Reading about railroads here, in Trains Magazine and in other lesser informed places, it's hard to get a gauge on North America's railroad system. For every news article about expansion of some service or line there's another discussing discontinuing a service or line. It reminds me of a building materials magazine I get. Page 1 lists all the expansions and new store openings. Page 2 lists all the bankruptcies and store closings. You’d think our industry is going full speed ahead jogging in place. On the whole, is the railroad industry expanding or contracting right now? What do you think? In my little corner of the plains, railroading seems prosperous and expanding slowly.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Around here it is stale but will like to expand.
Russell
23 17 46 11
Not sure.. volumes are up so from that aspect its expanding. Employment and assets have been in decline for some time so from that aspect shrinking.
Murphy Siding On the whole, is the railroad industry expanding or contracting right now? What do you think?
Hard to ignore the reports of locomotives and rolling stock sitting in storage.
From my window on the world snug in the rust belt, the big boys increasingly appear to be pursuing a business model where they are specialists handling long distance thru freight, while prefering to spinoff more labor intensive operations to short lines and regionals.
Seems like I see far fewer trains in total than I did a dozen years ago, so anecdotally I would guess it's contracting.
The Hunter Harrison critics have been liberal in chastizing CSX for (under his brief tenure) "chasing away" less lucrative customers as a form of cost reduction,.
I suspect all the big boys have been doing this in some form or another, although perhaps not as blatantly as CSX under Harrison. Probably more along the lines of expending very little effort towards growing business segments not alighned with their current priorities.
If they are hauling more tons with less employees on about the same amount of tracks, wouldn't that point to the railroad becoming more efficient?
Murphy Siding If they are hauling more tons with less employees on about the same amount of tracks, wouldn't that point to the railroad becoming more efficient?
Operating ratios have been going down for the past 30 years...
I would say that overall the railroads are expanding in my area (Western Canada). Sure some low-traffic branchlines have been abandoned but total traffic has skyrocketed.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Murphy Siding If they are hauling more tons with less employees on about the same amount of tracks, wouldn't that point to the railroad becoming more efficient? Ad
Yes, but I do not recall the word "efficient" being part of your original question.
It's changing. Except when the damn government precluded it, the railroad network and its traffic have always been changing.
Some parts are declining, some parts are growing. That's quite normal.
Intermodal is up, carload is down. There is a future in perishables, and a past in coal. There will be adjustments, AKA change, and change always upsets people.
Overall, I believe there is a good future. But people have to embrace and seek the future while letting go of the past. For some folks, that's very hard to do.
The Sioux Falls/Sioux City area needs an intermodal terminal and good intermodal service. With that service rail in the area will survive and prosper.
greyhoundsIt's changing. Except when the damn government precluded it, the railroad network and its traffic have always been changing. Some parts are declining, some parts are growing. That's quite normal. Intermodal is up, carload is down. There is a future in perishables, and a past in coal. There will be adjustments, AKA change, and change always upsets people.
+1. Especially in the past 40 years.
Railroading is an expensive business. The railroads need to peer a bit farther down the tracks than most industries to figure out what the future looks like lest they wander down a dead end chasing the wrong goals.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
UP seems to be crowded around Chicago, with business it can't handle. We had a very busy day of train-watching Thursday that just happened to include an overview of Proviso: no place to put intermodal trailers anywhere (and a repo move arrived Proviso from the west--another railroad might call that a baretable move); 1200 cars in the receiving yard (it started getting plugged at about 800 when I was working there; no reason that aspect should change), the classification bowl looked full, though they were humping; and UP has offered prospective new-hires a $10,000 bonus if they are hired at Proviso. That I never saw before. (I can't...part of my Railroad Retirement agreement says I can never work for a railroad again.)
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
CShaveRR(I can't...part of my Railroad Retirement agreement says I can never work for a railroad again.)
But you can be a high paid independent consultant!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD CShaveRR (I can't...part of my Railroad Retirement agreement says I can never work for a railroad again.) But you can be a high paid independent consultant!
CShaveRR (I can't...part of my Railroad Retirement agreement says I can never work for a railroad again.)
It's all about status quo these days, but the activity in the urban areas related to non-common carrier light rail and commuter rail, and all the phony noise that goes with it, makes it appear that the entire rail world is expanding.
From personal experience, a very low OR and a relentless focus on reducing it further may not always be a good thing.
I have one account that allows me to cherry pick their good loads.. So I do that and my OR with these guys is very low (for trucking anyway). And I've got another account that requires me to service all of their lanes.. the good ones and not so good. Thus my OR with this second account is less than spectacular. BUT.. looking at it from the customers' standpoint.. to whom am I more valuable.. the one that allows me to cherry pick the good loads?... or.. the one for which I move everything? Obviously number 2. Number 1 could easily switch me out for another supplier while customer number 2 would have a much harder time finding someone else who can handle all of their diverse shipping needs. So the moral of the story is a low OR is good so long as the puruit of such does not lessen your overall value to the customer.
Bringing the above back to rail.. cutting out alot of services and focussing on unit trains and trunk lines did reduce the railroads' OR over the years, but from a customer's perspective, rail is nolonger the diverse provider it once was. 50 years ago it would have been possible to send a boxcar from Boise, ID to Palmerston, ON.. can't do that anymore. And that's just one example among many. Have we gone too far in pursuit of a low OR? Personally, I think we have.. We cut a little too deep when we got rid of all those branches and secondary lines. Sure, some of them had to go.. but not to the extent that it did.
mudchicken...But that's about anyone 50 miles from home with a briefcase
There is a "wisdom" in the fire service that there are no experts within 100 miles of your firehouse. Of course, I'm 100 miles from someone's firehouse, so I'm an expert there, if not in my own station...
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...
EXPERT: "X" is an unknown in mathematics. "SPURT" is a drip under pressure in plumbing.
In the rest of life, an Expert is an unknown drip under pressure.
(I have been in that position!)
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Semper VaporoEXPERT: "X" is an unknown in mathematics. "SPURT" is a drip under pressure in plumbing. In the rest of life, an Expert is an unknown drip under pressure. (I have been in that position!)
Best defininatiom I have ever heard!!
CShaveRR UP seems to be crowded around Chicago, with business it can't handle. We had a very busy day of train-watching Thursday that just happened to include an overview of Proviso: no place to put intermodal trailers anywhere (and a repo move arrived Proviso from the west--another railroad might call that a baretable move); 1200 cars in the receiving yard (it started getting plugged at about 800 when I was working there; no reason that aspect should change), the classification bowl looked full, though they were humping; and UP has offered prospective new-hires a $10,000 bonus if they are hired at Proviso. That I never saw before. (I can't...part of my Railroad Retirement agreement says I can never work for a railroad again.)
That bonus is for other locations, too. I don't know if it's system wide or just the specific places where they are having problems hiring. I've been told that you don't get the bonus all at once. You get it in pieces as you meet certain criteria. The last of it, being employed for one year. I don't know if they mean a calendar year, or 12 months of service. I'm thinking the latter, because it they quit before finishing the year, they have to repay what's already been paid out to them.
We had borrow-outs to a few areas where they were holding hiring sessions and getting one or two, sometimes none at all, including my area so I've heard. We have a new hire class this week, 37 is what I heard, plus one more of 15 for next month. All people that were furloughed have been recalled. The word is 6 out of 45 or so came back. Rules classes have been canceled for the next three months because of man power issues.
Now, if only I knew why. Train counts aren't really up. For my terminal, they might actually be down as some trains are put in the long pool. They have had spot shortages that sometimes slows things down. (A couple times, I've went to work 12 hours later than I should because they were out of available conductors.) So maybe they are going to flood the boards so they can have crews available any time.
Jeff
Murphy Siding On the whole, is the railroad industry expanding or contracting right now? What do you think? In my little corner of the plains, railroading seems prosperous and expanding slowly.
On the whole, is the railroad industry expanding or contracting right now? What do you think? In my little corner of the plains, railroading seems prosperous and expanding slowly.
My sense is that North American freight railroading is in the midst of a profound transformation.
Traditional carload freight is, it seems to me, slowly dying. It fell more than 10% during the 2008/9 Great Recession. It fell another 10+ percent during the past few years, thanks to the coal decline. This is why railroads are closing hump yards.
Meanwhile, intermodal units have increased by half-again during the past 15 years or so, a period during which they surpassed standard carloads in number for the first time. The net effect has likely been a wash, or more likely an overall decline, for rail freight. Either way, railroads have lost, and continue to steadily lose, market share to trucks, especially on shorter hauls.
What will remain of today's big railroads when this sea-change is complete? I don't know, but I doubt it will be today's status-quo.
- Ed Kyle
jeffhergert............ All people that were furloughed have been recalled. The word is 6 out of 45 or so came back........
Murphy Siding jeffhergert ............ All people that were furloughed have been recalled. The word is 6 out of 45 or so came back........ Do I understand that correctly? 45 people were called back. 6 came back but the other 39 moved on to something else?
jeffhergert ............ All people that were furloughed have been recalled. The word is 6 out of 45 or so came back........
Do I understand that correctly? 45 people were called back. 6 came back but the other 39 moved on to something else?
Yup. Actually, I rounded down to 45. The number I was told was 47.
It's understandable. For some, they were furloughed soon after they had completed their training. Some may have been recalled before, worked for a few weeks or month, then furloughed again. While being furloughed when at the bottom of the list isn't unusual, the last few years the time spent cut off is far greater than the time working. It used to be you spent less time being cut off as you gained a few years. Not so much the last few years. It's almost like the 1980s (or the 1930s) when some guys were furloughed for many years.
If you have found a decent job, do you leave it to come back for what might only be a couple of months' work? If you can ride out the times being furloughed, and some can, it's worthwhile to come back. If you can't just pick up a new job or have a family it might not be worth it.
Ed KyleEither way, railroads have lost, and continue to steadily lose, market share to trucks,
csxns Ed Kyle Either way, railroads have lost, and continue to steadily lose, market share to trucks, I have a ? here ,if true how long will it be when the last freight train runs will it be in my life time will the rails be pulled up and can the USA depend on 18 wheelers to haul everything i mean everything that rail hauls and when the rails are gone and no other way to ship by land only by Interstates and highways will trucking charge anything they want because their is no other way to get it their,just a ? just wondering not trying to start anything just like to know what people think.
Ed Kyle Either way, railroads have lost, and continue to steadily lose, market share to trucks,
I have a ? here ,if true how long will it be when the last freight train runs will it be in my life time will the rails be pulled up and can the USA depend on 18 wheelers to haul everything i mean everything that rail hauls and when the rails are gone and no other way to ship by land only by Interstates and highways will trucking charge anything they want because their is no other way to get it their,just a ? just wondering not trying to start anything just like to know what people think.
jeffhergert Murphy Siding jeffhergert ............ All people that were furloughed have been recalled. The word is 6 out of 45 or so came back........ Do I understand that correctly? 45 people were called back. 6 came back but the other 39 moved on to something else? Yup. Actually, I rounded down to 45. The number I was told was 47. It's understandable. For some, they were furloughed soon after they had completed their training. Some may have been recalled before, worked for a few weeks or month, then furloughed again. While being furloughed when at the bottom of the list isn't unusual, the last few years the time spent cut off is far greater than the time working. It used to be you spent less time being cut off as you gained a few years. Not so much the last few years. It's almost like the 1980s (or the 1930s) when some guys were furloughed for many years. If you have found a decent job, do you leave it to come back for what might only be a couple of months' work? If you can ride out the times being furloughed, and some can, it's worthwhile to come back. If you can't just pick up a new job or have a family it might not be worth it. Jeff
That describes to a tee what happened at CN over the past several years, with about the same rate of return when recalled.
Now the business is back and CN is desperately short of crews...
I expect railroads to continue playing a role, just as barges still move freight on rivers and canals. Both modes are far smaller players in the total scheme of the transportation network than they once were on a percentage basis, but both are still viable and even busy.
In my small part of the world there is some limited railroad expansion, or at least the appearance of it. The city is paying to move the BNSF storage yard from downtown out to the edge of the city. The local development foundation is building an industrial park on another edge of town and connecting to a rail line. In the nearby area we've seen construction of a new grain load-out and some activity around existing ag facilities and ethanol plants. That combines with what I swear is an increase in the amount of pink gravel I see shipping past my office.
Our local paper includes a daily feature of news items from years past.
In today's paper:
March 8, 1918 - A motor truck line between Watertown and Syracuse will be operated this summer to relieve congestion on the railroad.
This would be on todays CSX St Lawrence Sub.
tree68 Our local paper includes a daily feature of news items from years past. In today's paper: March 8, 1918 - A motor truck line between Watertown and Syracuse will be operated this summer to relieve congestion on the railroad. This would be on todays CSX St Lawrence Sub.
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