"Burned Before, Railroads Take Risks" - Article in 06-29-2010 Wall Street Journal

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Hey, thanks much for that tip/ hint ! That ought to work easier for a lot of people.

Later on today I saw that the comments to this WSJ article include a lengthy and informed one by Lawrence Kaufmann - a sometimes Trains columnist and with extensive railroad, industry, and government experience. A lot of it was about the lack of quality journalism on the railroad industry these days - no surprise there, eh ?

- Paul North.

[BT CPSO 266]

 If anyone wants to read the full article, just copy and past the title in google and click, the entire article should show up.

Thanks for posting and I take Mr. Young's comment very seriously:

"A lot of people don't understand railroads," says Mr. Young

 The industry needs to open up to the public more by improving the PR, and try to re-educate the public on this new rail revolution.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

It's part of the WSJ's "The Road Back" series, and is mainly about how this time around - unlike in the early 2000's - the railroads are continuing with their capital spending for "maintenance" and capacity expansion projects at the rate of $ 20+ billion per year, as well as increases in market share and profitability, and re-hiring laid-off employees, etc.  It's by Jennifer Levitz, and can be found at page B-1, cols. 1 - 4, and page B-2, cols. 3 - 6, of the print edition, though the on-line version is dated June 28, 2010 instead, at:

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704569204575328994241506542.html?mod=googlenews_wsj 

and/ or 

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704569204575328994241506542.html?  

Frankly, the article is only fair - it is another of the 'same old, same old' kind once again, and it could have used some proof-reading and/ or editing. For example, it says that "Union Pacific widened tunnels so that its double-stacked trains could get through" [emphasis added; that's nice - now what will they do about the increased height ? - PDN]; that "The company says it can add 20 boxes to a train with only a 1% increase in the train crew." [emphasis added; that's good, too - now where will they put the additional 0.02 of a crew member ? - PDN]; and in the print edition - though not in the on-line one - "CSX, which runs trains in 23 states east of the Mississippi, is spending $400 million to hasten the movement of freight on double-track trains from the Midwest to ports on the mid-Atlantic coast." [emphasis added; those trains straddle 2 tracks now ? - PDN], etc.

- Paul North.    

P.S. - Last week the anonymous engineer of a NS local freight whom I was chatting with someplace told me that the company was so short of people now that it was 'buying back' their vacation time, and paying a $1,000 bonus as well - some people were getting $4,000 to $5,000 paychecks for those weeks.  I recall that zugmann had said someplace here back in April or so that even back then his terminal was out of men and engines, and it wasn't even vacation season yet, so he was wondering what the railroad was going to be doing to get enough people to run.  Anybody else hear or see anything about that ? - PDN.