This says it all! A sad time for Roanoke!https://wfirnews.com/news/ns-shutting-roanoke-distribution-center-jobs-relocating-or-eliminated
.
Jim; it's an even sadder commentary on the idiots that pass for current NS leadership.
Not the actions of a growing corporation. More like retrenchment, cutting costs to keep the wolves away for a short time before the NS is sold off.
I rarely find myself in agreement with your posts, but I think you nailed it with that comment.
It's not an act of a healthy and growing company. It's an act of one that's in a rapid decline.
Against this, however, we need to ask whether it is the act of a company, healthy and growing or otherwise, that is moving its corporate presence to Atlanta.
So it goes Charlie and Leo. I suspect "they" are trying to maximise the profitablility of NS in any way possible to make it an attractive take-over target for "someone."
Happened to the company I used to work for. Then the CEO took his "Golden Parachute" and hit the road.
Mod-man, "Hot-Lanta" probably just made them an offer they couldn't refuse. Either that or someone at NS thinks Atlanta is a more fun place to live than stodgy ol' Norfolk.
Only "they" know what they're up to, assuming even "they" know themselves. The amount of "right hand not knowing what the left hand's doing" in business nowadays is astounding. Maybe it's always been that way?
What is the Roanoke Distribution Center? An intermodal facility?
I don't get why the engine shops would be part of this RDC.
Or are they simply two different unrelated things, and the reporting is unclear on that?
Why would the closure of those things have any connection to where the corporate office is (or will be)?
BigJim This says it all! A sad time for Roanoke! https://wfirnews.com/news/ns-shutting-roanoke-distribution-center-jobs-relocating-or-eliminated
https://wfirnews.com/news/ns-shutting-roanoke-distribution-center-jobs-relocating-or-eliminated
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
Lithonia OperatorWhat is the Roanoke Distribution Center? An intermodal facility?
It is hard to figure this out, at this point, because everyone is copying off the 'official release' from Norfolk Southern, which doesn't explain, and being too lazy to ask this rather fundamental question.
Basically I'm waiting for someone like Big Jim who knows the situation to comment definitively. My speculation is that the 'Roanoke Distribution Center' is the place where locomotives are held for regional distribution around NS as needed -- perhaps including the lines of stored power on the 'other side' of VMT from the shops. Someone could call Jeff Sturgeon in Roanoke (540) 981-3251 and have him find a straight answer if he doesn't already know...
If I'm right, it's because the "RDC" is where the engines go after they're outshopped but before they are needed for service. This will of course move to Juniata because that's where the the locomotives will be...
Why would the closure of those things have any connection to where the corporate office is (or will be)
I mistakenly thought the 'Roanoke Distribution Center' was concerned in some way with corporate management -- 'distribution' of supplies and materials system-wide, perhaps -- and this would be better overseen (f not necessarily logistically provided) if close to the 'new' complex in Atlanta, which is considerably larger than a 'headquarters' the size of the building in Roanoke involves. Of course if it's locomotive-related, it has nothing to do with going to Atlanta.
I'm tempted to say that with the falling-off of rebuilding projects at Juniata this was an obvious, and probably justifiable, move for NS. I may be Pennsylvania-chauvinistic, but I think Juniata is simply a better place to conduct motive-power work for what NS currently needs. I do note that everyone at the east-end facility is being offered at least a comparable job 'up north', so this isn't a cutback born of desperation -- it's more a way to keep Juniata at full utilization.
Leo_Ames I rarely find myself in agreement with your posts, but I think you nailed it with that comment. It's not an act of a healthy and growing company. It's an act of one that's in a rapid decline.
Well, even long odds pay off now and then!!
Overmod it is the act of a company, healthy and growing or otherwise, that is moving its corporate presence to Atlanta.
I think this is correct. Roanoke is over, Atlanta is the future.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
It is my understanding that the RDC is where parts are distributed from, also located at East End Shops.
charlie hebdo Not the actions of a growing corporation. More like retrenchment, cutting costs to keep the wolves away for a short time before the NS is sold off.
I don’t think it’s all that dire. Although it’s certainly a kick in the head to the workers laid off. But to the railroad it’s a needed adjustment. Roanoke was focused on coal and coal isn’t doing too well these days.
Keeping workers where they’re no longer required will just harm the company and cause it to shed even more workers in the future. I once saw a sign in a trucker’s office that said: “You were hired, not adopted.” It seems cruel, but it’s reality. If the business goes away, as with coal, so will the jobs. It cannot be sugar coated. It has happened to me.
The future is in intermodal, unit bulk such as grain, and niche carload. NS needs to get its act together with intermodal by realizing they are a “Price Taker”, and not a “Price Setter.” They probably can’t do anything about the coal.
I can only speak for my local area which doesn't have any "giant" manufacturers but the medium size and smaller ones are now doing OK--no signs of recession with them. Some of it is due to the Corporate tax cut that was made after the president came in office but sales income has increased for most all of them. They don't help the RR's that much since almost all of what they make goes by truck or air freight although several do get raw materials by rail. As for China, one business professor friend recently said "Just going along with China is a long term disaster but standing up to them is not going to be without pain."
It is not a healthy and growing company, considering the large drop in coal traffic since 2008. There has also been a long range trend of decline in the manufacturing economy, which today, has that sector in recession. That decline has been hastened by our trade war against China. Now you add the coronavirus outbreak, and it plus our trade war, will push China into severe economic decline, which will further hammer our manufacturing sector. I think we are headed for a major slowdown by this summer.
[/quote]
alphasalphas wrote the following post 10 hours ago: I can only speak for my local area which doesn't have any "giant" manufacturers but the medium size and smaller ones are now doing OK--no signs of recession with them. Some of it is due to the Corporate tax cut that was made after the president came in office but sales income has increased for most all of them. They don't help the RR's that much since almost all of what they make goes by truck or air freight although several do get raw materials by rail. As for China, one business professor friend recently said "Just going along with China is a long term disaster but standing up to them is not going to be without pain."
We were certainly told that it was going to be without pain for us.
There are manufacturing companies thriving, but they alone do not indicate a thriving manufacturing sector, which is in recession according to the performance measures. It is slower today than any time since the recession of the early 1980s. It took a plunge after the housing bubble burst in 2008, and has remained slow since then. I was expecting a long overdue rebound with a new business-friendly Administration. Instead we get platitudes about a "roaring economy."
If something just had to be done about trade with China, it could have been done incrementally and responsibly as an adjustment over time. But no, we get a tinfoil hat economist with deep personal grievances against China as the new World Trade Administrator. The year 2019 has been a continuing decline in manufacturing plus a continuous drop in GDP.
We were told that the tariffs would make China feel pain, and that would make them behave better in terms of trade. We were also told the incredible tinfoil lie that this pressure on China’s economy would not hurt us one bit. Yet it is now widely acknowledged that, in addition to the trade war slowing China’s economy, it has slowed our economy all through 2019 with no end in sight.
Suddenly and ironically, our anti-China policy is getting a big boost with the help of the coronavirus outbreak. We wanted China to feel some pain, and our wish has come true as the country struggles to survive. Their economic growth has been several times higher than ours for a long time, and now they are suddenly cut off from the world as they are decimated by the spreading epidemic plus our tariffs. They have a massive population that has to be fed. Look for rising instability in China as the stakes rise on all issues facing them. Now we suddenly offer them the hand of sympathy and we wonder why they look the other way.
NS is killing themselves.
Flintlock76 Either that or someone at NS thinks Atlanta is a more fun place to live than stodgy ol' Norfolk.
Easy one. Squires doesn't have a boat.
The real reason for Atlanta is NS got a great deal selling the gulch and it funded the new building in Atlanta. Each piece of this was dependent on the other.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
So the Roanoke backshop thing... Probably should have happened in 1999. The 1958 PRR modernization plan that Conrail executed in the late 70s, created a shop that could handle a 5000 locomotive fleet on a 4-5 year overhaul cycle. It's laid out for efficient work flow.
NS never needed two backshops.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.