zardozI have a question regarding this whole PRS fallacy: Supposedly one of the benefits of PSR is the ability to "move more tonnage with fewer locomotives". Someone please explain this to me.
Two ways.
The main one is fewer locomotives in the fleet because the train flow is balanced by design. (there are other ways of balancing flow, but the EHH way is the dirt-simplest.) This where the bulk of it comes from.
The second way is much smaller, but make each locomotive "increment" more useful. If you have 16000 tons to move and need 1 HP/ton:
Two 5000 ton trains and a 6000 ton train each need two "big" locomotives (4000+ hp) for a total of 6 locomotives.
Two 8000 ton trains need two each for a total of 4 locomotives. This is much smaller, overall, and tends to reduce the avg over the road speed a bit.
The somewhat overpowered three train scenario should result in somewhat faster trip times on the average - better than what the service requires.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Ulrich More tonnage with fewer crews maybe.. not fewer locomotives. And I doubt power is fitted exactly to tonnage, and they wouldn't leave 2000 tons behind just because taking those extra tons would require one more locomotive. PR or no, it's about optimizing available resources.. whether its locomotives or crews, cars or track.
More tonnage with fewer crews maybe.. not fewer locomotives. And I doubt power is fitted exactly to tonnage, and they wouldn't leave 2000 tons behind just because taking those extra tons would require one more locomotive. PR or no, it's about optimizing available resources.. whether its locomotives or crews, cars or track.
Actually, they probably would because PSR has put that extra locomotive into storage and it is no longer available. PSR crippled the port of Halifax as a container port. Unloading containers there was successfully promoted as giving a day or two earlier arrival in Chicago, a premium service. But then PSR started leaving them sitting on the dock for days because the train was maxed out. Might as well bypass Halifax and unload the whole ship in New York, save some dollars, and have more predictable service.
PSR may be an excellent method for operating a railroad. But the railroad should be in the business of providing transportation at a profit, which is more than just playing trains. Constraining the growth of a business in a growing economy is a good recipe for mediocrity, and even shrinkage as dissatisfied customers depart. The railroads are somewhat protected by many commodities having no realistic choice but rail for shipment, and often only one railroad available to serve them.
How many customer surveys have the railroads paid for that told them customers were looking for consistant service? Not faster or cheaper, though, I'm sure they came in second or third. What does PSR give the customer? Less consistancy.
So consistently inconsistent..
rrnut282What does PSR give the customer? Less consistancy.
Hope we are wrong but what does a low OR really mean. Here it means that routine track maintenance is being put off. So now CSX will have deferred maintenance costs to build up . Once all the capital needed to do that maintenance is removed and CSX then has to put so much capital into getting the deferred maintenance resolved that their OR will "suddenly" return to being over 100,. That will happen because the old adage pay now or pay more later applies to deferred maintenance. Prime example is the NEC of Amtrak.
One way this problem can be resolved is requiring companies to somehow place deferred maintenance into the OR costs calculation. How? Unknown but certain costs of track surfacing, signal upgrades, loco replacements, etc per track mile might be one way? That is even if not completed still in costs? Maybe revenue ton miles per track section as well?
blue streak 1 Hope we are wrong but what does a low OR really mean. Here it means that routine track maintenance is being put off. So now CSX will have deferred maintenance costs to build up . Once all the capital needed to do that maintenance is removed and CSX then has to put so much capital into getting the deferred maintenance resolved that their OR will "suddenly" return to being over 100,. That will happen because the old adage pay now or pay more later applies to deferred maintenance. Prime example is the NEC of Amtrak. One way this problem can be resolved is requiring companies to somehow place deferred maintenance into the OR costs calculation. How? Unknown but certain costs of track surfacing, signal upgrades, loco replacements, etc per track mile might be one way? That is even if not completed still in costs? Maybe revenue ton miles per track section as well?
In 1968, the glorious Penn Central had an OR of 83.62, with years of deferred maintenance. Your logic escapes me.
Actually the UP post is one of the easiest to read that I've seen. It is a bit frightening as a stock holder to see that UP has not erned the total return to us since 2014; its also interesting that the real reason for all the borrowing is stock buy back which is of course the way senior exectives keep their compensation high both in incentives and stock bonuses. And for the economy as a whole they are far from the only corporation doing this. Big Short anyone.
Mantle Ridge cashing out more shares -
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3507542-mantle-ridge-exits-nearly-1b-position-csx
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Doubtless off to wreck another company. The job of an "activist investor" is never done.
blue streak 1 Here it means that routine track maintenance is being put off. So now CSX will have deferred maintenance costs to build up .
blue streak 1 Here it means that routine track maintenance is being put off.
Here it means that routine track maintenance is being put off.
That does not seem to be true from my seat.
An "expensive model collector"
Euclid rrnut282 What does PSR give the customer? Less consistancy. Please explain what this means and why it is so.
rrnut282 What does PSR give the customer? Less consistancy.
Please explain what this means and why it is so.
Well, in the post above mine, that I replied to said this,
Unloading containers there was successfully promoted as giving a day or two earlier arrival in Chicago, a premium service. But then PSR started leaving them sitting on the dock for days because the train was maxed out.
I don't think that needs much explaination, but if you insist... As a shipper, I worked to get my 100 container shipment to Halifax on the implied promise that it would be in Chicago (or where ever) a day or two faster than other options. Image how I feel when only 80 or so of my containers show up. Now I have a logistical nightmare of expediting/re-routing a part of my shipment that I had already arranged (and presumably paid for.) What did PSR get me, a headache and endless phone tag and frustration.
Shippers who reliably shipped 85-car unit trains were told no more, even if there was a contract still in effect. Now each car has to be billed separately and probably at a higher price. Instead of zipping through stations, my shipment now goes over the hump like every other loose-car shipment. Pay more, get less service. This is a fictional account based upon some of the PSR 'tenets.' YMMV
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