JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — CSX Transportation has shut down the hump at Willard Yard in Ohio, the latest terminal to be converted to a flat-switching facility under CEO E. Hunter Harrison and his Precision Scheduled Railroading operating plan. Last ...
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2017/10/23-willard-hump-closed
Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine
It's great to trim excess capacity. That is until the next congestion-causing event occurs and you need it to get back on your feet. A lesson constantly being learned and forgotten by most railroads.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmannd It's great to trim excess capacity. That is until the next congestion-causing event occurs and you need it to get back on your feet. A lesson constantly being learned and forgotten by most railroads.
So long as originating terminals, who now do the majority of classification work, don't run out of room, then they won't need Willard to hump. They cut down the number of cars needing to be classed at Willard by well over 50%, thanks to blocking at origin points such as Grand Rapids, Detroit, etc.
It isn't that Willard provides extra capacity that it is being cut, but rather the work is being moved elsewhere with the intention to reduce the number of classifications each car goes through.
So, trains at origin serving yards are making more blocks. That's fine, as long as the train plan supports much more block swapping.
This is nothing new...
oltmanndSo, trains at origin serving yards are making more blocks. That's fine, as long as the train plan supports much more block swapping. This is nothing new...
The reality is that origin serving yards have had their facilities reduced over the past two decades and have very little room to make much more than two blocks - blocks to the hump yards on either side of the origin yards.
Local freights, operating inside the 12 Hour law and fighting for Main Track time are not in a position to 'classify' their trains into their terminals.
Spreading work out is one thing - IF where it has been spread to has the facilities and manpower to accomplish the work in a timely manner.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
CSSHEGEWISCH oltmannd It's great to trim excess capacity. That is until the next congestion-causing event occurs and you need it to get back on your feet. A lesson constantly being learned and forgotten by most railroads. That depends on whether the hump itself is being mothballed or removed. Consider what happened to Clearing Yard in the early 1990's. The humps sat dormant for an extended period due to traffic re-routes but remained in place. BRC re-invented itself under Ron Batory and managed to win the traffic back. If the humps on CSX are only being mothballed, the capacity would still be in place when traffic patterns change or increase.
Half the "goodness" of a hump yard these days is the automation and reporting that is managed by the hump yard control system. If they leave all that jewelry in place and keep it up to their current state of the art, then the capacity can be reclaimed. If they rip it out and use it as spares for the active humps, then it won't be cheap...
BaltACD oltmannd So, trains at origin serving yards are making more blocks. That's fine, as long as the train plan supports much more block swapping. This is nothing new... The reality is that origin serving yards have had their facilities reduced over the past two decades and have very little room to make much more than two blocks - blocks to the hump yards on either side of the origin yards. Local freights, operating inside the 12 Hour law and fighting for Main Track time are not in a position to 'classify' their trains into their terminals. Spreading work out is one thing - IF where it has been spread to has the facilities and manpower to accomplish the work in a timely manner.
oltmannd So, trains at origin serving yards are making more blocks. That's fine, as long as the train plan supports much more block swapping. This is nothing new...
Plus, there is the law of diminishing returns. Blocks and block swaps are great, but if you slice the baloney too thin, you'll be building blocks of only a car or three.
The block swap dance requires a pretty sophisticated and tightly run operating plan to gain a velocity improvement. The trains involved in the swap need to go by the swap location in the right order or the block could get stranded for a day. (I know EHH is all about letting the "next" train take the block, but on networks like CSX and NS, the next train by often isn't going on the right route, even if it's going the right direction - and you can wind up with all sorts of unbalanced capacity issues if the you start ad-hoccing)
Railroad operating plans are always being tweaked to make sure locations are building the most advantageous blocks. They even have models to optimize the blocking plan for maximum velocity. Whether they use them well is another thing.
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