I learned more about PSR from this article than anywhere else...including this forum:
https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2019/09/17/special-report-how-csx-is-changing-the-rules-of.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo
NKP guy I learned more about PSR from this article than anywhere else...including this forum: https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2019/09/17/special-report-how-csx-is-changing-the-rules-of.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo
Interesting article, and especially that reader poll at the end of it.
71% of readers polled said railroads need more regulation. THAT should scare the hell out of some people!
My answer to the poll question was "unsure." I was in the 8% group.
Flintlock76 NKP guy I learned more about PSR from this article than anywhere else...including this forum: https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2019/09/17/special-report-how-csx-is-changing-the-rules-of.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo Interesting article, and especially that reader poll at the end of it. 71% of readers polled said railroads need more regulation. THAT should scare the hell out of some people! My answer to the poll question was "unsure." I was in the 8% group.
IF railroads in some way get re-regulated they will have EHH's PSR and CSX's implementation of it to blame.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
A real eye-opener. Borderline fraud.
BaltACD Flintlock76 NKP guy I learned more about PSR from this article than anywhere else...including this forum: https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2019/09/17/special-report-how-csx-is-changing-the-rules-of.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo Interesting article, and especially that reader poll at the end of it. 71% of readers polled said railroads need more regulation. THAT should scare the hell out of some people! My answer to the poll question was "unsure." I was in the 8% group. IF railroads in some way get re-regulated they will have EHH's PSR and CSX's implementation of it to blame.
Well there it is folks, if any big businesses get themselves so regulated they don't know what hit them they typically have only themselves to blame.
So it was, so it is, and so shall it ever be.
The really sad thing about history is some people, maybe most people, especially people in positions of power or responsibility, never learn from it.
The late columnist James J. Kilpatrick said it better than I ever could concerning corporate stupidity and short-sightedness, and I agree with him 100%...
"I'm a conservative, and a capitalist, and business has no bigger friend than me, but they make it awful hard for me sometimes!"
That’s essentially what Matt Rose implied in his interview with Railway Age a few months ago.
There's a rumor going around at work. It's not exactly a new one, but some other outside the railroad sources suggest there may be some truth to it. UPS is gong to start pulling business off the rails. Not just us, but all the railroads.
If that happens, maybe it will be a wake up call they need. If you can't keep a customer you actually care for somewhat, how are you going to keep the rest? While many say they don't have an alternative, most do. It's called a truck. Yes it might be more expensive, but others have bit the bullet and done it. Once those customers are gone, good luck on getting them back.
Jeff
BNSF's financial committment and twenty plus year operation at Willow Springs shows what it has done for UPS. And of course UPS has their own huge sorting operation next door. If UPS is changing it may be for enternal reasons.
jeffhergert There's a rumor going around at work. It's not exactly a new one, but some other outside the railroad sources suggest there may be some truth to it. UPS is gong to start pulling business off the rails. Not just us, but all the railroads. If that happens, maybe it will be a wake up call they need. If you can't keep a customer you actually care for somewhat, how are you going to keep the rest? While many say they don't have an alternative, most do. It's called a truck. Yes it might be more expensive, but others have bit the bullet and done it. Once those customers are gone, good luck on getting them back. Jeff
Still seeing many UPS trailers on UP West. If that business stops, it will be noticeable. Did your sources say why UPS would leave the rails?
charlie hebdo jeffhergert There's a rumor going around at work. It's not exactly a new one, but some other outside the railroad sources suggest there may be some truth to it. UPS is gong to start pulling business off the rails. Not just us, but all the railroads. If that happens, maybe it will be a wake up call they need. If you can't keep a customer you actually care for somewhat, how are you going to keep the rest? While many say they don't have an alternative, most do. It's called a truck. Yes it might be more expensive, but others have bit the bullet and done it. Once those customers are gone, good luck on getting them back. Jeff Still seeing many UPS trailers on UP West. If that business stops, it will be noticeable. Did your sources say why UPS would leave the rails?
Disatisfaction with the service being provided. I found this article from late last year. https://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20181011-off-the-rails/
Since the article was written, the Teamster contract has been ratified. Since the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen is affiliated with the Teamsters, I get their newsletter. Although the numbers I see when looking on line for how many OTR jobs to be created differ, the newsletter said UPS will create 1000 OTR jobs.
Someone else said UPS is hiring full time OTR drivers off the street. Something they usually don't do. Like a lot of their other operations, you start part time and work up to full time. If that's true, that says too me that they plan on expanding their OTR operation faster than normal operations would call for.
I hope it is just rumor.
jeffhergertI hope it is just rumor.
I've heard the same rumors out this way. From what I understand, PSR hasn't been extended to our intermodal side (as of yet). Who knows if it will. Every month brings a new flavor.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
zugmann jeffhergert I hope it is just rumor. I've heard the same rumors out this way. From what I understand, PSR hasn't been extended to our intermodal side (as of yet). Who knows if it will. Every month brings a new flavor.
jeffhergert I hope it is just rumor.
PSR is far from being Precision and its Scheduling is far from Repeatable.
That form of PSR is what the customers want and expect. What they are getting is Piled Sh.t Rotten - and they are responding has anyone would with Rotten Sh.t Piled on them.
It would appear that some bean counter has concocted a scenario where handling the UPS business isn't sufficiently profitable.
Priority-Shifting Railroading.
Every week, it's something new being phased in or out.
But in the end, it's all about how much can be cut.
zugmann ... But in the end, it's all about how much can be cut.
BaltACD zugmann jeffhergert I hope it is just rumor. I've heard the same rumors out this way. From what I understand, PSR hasn't been extended to our intermodal side (as of yet). Who knows if it will. Every month brings a new flavor. PSR is far from being Precision and its Scheduling is far from Repeatable. That form of PSR is what the customers want and expect. What they are getting is Piled Sh.t Rotten - and they are responding has anyone would with Rotten Sh.t Piled on them. It would appear that some bean counter has concocted a scenario where handling the UPS business isn't sufficiently profitable.
Reading our recrew report, I notice giving priority to UPS business (and they come right out and say 'sorting UPS trains') causes a lot of other trains to die on the HOS. I'm sure that even though they hate the thought of losing UPS, they'll rationalize it's loss on that basis. That it was just getting in the way of our other trains.
Oh well, store more engines, furlough more people, charge remaining customers more money. Things will be OK.
jeffhergert BaltACD zugmann jeffhergert I hope it is just rumor. I've heard the same rumors out this way. From what I understand, PSR hasn't been extended to our intermodal side (as of yet). Who knows if it will. Every month brings a new flavor. PSR is far from being Precision and its Scheduling is far from Repeatable. That form of PSR is what the customers want and expect. What they are getting is Piled Sh.t Rotten - and they are responding has anyone would with Rotten Sh.t Piled on them. It would appear that some bean counter has concocted a scenario where handling the UPS business isn't sufficiently profitable. Reading our recrew report, I notice giving priority to UPS business (and they come right out and say 'sorting UPS trains') causes a lot of other trains to die on the HOS. I'm sure that even though they hate the thought of losing UPS, they'll rationalize it's loss on that basis. That it was just getting in the way of our other trains. Oh well, store more engines, furlough more people, charge remaining customers more money. Things will be OK. Jeff
As a personal project for a number of years, I did analysis of CSX Recrews, day to day, month by month for each division on CSX.
The cause of recrews - congestion and weather related issues. Congestion came from two sources - terminal conestion and holding trains out and secondarily crew shortages. With crew shortages causing the highest number of recrews.
If you don't have a crew on duty at a crew change location for the 2nd train to arrive - you have to hold that train short of the crew change location or you lock the location down as 'most' crew change locations on single track railroads can only 'hold' two trains - one on the Main and one in the Siding - if a train is already waiting on a crew at the location, the 2nd train has to be held elsewhere. Depending on how bad the crew situation becomes you can end up with trains parked 100 miles on either side of a crew change location and when crews do become available it will take two crews to get things moving again - one to fetch the train from where it was tied down and bring it to the crew change location and another crew to take it away from the crew change location.
BaltACDThe cause of recrews - congestion and weather related issues. Congestion came from two sources - terminal conestion and holding trains out and secondarily crew shortages. With crew shortages causing the highest number of recrews.
Whilst visiting Deshler this summer, at least one train sat for almost an hour waiting for the crew van to show up. And that was the train sitting on the wye by the park. Another crew was in the van to relieve a train sitting on the main west of town, too.
Watching the cam, as I often do, it's not unusual to see a train (or two) sitting south of town, waiting for relief.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68 almost an hour waiting for the crew van to show up.
Russell
csxns tree68 almost an hour waiting for the crew van to show up. Seen the same thing on the Cherryville and Shelby siding.
Seen the same thing on the Cherryville and Shelby siding.
There are many things that enter into the decisions about recrewing trains.
Does the train 'have time' to make the final terminal? With how much time to spare? - Many times trains do have time (when you have to make the decision) to make their final terminal then something happens - to them or to some other train in the mix.
From the time the decision is made, it takes 2 hours to get the crew on duty - transportation gets ordered at the same time - the transportation vendor may or may not be able to supply the transportation when requested. The second decision to be made is whether to use one taxi or two. If using two, what point ar you going to send it to for the crew that is going HOS - can the taxi find that point? That gets the HOS crew off their train sooner (when it works) but they have to secure their train since the arrival of the recrew is not precisely known.
A second tactic CSX used was to call 'Road Switcher Crews' in order to have those crews recrew one or more trains within a nominal 60 mile distance from the proper terminal. This was done for two reasons, economy of manpower and under the metrics used by CSX to 'hide' the recrew(s). Road Switcher rate of pay was slightly higher than the Through Freight rate of pay.
Over the road transportation takes time once the recrew gets on duty and gets their paperwork in order.
People get criticized for ordering recrew and then have the trains make the final terminal. People get criticized for having HOS crew wait for their relieving crew. People get criticized for every aspect of train operations when things go perfectly, in the perfect world every train makes their final terminal within the HOS. Reality is somewhat differentl. During the 7 years I kept track of the 'official recrews' (that were identified on a daily published report) CSX system would have somewhere between 1500 & 5000 recrews per month among its various divisions; with the normal range being in the 2000-2500 area.
We used to also have enough yard crews that you could send one to drag trains in, but you know, psr and all that. Have to have the bare minimum number of people doing the absolute maximum amount of work.
BaltACDDuring the 7 years I kept track of the 'official recrews' (that were identified on a daily published report) CSX system would have somewhere between 1500 & 5000 recrews per month among its various divisions; with the normal range being in the 2000-2500 area.
That sure doesn't sound like PRECISION railroading to me. Did any one cause predominate that could be addressed or was it everything from equipment to track issues, to weather? if no single cause predominate, what were the top three? Or were they not tracked?
Electroliner 1935 BaltACD During the 7 years I kept track of the 'official recrews' (that were identified on a daily published report) CSX system would have somewhere between 1500 & 5000 recrews per month among its various divisions; with the normal range being in the 2000-2500 area. That sure doesn't sound like PRECISION railroading to me. Did any one cause predominate that could be addressed or was it everything from equipment to track issues, to weather? if no single cause predominate, what were the top three? Or were they not tracked?
BaltACD During the 7 years I kept track of the 'official recrews' (that were identified on a daily published report) CSX system would have somewhere between 1500 & 5000 recrews per month among its various divisions; with the normal range being in the 2000-2500 area.
Terminal Congestion, Crew Shortages, Weather, MofW Curfews, catastrophic signal issues.
As such, the causes were not identified in the data stream I got the numbers from. Communication with personnel of adjoining divisions would identify the issues the divisions were having. A division could run along for several days without recrews and then BANG - 10 in one day and 12 the next and then slowly work back to zero. A engine failure or a major mechanical failure can have a cascading effect on the operation of a high volume segment of railroad.
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