-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
https://blerfblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/how-to-kill-rail-renaissance-and-maybe.html
Many wont like to hear your criticisms (except for the PSR part) but it needs to be said.
Just cutting costs and not trying to grow new business is a recipe for failure long term. Stagnation is end game.
charlie hebdo Many wont like to hear your criticisms (except for the PSR part) but it needs to be said. Just cutting costs and not trying to grow new business is a recipe for failure long term. Stagnation is end game.
It is not often that I have seen eye-to-eye with The Professor... But with his 'take' mentioned above, and the link he also showed, with his previous Thread entry; He has a point !
I happen to live on a major BNSF routing KC(Argentine,and Big IM facility, at Gardner.Ks) Traffic is heavy in both directions, East and West>.
FTL (also) "... The Merchandise story is one of raising rates on traffic that doesn't have real alternatives. Here's the Revenue per unit in constant 2017 dollars..."
Recently, the 'merchandise' traffic has been getting less and less, [in solid train moves] It seems to be consolidated into trains with DPU's, in the middles and at least, a DPU on the rear. OR, they(Boxes, Reefers, Hoppers), are used to buffer between tank cars (*Possibly, also a :Risk' management tool (?) making the 'so called, 'land-barges', ( sometimes,so-named around here, on these Forums?).
DPU's, are normally, unmanned, and controlled by the engineer on the lead unit. A method that alows the railroad toi control crew costs. These longer trains then require more infrastructure to get from point to point...The railroads must spend more money to move them, or move less freight. $$$$$$$+.- (?)
PSR creates departure schedules, and waiting for full train lengths, and numbers of loads, before moving. We have seen the demise of such as Pool Cars, and merchandise boxes, what I have seen more and more, are strings of mechanical reefer cars; they seem to place them on TOFC intermodal trains.
Several times, our poster here, Murphy Siding, has complained about deliveries of his carloads of lumber....Again, single car movements, take the PSR hits.
We are in a time of a different kind of railroading; good, or bad, time will tell????
samfp1943 charlie hebdo Many wont like to hear your criticisms (except for the PSR part) but it needs to be said. Just cutting costs and not trying to grow new business is a recipe for failure long term. Stagnation is end game. It is not often that I have seen eye-to-eye with The Professor... But with his 'take' mentioned above, and the link he also showed, with his previous Thread entry; He has a point ! I happento live on a major BNSF routing KC(Argentine,and Big IM facility, at Gardner.Ks) Traffic is heavy inboth directions, East and West>. FTL (also) "... The Merchandise story is one of raising rates on traffic that doesn't have real alternatives. Here's the Revenue per unit in constant 2017 dollars..." Recently, the 'merchandise' traffic has been getting less and less, [in solid train moves] Itb seems to be consolidated into trains with DPU's, in the middles and at least, a DPU on the rear. OR, they(Boxes, Reefers, Hoppers), are used to buffer between tank cars (*Possibly, also a :Risk' management tool(?) making the so called land barges, ( sometimes,named around here, on these Forums?). DPU's, are normally, unmanned, and controlled by the engineer on the lead unit. A method that alows the railroad toi control crew costs. These longer trains then require more infrastructure to get from point to point...The railroad must spend more mone to move them, or move less freight. $$$$$$$+.- (?) PSR creates departure schedules, and waiting for full train lengths and numbers of loads before moving. We have seen the demise of such as Pool Cars, and merchandise boxes, what I have seen more and more, are strings of mechanical reefer cars; they seem to place them on TOFC intermodal trains. Serval times, or poster here, Murphy Siding, has complained about deliveries of his carloads of lumber....Again, single car movements tke the PSR hits. We are in a time of a different kind of railroading; good, or badm, time will tell????
I happento live on a major BNSF routing KC(Argentine,and Big IM facility, at Gardner.Ks) Traffic is heavy inboth directions, East and West>.
Recently, the 'merchandise' traffic has been getting less and less, [in solid train moves] Itb seems to be consolidated into trains with DPU's, in the middles and at least, a DPU on the rear. OR, they(Boxes, Reefers, Hoppers), are used to buffer between tank cars (*Possibly, also a :Risk' management tool(?) making the so called land barges, ( sometimes,named around here, on these Forums?).
DPU's, are normally, unmanned, and controlled by the engineer on the lead unit. A method that alows the railroad toi control crew costs. These longer trains then require more infrastructure to get from point to point...The railroad must spend more mone to move them, or move less freight. $$$$$$$+.- (?)
PSR creates departure schedules, and waiting for full train lengths and numbers of loads before moving. We have seen the demise of such as Pool Cars, and merchandise boxes, what I have seen more and more, are strings of mechanical reefer cars; they seem to place them on TOFC intermodal trains.
Serval times, or poster here, Murphy Siding, has complained about deliveries of his carloads of lumber....Again, single car movements tke the PSR hits.
We are in a time of a different kind of railroading; good, or badm, time will tell????
Railroad physical facilities are habitually behind the delvelopment of operating plans such as PSR. Terminal facilities cannot hold complete trains that are being run. Sidings cannot hold the trains that are being run. Terminals are blocked out for hours as PSR monsters are 'doubled' together from multiple yard tracks over a lead that prevents switching or the yarding of other trains over that same yard lead, thus restricting the operation of the terminal. Crews spend multiple hours in putting the trains together so they don't have enough HOS time left to move the train to the destination terminal, let alone be able to yard the train on multiple tracks at that destination.
With PSR terminals need to have 15-20K foot Departure/Arrival yards and similar sized sidings on single track lines. Road crossing locations need to be seriously looked at with the eye towards allowing the PSR Monsters to be held out of a Terminal without blocking road crossings or having to cut road crossings that exist.
Today's terminals are sized for yesterday's pre PSR sized trains.
To run fewer bigger trains one needs bigger terminal facilities to both originate and terminal the PSR Monsters efficiently.
When apportioning work between Terminal and Line of Road - thought has to be given to which crews are 'on the clock' and what is the real cost to the portion of the orginaztion that uses up the 'clock'. T&E labor agreements allow for a number of operating strategies - some cost in terminal manpower and some cost in line of road manpower. As of the time I retired, there was open aggression between Terminal and Line of Road Management about who's crews were going to do the required work - as the 'Goals' of each class of management featured 'the other class' would do the work.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
In all the years of PSR (and the years of PSR lite that came before), "growth" was never uttered as a defining characteristic of said philosophy.
Don't know why anyone would be surprised, really. I mean, you really shouldn't.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
Balt: Crossings are only part of the equation. (and private crossings are somewhat easier to deal with than public crossings .... both have issues.) .... Earthwork and how to accomplish that in areas with less than 100 feet out to the R/W line are a bear combined with utility snafus. The era of 15 foot track centers is largely over and the huge "pads" around turnouts along with the obsession with access roads for dwindling track & signal forces creates headaches in terms of $$$, safety and elbow-room...
mudchickenBalt: Crossings are only part of the equation. (and private crossings are somewhat easier to deal with than public crossings .... both have issues.) .... Earthwork and how to accomplish that in areas with less than 100 feet out to the R/W line are a bear combined with utility snafus. The era of 15 foot track centers is largely over and the huge "pads" around turnouts along with the obsession with access roads for dwindling track & signal forces creates headaches in terms of $$$, safety and elbow-room...
Such things are where the costs are in any project be it for rail or for highway. Highways can deal with more severe grades than railroads can when it comes to crossing elimination - of course there are locations that when you try to go under the railroad you strike water and going over presents a whole host of other issues. That is one of the reasons Civil Engineers are still being educated by colleges and you can then show them, they don't know anything real world yet.
charlie hebdo https://blerfblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/how-to-kill-rail-renaissance-and-maybe.html
Short summary: NS intermodal, measured as "units moved divided by GDP", has declined overall since 2007, and the reason for this specifically since 2018 is because of PSR.
To quote Bill Lumbergh: "Oooo...yeahhhh, ummm...I'm gonna have to go ahead and sort of disagree with you there."
First of all, using "units moved divided by GDP" only makes sense if you're deliberately trying to make rail results look bad. Most GDP growth over the time period in question happened in fields like software that present no market opportunities for railroads. (See https://itif.org/publications/2023/05/30/six-tech-industries-accounted-for-more-than-one-third-of-gdp-growth-in-the-last-decade/). Rail has lost market share by other measures as well, but this particular metric doesn't show anything about how competitive rail shipping is.
Second, correlation does not equal causation. "Intermodal traffic on NS dropped in 2018, and NS implemented PSR in 2018" taken together do not, in fact, demonstrate that PSR had any effect whatsoever on NS intermodal traffic.
In fact, there's a much better hypothesis available for the fluctuations in NS's intermodal traffic: see the graph of historical trucking costs at https://www.truckingdive.com/news/operational-costs-of-trucking-American-Transportation-Research-Institute-2023-report/685581/.
Note that fluctuations in trucking costs would explain the intermodal falloff not just in 2018, but in 2015 as well (before NS got into the PSR game).
Now, that doesn't prove causation either. But if you ask most shoppers why the choose intermodal over truck, about 99% of the time, the answer comes down to cost. So the cost of trucking is in every way a superior explanation to "PSR" in explaining why NS intermodal fell off between 2018 and the pandemic.
(Yes I am deliberately ignoring 2022 which was just a goofy year all around in the transportation sector.)
Dan
dpeltier charlie hebdo https://blerfblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/how-to-kill-rail-renaissance-and-maybe.html Short summary: NS intermodal, measured as "units moved divided by GDP", has declined overall since 2007, and the reason for this specifically since 2018 is because of PSR. To quote Bill Lumbergh: "Oooo...yeahhhh, ummm...I'm gonna have to go ahead and sort of disagree with you there." First of all, using "units moved divided by GDP" only makes sense if you're deliberately trying to make rail results look bad. Most GDP growth over the time period in question happened in fields like software that present no market opportunities for railroads. (See https://itif.org/publications/2023/05/30/six-tech-industries-accounted-for-more-than-one-third-of-gdp-growth-in-the-last-decade/). Rail has lost market share by other measures as well, but this particular metric doesn't show anything about how competitive rail shipping is. Second, correlation does not equal causation. "Intermodal traffic on NS dropped in 2018, and NS implemented PSR in 2018" taken together do not, in fact, demonstrate that PSR had any effect whatsoever on NS intermodal traffic. In fact, there's a much better hypothesis available for the fluctuations in NS's intermodal traffic: see the graph of historical trucking costs at https://www.truckingdive.com/news/operational-costs-of-trucking-American-Transportation-Research-Institute-2023-report/685581/. Note that fluctuations in trucking costs would explain the intermodal falloff not just in 2018, but in 2015 as well (before NS got into the PSR game). Now, that doesn't prove causation either. But if you ask most shoppers why the choose intermodal over truck, about 99% of the time, the answer comes down to cost. So the cost of trucking is in every way a superior explanation to "PSR" in explaining why NS intermodal fell off between 2018 and the pandemic. (Yes I am deliberately ignoring 2022 which was just a goofy year all around in the transportation sector.) Dan
I get the GDP indexing may not be totally a good thing if growth in various sectors of the economy grew at different rates. I also couldn't account for increased car capacity on the Merchandise side.
But, it showed decent growth during the Rail Renaissance period for intermodal - back when NS paid close attention to IM growth. When Moorman left and Squires couldn't hold up to the barbarians at the gates, that whole focus went away.
Coal remains dead man walking.
Merchandise is just niche business.
All the new EV battery and car plants in GA are on the interstates, not so much the RRs. That doesn't mean RRs aren't part of the supply chain - the stuff is just in containers.
Part of the issue, I think, is the depressing thing that so much of the intermodal business has been cut-rate priced, essentially to mineral-train sort of level. If you then apply PSR-style notch-5 operation of the intermodal trains, because "speed is no longer of the essence" (it's William H. Vanderbilt and the 1880s writ new) you wind up with something even more price-dependent. You won't build much of a renaissance on that even if distributed autonomous stack units become a 'thing'.
Overmod Part of the issue, I think, is the depressing thing that so much of the intermodal business has been cut-rate priced, essentially to mineral-train sort of level. If you then apply PSR-style notch-5 operation of the intermodal trains, because "speed is no longer of the essence" (it's William H. Vanderbilt and the 1880s writ new) you wind up with something even more price-dependent. You won't build much of a renaissance on that even if distributed autonomous stack units become a 'thing'.
Yes. Two things. Fuel cost has always mattered, but the OR/PSR push changed it from "fuel is a cost of doing business" to "saving fuel cost IS the business".
Speed isn't so much about how fast the top speed is as much as it is how long you are going at very low speeds. The solution for this electrification. Cutting fuel costs at least 2/3 should allow for some HPHRs to be spent raising speeds on those slow sections.
I calculated a train from Atlanta to Charlotte (260 miles) operated at 0.85 HP/ton versus 1.7 HP/ton electric would save over two hours time in an unipeded 8 hour trip and $5k in fuel cost.
The time savings come from going up grade faster, primarily, and recovery from slow speed curves.
Are RRs really thinking about what the the market for freight transport will be in 10 or 20 years, especially given the trend over the past 20 years?
oltmanndAre RRs really thinking about what the the market for freight transport will be in 10 or 20 years, especially given the trend over the past 20 years?
The railroads might be, but the activist investors want to know how big they can expect their next dividend check to be. Who cares about 5-10-20 years from now?
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...
zugmann In all the years of PSR (and the years of PSR lite that came before), "growth" was never uttered as a defining characteristic of said philosophy. Don't know why anyone would be surprised, really. I mean, you really shouldn't.
Are you suggesting it was always marketing bosh for the investment class?.... I believe we have a winner.
Most investors are focused on now and maybe one or two years in the future. Nothing new there But management has been also for the past 20 years along with just doing things the way they have always been done. Ken Greyhounds encountered that stubborn inertia years ago.
BaltACD mudchicken Balt: Crossings are only part of the equation. (and private crossings are somewhat easier to deal with than public crossings .... both have issues.) .... Earthwork and how to accomplish that in areas with less than 100 feet out to the R/W line are a bear combined with utility snafus. The era of 15 foot track centers is largely over and the huge "pads" around turnouts along with the obsession with access roads for dwindling track & signal forces creates headaches in terms of $$$, safety and elbow-room... Such things are where the costs are in any project be it for rail or for highway. Highways can deal with more severe grades than railroads can when it comes to crossing elimination - of course there are locations that when you try to go under the railroad you strike water and going over presents a whole host of other issues. That is one of the reasons Civil Engineers are still being educated by colleges and you can then show them, they don't know anything real world yet.
mudchicken Balt: Crossings are only part of the equation. (and private crossings are somewhat easier to deal with than public crossings .... both have issues.) .... Earthwork and how to accomplish that in areas with less than 100 feet out to the R/W line are a bear combined with utility snafus. The era of 15 foot track centers is largely over and the huge "pads" around turnouts along with the obsession with access roads for dwindling track & signal forces creates headaches in terms of $$$, safety and elbow-room...
Correct Dan. When truckers operational cost cascade, truckers can offer lower rates. Due to the superior service quality of trucks. When truck rates reach or near parity with IM rates. Shippers will convert to highway.
Opposite of Don.. IM is not dying.. Far from it. A better way would be to say IM has stagnated.. At least for now ..
I seriously doubt if Don's motivation was "deliberately trying to make rail results look bad."
A national business concern that cannot keep up with growth in GDP is by definition stagnant or even in decline. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of their business plan, if they even have one.
charlie hebdo I seriously doubt if Don's motivation was "deliberately trying to make rail results look bad." A national business concern that cannot keep up with growth in GDP is by definition stagnant or even in decline. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of their business plan, if they even have one.
I'm saying the Rail Renaissance was a good thing. PSR is a very attractive box canyon. A wonderful tool for having a "going out of business" party.
The trends have been obvious. Intermodal is the only way forward.
Can trucks undercut intermodal on cost? No...mostly. But, if it takes you 9 crews to go 1200 miles from NJ to Memphis...maybe. Same RR takes four crews to go 930 miles from NJ to Chicago. Has anybody done anything about it? No. Moorman talked about it, then quit. RR is throwing off gobs of cash. Can't think of any good places to spend it other than giving it back to investors - and a few nickel and dime IT things. That's a "going out of business" strategy.
I'm not wanting anybody to "look bad". I just want them to wake up!
I recall Matt Rose telling a story after the Berkshire Hathaway purchase of BNSF that Warren Buffet told him to run the railroad for the next 100 years, or something to that effect.
And we have seen BNSF plug away ever since on capacity improvements.
oltmannd Intermodal is the only way forward. Can trucks undercut intermodal on cost? No...mostly. But, if it takes you 9 crews to go 1200 miles from NJ to Memphis...maybe. Same RR takes four crews to go 930 miles from NJ to Chicago. Has anybody done anything about it?
Can trucks undercut intermodal on cost? No...mostly. But, if it takes you 9 crews to go 1200 miles from NJ to Memphis...maybe. Same RR takes four crews to go 930 miles from NJ to Chicago. Has anybody done anything about it?
You seem to be saying labor is a significant impediment to growing the intermodal business. And management has not come up with a workable plan to deal with it.
If management believes the President of the United States might show up at the union hall or even walk a picket line, they probably are reluctant to take on the union head-to-head. As seen in the auto negotiations, taking a strong stance against labor is not likely to result in a win-win.
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
PJS1 oltmannd Intermodal is the only way forward. Can trucks undercut intermodal on cost? No...mostly. But, if it takes you 9 crews to go 1200 miles from NJ to Memphis...maybe. Same RR takes four crews to go 930 miles from NJ to Chicago. Has anybody done anything about it? You seem to be saying labor is a significant impediment to growing the intermodal business. And management has not come up with a workable plan to deal with it. If management believes the President of the United States might show up at the union hall or even walk a picket line, they probably are reluctant to take on the union head-to-head. As seen in the auto negotiations, taking a strong stance against labor is not likely to result in a win-win.
Typical accountant. Straight to blame labour.
As we're all aware a crew can only work 12 hours at a time, that's the law and it is so for good reason. What the railroad does with the crew in that 12 hours is up to them. They could get out of the yard in an hour or two and then average 40-50 mph on a straight, level double track CTC mainline, but these days it is more likely to for them to run out of hours before they've made it much more than 100 miles. Long, heavy trains take much longer to build and yard and are more difficult to operate out on the road, along with not fitting in sidings or spots between crossings.
There are procedures in the union contracts for how to do things like lengthen crew districts and re-allocate employees, and the Class I's have done so in the past when and where it makes sense. Yes, you have to eat the material change payment costs and negotiate some other conditions with the unions, but it is very possible. Doing so can indeed lead to long-term savings and smoother operations, but it is pointless to try this unless the railroad's physical plant can allow it to happen.
Railroad management violates the contracts and fights their workers every single day, and they are never afraid of taking a hard line in contract negotiations.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
oltmannd I'm not wanting anybody to "look bad". I just want them to wake up!
They know they look bad, and they don't care. The public doesn't vote in railroad managers and executives.
As has been mentioned repeatedly all that they care about is the stock price. The top executives don't need to have a long term plan because they and the major shareholders won't probably won't be involved with this railroad in 10 years. Might as well cut as much as possible and get out while the going's still good.
A plan for going out of business indeed.
SD70Dude oltmannd I'm not wanting anybody to "look bad". I just want them to wake up! They know they look bad, and they don't care. The public doesn't vote in railroad managers and executives. As has been mentioned repeatedly all that they care about is the stock price. The top executives don't need to have a long term plan because they and the major shareholders won't probably won't be involved with this railroad in 10 years. Might as well cut as much as possible and get out while the going's still good. A plan for going out of business indeed.
Wall Street's push has been for the past decades - What can you show me at the bottom line NOW!. Max the bottom line by any means, legal or illegal, shortsighted though those decisions may be. MAX NOW!
Maybe Berkshire Hathaway will be allowed to acquire an eastern road one day (said with rose-colored glasses on.)
kgbw49I recall Matt Rose telling a story after the Berkshire Hathaway purchase of BNSF that Warren Buffet told him to run the railroad for the next 100 years, or something to that effect.
John Wannamaker of Philadelphia and New York, a significant figure in American business in the 19th century, always described himself as a merchant, not a businessman; the idea being that a businessman could run any business. But a merchant knew a great deal about one special business and was somehow operating on a more exalted level.
Warren Buffet in this instance reminds me of Wannamaker: He's an investor, not a businessman; he's in it for the long haul. Berkshire Hathaway and BNSF are and will be the beneficiaries of that kind of wisdom. The other railroads, not so much.
Remember that when the NYNH&H RR wanted a fast and really first class train, the very exemplar of that railroad and railroading, they didn't call it The Businessmen Limited.
NKP guy kgbw49 I recall Matt Rose telling a story after the Berkshire Hathaway purchase of BNSF that Warren Buffet told him to run the railroad for the next 100 years, or something to that effect. John Wannamaker of Philadelphia and New York, a significant figure in American business in the 19th century, always described himself as a merchant, not a businessman; the idea being that a businessman could run any business. But a merchant knew a great deal about one special business and was somehow operating on a more exalted level. Warren Buffet in this instance reminds me of Wannamaker: He's an investor, not a businessman; he's in it for the long haul. Berkshire Hathaway and BNSF are and will be the beneficiaries of that kind of wisdom. The other railroads, not so much. Remember that when the NYNH&H RR wanted a fast and really first class train, the very exemplar of that railroad and railroading, they didn't call it The Businessmen Limited.
kgbw49 I recall Matt Rose telling a story after the Berkshire Hathaway purchase of BNSF that Warren Buffet told him to run the railroad for the next 100 years, or something to that effect.
The pronouncements of business courses in college in the mid 60's and early 70's was that their 'education' could make anyone who completed their courses could run any business with no need to KNOW the business.
Didn't agree with it then and 50+ years of real world experience has proved it beyond any doubt as being just hot air.
Those that don't KNOW the business they are in are a clear and present danger to the organizations they are in charge of.
mudchicken Transportation Engineers are NOT automatically qualified to railroad. (Something MS-DOT could not understand)
Transportation Engineers are NOT automatically qualified to railroad. (Something MS-DOT could not understand)
Similarly, it has been my experience that EE's are NOT automatically qualified for dealing with electric power systems.
Erik_Mag mudchicken Transportation Engineers are NOT automatically qualified to railroad. (Something MS-DOT could not understand) Similarly, it has been my experience that EE's are NOT automatically qualified for dealing with electric power systems.
Somewhere in New England, the mechanical engineer that created/championed the business administration discipline is spinning in his grave since that discipline lost touch with reality.
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