Charlie, there's a lot of 'meat' in your post above, but I can only take the time now to respond to one portion of it, as follows:
lenzfamily
[snipped;
emphasis added - PD]]
3. I haven't seen anywhere that he has extensive mountain railroading experience.
4. I got the impression that he relies on himself and his knowledge base, which to be fair is considerable. He appears to be very much his own man as a leader. I can't imagine him being very consultative. I don't know how well he would listen, especially to those underneath him.
[snips] In a way I believe that is what has happened at CN. The information flow has been top down. As has been the decision making process.
For example: 1. I am amazed that non db power was placed on the Exeter switcher when MANY years of previous BCR operating experience dicated otherwise. 2. I am likewise amazed that after a series of wrecks on the Squamish and Lillooet Subs that management didn't do some significant head-scratching and initiate some formal Risk Assessments. No instead they continued to operate overlength trains (120 cars or so) in territory which for years had run trains no longer than 70-80 cars. Ask Tyler. I'm sure he'd tell you. I remember it that way too and I'm a lowly trainwatcher. No wonder the federal Transport Department ordered them to shorten trains and restore db equipped locomotives to the BCR.
Who at the higher levels was listening, either to the experienced operating crews. Remember the TSB report and the Transport Canada report refer to crew concerns being ignored. What trainman after being ignored continually is going to stick his/her neck out in an OSH cttee. All it could get you is black marks and worse from higher ups....especially in a top down culture.
[snip] I think Mr Harrison has led CN into some new and perhaps dangerous territory. I can imagine a bean-counter slavering over a 60% operating ratio, but in an enterprise such as railroading I expect this ratio would come with a high degree of risk. . . . . The result could be material or other operating failure with disastrous consequences. CN and Mr Harrison is experiencing the result of such 'pushing of the envelope' [snip]
An objective point of reference here my be helpful: Al Krug's ''Major Railroad Grades'' page on his ''Railroad Facts and Figures'' website at - http://www.alkrug.vcn.com/rrfacts/grades.htm - lists the following:
CANADIAN NATIONAL |
Yellowhead Pass |
EB 0.70% |
WB 0.4% 17 miles x 2 |
West of Jasper, AB. Trainlength 1% ~125km W of the pass |
BC RAIL |
Kelly Lake hill |
NB 2.2% 24 miles |
. |
Lillooet to Kelly Lake, BC |
?? |
NB 2.2% |
SB 2.2% |
D'Arcey to Mons, BC. Multiple hills in 46 miles |
At the bottom of the tabulation, Mr. Krug notes: ''Because of the many grades in the 1% range please limit your additions to 1.2% or greater unless it is unusually long, famous, or otherwise special.'' Clearly, the listed CN grades don't meet those criteria - so I surmise that they are shown likely simply because they are the maximum that CN has.
Further, the total fall on BC Rail's Kelly Lake Hill at 2.2% = 116 ft. per mile x 24 miles = 2,784 ft. In comparison, the total fall on CN's Yellowhead Pass at 0.4% = 21 ft. per mile x 17 = 357 ft. - only about 13 % or 1/8 as much. More importantly in this context, the drop over a mere 1 mile on the 2.2 % grade will theoretically accelerate an unbraked, uncontrolled, frictionless train to almost 60 MPH; on the CN's 0.4 %, that train would be moving only at about 25 MPH - this can be demonstrated and confirmed easily enough within the 1st minute of a ride on most amusement park's roller-coasters. And to perhaps state the obvious - the CN's grades aren't even in the same league with BCR's - or anyone else's, for that matter.
I agree that it is likely - but not absolutely certain - that Mr. Harrison's admittedly extensive experience is all on ''flatland'' railroads, and that he has no personal extensive mountain railroading background. Mr. Harrison's former employers per the Trains article, Illinois Central and St. Louis-San Francisco [''Frisco''] are nowhere on Krug's list, nor are any of the grades within the Chicago Region of BN that he was in charge of. However, when he was the No. 2 of BN's Seattle Region, it is quite likely that the former NP's Stampede Pass / Tunnel route, and the former GN's Stevens Pass / Cascade Tunnel route - both of which are also on Krug's list, each with 2.2 % grades, both WB and EB, which are significant grades in anybody's book - were within his territory. But we've not been told that he ever had anything to do with either of those grades on a day-to-day, in-the-field, on-the-train operating basis - in other words, it does not appear that he ever 'got his hands dirty' with those operations.
So the question I have to ask now: Is the CN management smart enough to 'know what they don't know' - or, in the words of the Serenity Prayer, do they have ''The wisdom to know the difference''. These events indicate that they do not.
Only a few days around a mountain railroad are enough to teach that 2 major different challenges are involved there, and the most difficult one - which also affects safety - is keeping the train under control during the descent. And that's not news or rocket science - it's been an inherent part of the business for almost 150 years now. To not know or respect that displays a stunning ignorance of some fundamental principles - ''Railroading 101'', as someone else in the Trains article said. Mountain railroaders are indeed a different breed, and - in order to survive, literally - have developed extremely different and specialized train-handling knowledge, techniques, and skills. That's not insulated small-group arrogance, that's a practical real-world fact - conversely, the mountain crews would probably be terrible at handling a high-speed freight train across a hog-back profile, or braking a 90 MPH passenger train.
Recently I've been reading several articles about the 1-mile long 2.3 % ''Slide'' at the top of the otherwise 1.8 % 12-mile EB descent from Gallitzin summit towards Horseshoe Curve and Altoona, PA. For decades now the rule there has been 12 MPH max. [only 8 MPH for 'mineral' trains'] approaching the Slide - any more than that and Klaxon horns go off, the signals go to stop, and the train is supposed to stop - or a penalty brake application will occur - and be inspected until the problem is ascertained and corrected. More important in this context Helpers are often assigned to EB downgrade trains simply to add their dynamic braking capability. Interestingly, the January 1985 Trains article on that operation was authored by the same Fred Frailey, who quotes a RFE saying '' If you don't have your train fully under control when you start down The Slide, you may already have eaten your last meal'' [pg. 31], and the Superintendent saying ''Our people have to be aware that under no circumstances are they to deviate from instructions. You just cannot play around with this mountain. The rules are time-proven and they are law as far as I am concerned.'' Notably, that Allegheny Division was the first ConRail division to go 1 million hours of work without a reportable injury. [pp. 31 - 33; emphasis added - PDN]
So what part of this hard-earned [in the blood of our predecesor trainmen, as is often said], long-standing - and far from secret - institutional knowledge and laws of physics were the CN officials unaware of, or think they were exempt or immune from [Q]
That 60's % Operating Ratio looks great - but that may be obtainable and sustainable only in a 'flatlands' railroad environment. In mountain territory, there are inherently going to be slower speeds and added costs - that just comes with the territory. A much higher OR and lower productivity than for the rest of the system are inevitable - but these are differing 'apples vs. oranges' situations, so should not be directly compared. To ignore or dismiss those kinds of fundamental differences may be symptomatic of an unwillingness to accept the reality that there are indeed some things that cannot be changed by sheer force of will or the 'culture', and that there are actual limits to one's personal power, no matter how forcefully expressed. Even BNSF's Rob Krebs figured that out.
- Paul North.
"This Fascinating Railroad Business"
(title of 1943 book by Robert Selph Henry of the AAR)