.
Added 2 years ago
oltmannd said:
It's worth noting that carload merchandise traffic has been and continues to decline. This is not new.
Intermodal traffic has been growing faster than the economy. Also not new. About half from international and half from truckload conversion. (although growth is not always in a straight line...)
Coal continues to die a fast death.
Mechandise traffic becomes more "boutiquey" every day - unique traffic with unique service demands.
If these trends are allowed to continue, what will railroading look like? What routes will prosper? Which will whither? What should trains and service look like? What should mgt be doing w.r.t. these trends?
Added 2 years ago
greyhounds said:
I don't want to get in to a dust up with Fred, but this wasn't new in 2006.
Freight traffic just doesn't grow at the rate the GDP grows. Some large and growing economic sectors produce very little freight. And it's been that way for a long time. Health care and information services are examples. Some of that growth actually has a negative effect on freight volumes. I subscribe to TRAINS, but I don't get a physical copy. No paper, no ink. I read a lot of books, and they're all ebooks. Little freight involved in that.
People may go to better restaurants, buy more upscale vehicles, or take nicer vacations. But that doesn't produce freight growth.
A lot of freight volume relates more to population growth rather than GDP growth. Think of animal feed. That freight grows with the population, not the wealth. People aren't going to eat more because they've got more money. They might eat more fancy meals, but the amount of animal feed the railroads have to move just won't increase with the amount spent.
Added 2 years ago
MP173 said:
The economy, after 10 years of growth is slowing down. It makes sense that the amount of freight is going to reflect that. Other factors are coming into play including the "Amazonation" of our economy. We dont want it tomorrow, we demand it tomorrow. Frankly I am starting to get a little tired of this attitude. Perhaps it is time for me to retire.
Speaking of Amazon, a comment earlier indicated they would not tolerate the service levels of railroads. Here is what I saw today:
NS 20E - hot intermodal Chicago - NYC train with 143 total trailers/containers had 15 UPS, 14 Fed Ex and 12 Amazon units.
NS 20K - Hot afternoon Chicago - NYC intermodal with 95 trailers/containers with 0 UPS, 5 Fed Ex, and 11 Amazon branded units.
These two are interesting trains as both have heavy trailer loadings, the afternoon 20K seems to have considerable refer business, no doubt to feed the masses in NYC area.
Meanwhile the CSX Q-010 their own hot Chicago - NYC train (in competition to 20E) has seen volumes drop dramatically over the years. Five years ago, it was not unusual for it to carry 150 trailers and containers with 75 UPS loads alone. This summer a typical Q010 would carry 50-75 total trailers/containers with perhaps 15 UPS loads.
CSX has it's spots - Chicago / St. Louis to Boston is strong and Chicago to Philly is massive but it appears that NS has aggressively targeted the eastern intermodal market. I have not looked at overall weekly data to substantiate this, but simply by observing and counting units.
My trucking customers are cautious and have seen rates drop dramatically this year. My son is in 3PL and tells the same story. The truckers are simply tightening their belts to chase or retain lanes.
Lets see how the rest of the year plays out. I am sensing an upturn but that could be a post summer bump.
Ed
Added 2 years ago
solar said:
I would suggest the major increase in GDP is service industries, IT and small consumer items.
Added 2 years ago
A McIntosh said:
I recently saw an article, I forget by who, that the recent jobs numbers showed a loss of 4,500 trucking jobs and several trucking firms going bankrupt. The point made is that there is a slowdown in manufacturing with a possible recession ahead. Alex
Added 2 years ago
oltmannd said:
I-85, I-95 and I-81 remain jammed with trucks - the last untapped high volume long haul truck lanes in North America, as CSX and NS just sit there and watch the trucks go by. Once upon a time, NS talked a good bit about the I-81/85 market and how ripe it was for the picking. Remember the "Crescent Corridor?" Problem was, the cobbled together 19th century routes were too slow and expensive (these things go together). Eight crews from Harrisburg to Memphis versus 4 from NJ to Chicago.
NS couldn't find any public partners to help pay to improve the railroad's routes, so that was that. Meanwhile, gobs of money go out the door to buy back stock and pay dividends and management focuses on extracting more cash from operations.
This sounds like a "going out of business" sale. Just extract cash and funnel it to the owners.
Added 2 years ago
Victrola1 said:
Suck out too much and kill the golden goose. Jump with a golden parachute. Dump the remains at government's door. Repeat process.
Increased irrelevance may result in government not allocating massive amounts of public money to resuscitate the remains.
Added 2 years ago
rrnut282 said:
This just proves that railroads are their own worst enemy. They make money in spite of themselves, not via nay concerted effort. Without reinvestment, they are setting up to repeat the 1960s. The almighty OR is not god. Happy, repeat customers are a sign of a healthy organization with a future. How many happy customers are out there?
Added 2 years ago
D.Carleton said:
That's all well and good but there's a joker waiting in the deck: reregulation. All of this is playing into the hands of the wrong actors. 'Twas fun whilst is lasted but the ride is about to get bumpy.
Added 2 years ago
SD60MAC9500 said:
The railroad renaissance is exactly what drew the Hyena's in for the kill.. The pack was hungry and the RR's were ripe for the taking. Even the pack get's full of sustenance and moves on leaving a carcass that will cost more to rebirth.. Who will reverse this decline? Not a soul being groomed right now with the over emphasis on PSR. Anyone who reverses the decline will have to come from outside the railroad camp..Maybe someone from a prominent supply chain provider..
On another note. Speaking of Canada if I were CP. I'd be taking notes of what CN is in the works of becoming.. CP is just getting traffic back, but CN brimming with traffic. Is in he process of becoming an entity that goes beyond railroading..This should be good to watch!
P.S. Don't throw in the towel just yet...
Added 2 years ago
Jeffrey Blackwood said:
I would add the EVP's lack of trust in his people and of a vision. Wallace came up through the "admin" side of railroad - the cost centers, not the revenue producers. So yes, he's not oriented in growth. No one on the railroad wanted the law or admin departments to grow; they wanted those folks to go away.
Added 2 years ago
MICHAEL KLASS said:
You hit the nail on the head, Fred. Railroad's want revenue growth, but not volume growth. The so-called "pricing discipline" is a narrow-minded obsession with getting a rate increase every year, even in the face of losing business.That every deal has to cross the desk of CSX's CMO is an indictment of the railroad's pathetic lack of marketing expertise and skill.
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It kinda looks like Americans have been subject to continuous social engineering since the end of WWII.
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judgement put
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Orwell called his book 1984 as a thin veiling of 1948.
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Arthur Pendragon
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General Patton was right... and then he was murdered.
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Tank_Shy
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The 'engine' that creates the 'reality' that we all 'must study' is failing.
One question; why does this false reality need to exist?
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Dr Phuckit
2 hours ago
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It makes total sense if you think like a Conspiracy Nutter.
The Conspiracy is, ALL social media is controlled by the Spy Agencies.
That is, by blackmail, coercion, bribes they can get these companies to do what ever they want.
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Son of Loki
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Are Roberts and Podesta part of a pedophile intelligence operation also?
Asking for a friend.
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clot shot
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Roberts likely blackmailed. Podesta is one of the people running the operation
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whether underground
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The answer to the question is **** yes.
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Time to play
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The Clinton's are the true masters of espionage and nefarious means too trap people into a life of slavery! Epstein learned his trade from the Clinton's!
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Nothing new here. From 2012 to 2018 the FBI paid out $548 million dollars to hired informants and criminals. Crime does pay if you work for the FBI. The real question is: was that all tax free?
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ScottDLS
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They sent a 1099 to the informants' fake names and SSN's
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