I was also targeting the comments about a UP expansion. I know that under Fred Green there was a close relationship with KCS; the last time KCS was offered for sale CP decided to pass as the asking price was too high. When Rob Ritchie was CP CEO he said in an employee town hall that CP had considered buying IC but found the price too high. CN was willing to pay more just to get Hunter Harrison.CP's corporate culture has always been to keep expenditures down, everything is always done the cheapest way possible while still getting the job done. Whether Hunter can still find more efficiencies without a large capital infusion remains to be seen.
My main point was that commentators and pundits from south of the 49th don't fully realize what a sensitive subject any takeover of a Canadian road, particularly a cultural icon like CP, would be in Canada.
And that's assuming the US regulators would approve the purchase of KCS by a Canadian road. Somehow I doubt that. CN did purchase an American icon, the IC, but those were different times. 911 changed alot, we're all alot more protectionist now than we were prior to 911.
CPRcst My main point was that commentators and pundits from south of the 49th don't fully realize what a sensitive subject any takeover of a Canadian road, particularly a cultural icon like CP, would be in Canada.
I don't know. The Illinois Central was more American even than apple pie, yet it got sold off to a Canadian road. Perhaps CP isn't so sacred... it could be sold off. At one point CP was closely tied to our national identity. Indeed, Canada as we know it would not exist but for the construction of the Canadian Pacific. But that's history... CP, as important as it is, is nolonger an integral part of Canada's national identity.
CPRcst I was also targeting the comments about a UP expansion. I know that under Fred Green there was a close relationship with KCS; the last time KCS was offered for sale CP decided to pass as the asking price was too high. When Rob Ritchie was CP CEO he said in an employee town hall that CP had considered buying IC but found the price too high. CN was willing to pay more just to get Hunter Harrison.CP's corporate culture has always been to keep expenditures down, everything is always done the cheapest way possible while still getting the job done. Whether Hunter can still find more efficiencies without a large capital infusion remains to be seen. My main point was that commentators and pundits from south of the 49th don't fully realize what a sensitive subject any takeover of a Canadian road, particularly a cultural icon like CP, would be in Canada.
I'll bet they wish that they hadn't paid $1.5B for the DM&E. Does anyone remember what CNW was paid for that track (not counting the IC&E) in the eighties, something like $30M, right?
DwightBranch I'll bet (CP wishes) that they hadn't paid $1.5B for the DM&E. Does anyone remember what CNW was paid for that track (not counting the IC&E) in the eighties, something like $30M, right?
I'll bet (CP wishes) that they hadn't paid $1.5B for the DM&E. Does anyone remember what CNW was paid for that track (not counting the IC&E) in the eighties, something like $30M, right?
This was one of Bill Ackman's arguments, saying he'd like to see CP sell it off. However, on subsequent threads exploring the subject here, a couple of CP railroaders showed how the DM&E was making money for the CP. Getting into Kansas City was also important.
In counting the price, remember to correct for inflation and much better times for the rails now over those of 30 years ago -- as well as for the IC&E.
Train 170 for Kansas City had a block of 40 Frac Sand Hoppers on the Head-end out of LaCrescent, MN on Thursday.
After reading some posts to this, I can agree with the Hump Yard closures being a good thing, but I still think that the closure of Intermodal facilities is bad.
The Sprinter service is on its final sprint this weekend, and the only logical reasons i can think of as to why they're eliminating their highest priority train between Chicago and the Twin Cities is because of an increase in competition and a decrease in demand.
More likely they decided that the equipment would make more money deployed elsewhere. Only competition is and always has been BNSF.
BaltACD cptrainman: I work a yard assignment as an engineer. I am talking about one yard relieving another yard. Same thing happened yesterday. Good for my pocketbook but hardly efficient. With all due respect, the view behind the control stand of a locomotive and the view in being responsible for the overall operation of a terminal and all the crews that work in it are vastly different. Having watched what happens when train and enginemen that 'knew it all' when beind the engines control stand and got into the office and found out they didn't know the questions, let alone know the answers to those question. If you have the better answers, bid in the next Yardmaster or Train Dispatcher bulletin that comes around and give your carrier the benefit of your expertise.
cptrainman: I work a yard assignment as an engineer. I am talking about one yard relieving another yard. Same thing happened yesterday. Good for my pocketbook but hardly efficient.
I work a yard assignment as an engineer. I am talking about one yard relieving another yard. Same thing happened yesterday. Good for my pocketbook but hardly efficient.
With all due respect, the view behind the control stand of a locomotive and the view in being responsible for the overall operation of a terminal and all the crews that work in it are vastly different. Having watched what happens when train and enginemen that 'knew it all' when beind the engines control stand and got into the office and found out they didn't know the questions, let alone know the answers to those question.
If you have the better answers, bid in the next Yardmaster or Train Dispatcher bulletin that comes around and give your carrier the benefit of your expertise.
I agree, but ... My view is from the switch stand level where as a manager has a higher level view. My comments about management are fair in that I always consider the fact I don't know everything. I know they get pressures from above that causes them to make decisions that to me are wrong. Customers, personel, company policy, equipment, etc. are all considerations I have no idea about when I am looking at the target on a switch stand.
You, sir, are speaking from experience, I imagine. Let me draw you a picture and you tell me how I am wrong.
Four days this week we have one yard crew sitting and waiting for another yard crew, which, the former, is on overtime, to complete their work. Simple math here. The company is paying 6 people to do the work of 3 and 3 of them are at 1.5 times rate. There is nothing in our collective agreement that stops us from relieving the other crew. The problem, we need a 5 or 10 minute drive to get to the other crew and we can't get one. The solution. Put us in a vehicle and take us to the other crew's location. Drive the other crew back to the station. Do we need to do a cost benefit analysis here?
Enter the managers. First, the "yard master" is fully aware of the situation but his hands are tied because he is at a remote location. However, the trainmaster is in the office right beside me. He is getting into his personal car and driving home because it is almost time to go home. He is taking a "quit". The relief trainmaster may or may not show up on time and then usually just gets into the company truck and drives away. They don't know what is going on and if they do, they don't care.
On a more positive note, there are a couple of trainmasters that I have full respect for. They come to work on time and do a little extra if required. They are out and about asking how they can help to get things moving. They will bring you a coffee once in a while or maybe even a meal if you have been working 10 or 11 hours with little or no breaks. I respect these trainmasters fully and will do anything reasonable to help them out. They remind me of the good officers from my army days.
These other clowns who show up late, don't care about the crews and don't care about the operations of their district, I have no time for them. I cannot wait for them to be gone.
Sir, you don't know my past. Be rest assured my choice of being behind the control stand is mine. I am there because I enjoy the work. I like trains and I like moving them. After college I was a junior manager at Sears when I decided I did not like sitting behind a desk all day answering emails. Some people like driving a desk, I like driving trains.
So I give my ideas to the managers I like. Most of the time they are ignored and that is fine. However, I have seen my ideas implemented and it gives me a great deal of satisfaction. I am willing to give my expertise to anyone who will listen and I am able to shut my trap when they say I am wrong.
Why did Ackman enter this proxy battle and install an new CEO? He saw we were underperforming and realized that management at all levels were not able to perform their duties. What I have seen so far since Hunter has taken over as CEO is proof that the operating employees were right in their belief that management is/was not accountable. It started at the top with the former CEO and it was seen at all levels. Fred Green was paid quite well to almost run this company into the ground. He wasn't accountable! Plan after plan was propsed from upper management just to have them fail. Why? Because management would not buy into the plans coming from Calgary. Without buy in at all levels, plans will fail.
Why did lower managment disbelieve the plans from upper managment? In my opinion it is because we stopped railroading. Like I said at the very top of this thread we changed our core philosophy from "keep the wheels turning", to "nobody moves, nobody gets hurt." This situation became very demoralizing.
This is why the shareholders voted to oust the previous CEO and install a new CEO. I guarantee we will start to see accountability from all levels. The bums at all levels will be weeded out and fired. It is easy to fire someone, doesn't matter if they are union or not.
It will be amazing how fast our OR will start to drop. It will start to drop in 1 or 2 quarters.
Thanks for letting me rant.
Sorry I knocked your comment from the top CPtrainman, I really like your view.
BaltACD cptrainman: I work a yard assignment as an engineer. I am talking about one yard relieving another yard. Same thing happened yesterday. Good for my pocketbook but hardly efficient. If you have the better answers, bid in the next Yardmaster or Train Dispatcher bulletin that comes around and give your carrier the benefit of your expertise.
I think this snottiness is totally uncalled for. And I suspect most of what CPtrainman has been telling us of would be invisible to a yardmaster and especially to a train dispatcher.
dakotafred BaltACD: cptrainman: I work a yard assignment as an engineer. I am talking about one yard relieving another yard. Same thing happened yesterday. Good for my pocketbook but hardly efficient. If you have the better answers, bid in the next Yardmaster or Train Dispatcher bulletin that comes around and give your carrier the benefit of your expertise. I think this snottiness is totally uncalled for. And I suspect most of what CPtrainman has been telling us of would be invisible to a yardmaster and especially to a train dispatcher.
BaltACD: cptrainman: I work a yard assignment as an engineer. I am talking about one yard relieving another yard. Same thing happened yesterday. Good for my pocketbook but hardly efficient. If you have the better answers, bid in the next Yardmaster or Train Dispatcher bulletin that comes around and give your carrier the benefit of your expertise.
If it is invisible to the Yardmaster - the Yardmaster needs to be fired for incompetence. In the yard these are the Yardmaster's crews, his responsibility for knowing who is doing what, where and when. If he doesn't know he has a crew on OT working and preventing a ST crew from working he is not doing his job.
Snottiness - everyone that is not the supervisor always believe they have all the answers when they haven't even seen a portion of the questions. I was guilty of this in the past for decisions up to my present level, and I am guilty of this at present for the decisions that are made above my level. All those who don't have to make the decisions for real, always believe they have the better idea. It is human nature.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
To be fair to Balt, this is revised from my earlier post as of 8:30 p.m. CDT:
Sounds like those "above your level" are always right. So, where do all these problems come from? And I'd like to know how a train dispatcher located hundreds of miles away is familiar with the kinds of local problems CPtrainman describes.
dakotafred Sounds like those "above your level" are always right. So, where do all these problems come from?
Sounds like those "above your level" are always right. So, where do all these problems come from?
They are not always right - but they are above my level. You deal with it and move on.
dakotafred To be fair to Balt, this is revised from my earlier post as of 8:30 p.m. CDT: Sounds like those "above your level" are always right. So, where do all these problems come from? And I'd like to know how a train dispatcher located hundreds of miles away is familiar with the kinds of local problems CPtrainman describes.
I do not want to answer for BaltACD, but my current job is the Assistant Chief Dispatcher for a class one, and you would be surprised what local terminal issues we get involved with. Many times if I am involved, the trick train dispatcher siting in front of me has to get involved as well. It doesn't matter if the terminal is the one that is 10 miles from the operation center, or on the other side of the division, so distance does not play a factor. As for where are the problems coming from, in my experience, it comes from when people manage the numbers, instead of the railroad. It happens, and it is something that railroaders just have to come to terms with.
An "expensive model collector"
Railroads are living, breathing organisms. With anything that is alive, things happen, sometimes the things are planned for, sometimes the things are not planned for - irrespective of what happens you have to act and/or react and make and implement decisions based on the information that becomes available, when it becomes available. Rarely will you get ALL the information until after the decision has been made and implemented.
Division end terminal, under the control of another division states their division has a curfew and can't handle a train that has 3 hours to work, for 8 hours because of their own curfew, that they just told you about when they said they couldn't handle the train. What do you do? Head out train of 4 being run - all yarded on the same track by the other division, Train has 1 engine with a inoperative air compressor and a mother-slug combination that is 5 days overdue for their scheduled 92 day Q inspection - What do you do?
The issues keep 'walking' in over the Dispatchers wire, minute to minute, hour to hour, they also go the Yardmaster in minute to minute basis..
Remember - there are virtually no absolutely correct answers and by the same turn there are virtually no absolutely incorrect answers. Every situation presents its answers in varying shades of gray. Sometimes the 'correct' answer is easy to discern, sometimes it is counter-intuitive. If all the decisions to be made in railroading were between right and wrong - a 10 year old could thrive in the business, however, the decisions to be made are never that clear. Sometimes the decision to be made is to find the least bad of multiple bad choices. These decisions occurr at all levels of railroad supervision, and they are second guessed by all those affected by the decision both above and below the level that the decision is made - it is a fact of human nature.
BaltACD Remember - there are virtually no absolutely correct answers and by the same turn there are virtually no absolutely incorrect answers. Every situation presents its answers in varying shades of gray. Sometimes the 'correct' answer is easy to discern, sometimes it is counter-intuitive. If all the decisions to be made in railroading were between right and wrong - a 10 year old could thrive in the business, however, the decisions to be made are never that clear. Sometimes the decision to be made is to find the least bad of multiple bad choices. These decisions occurr at all levels of railroad supervision, and they are second guessed by all those affected by the decision both above and below the level that the decision is made - it is a fact of human nature.
I think both you and CPTrainman are closer in outlook than you might think. The duty of the manager is to work out the best compromise solution as frequently as possible. The good managers can be considered artists in rail operation. But you absolutely have to have a good basic understanding of how the entire railroad works at a practical level. One of CPR's problems has been the proliferation of managers who are rather more comfortable in an office making power point presentations to like minded individuals. Understanding the sometimes ugly realities of keeping a network fluid was never covered in their university courses, and some are too proud to admit and correct their ignorance. Not all; there are some really good people out there too, of course.
John
Many of the replies to this forum are from C.P.R. and (ex) employees and management seems to be the crux of many problems, Years back I worked a summer job for 2 years with CP and always heard full-time employees refer to the company as the "SLEEPY R", I'm beginning to see the reason.
tatans Many of the replies to this forum are from C.P.R. and (ex) employees and management seems to be the crux of many problems, Years back I worked a summer job for 2 years with CP and always heard full-time employees refer to the company as the "SLEEPY R", I'm beginning to see the reason.
Isn't that funny? We are used to hearing about how private firms will eliminate that sort of thing, inefficiencies, but what is being described reminds me of the old Soviet system.
DwightBranch tatans: Many of the replies to this forum are from C.P.R. and (ex) employees and management seems to be the crux of many problems, Years back I worked a summer job for 2 years with CP and always heard full-time employees refer to the company as the "SLEEPY R", I'm beginning to see the reason. Isn't that funny? We are used to hearing about how private firms will eliminate that sort of thing, inefficiencies, but what is being described reminds me of the old Soviet system.
tatans: Many of the replies to this forum are from C.P.R. and (ex) employees and management seems to be the crux of many problems, Years back I worked a summer job for 2 years with CP and always heard full-time employees refer to the company as the "SLEEPY R", I'm beginning to see the reason.
A great analogy fore sure, except the Canadian Government almost lived in fear of the C.P.R.- - - they were like an entity of their own, seeing that they owned half the country (and the mineral rights) and did what they pleased.
Union employees, for the most part will lay blame on mangegment for all the railroad problems. Management will lay blame on the union for the majority of the railroads issues. It does not matter which railroad you are speaking about, the above seems true no matter what paint scheme is on the side of the locomotive. Remember to take the story you are hearing with a grain of salt, as talked about before, there are many times reasons that management makes a decision, that has little to no logic to the union employee, only because the union employee does not have the big picture.
Good managers, whether on railroads, factories, hospitals, high-tech corporations, retail operations,or government agencies have open, two-way communication with their employees that is marked by respect and an attitude that says the employees often know a lot that I can learn from and I may need to explain the "big picture" to them when that isn't immediately obvious.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Reading this I am reminded of the line from the book Fiasco:
"One rises to the level of ones incompetence"
On the serious side. One thing that has always struck me about transportation is this. By and large as long as you are able to provide the service, ie moving goods and materials from point a to b, it is relatively easy to make money doing so(ok sometimes not so easy). And if your not making money you go out of business.
Thx IGN
schlimm Good managers, whether on railroads, factories, hospitals, high-tech corporations, retail operations,or government agencies have open, two-way communication with their employees that is marked by respect and an attitude that says the employees often know a lot that I can learn from and I may need to explain the "big picture" to them when that isn't immediately obvious.
Good managers get what is assigned to them done, at or under budget. How they get there is irrelevant, be it by having communication with their employees, or running their department with an iron fist. I have worked for both kinds, and both ways can work. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if your employees like you, as long as your bosses like you and your work.
Different opinions.
n012944 Remember to take the story you are hearing with a grain of salt, as talked about before, there are many times reasons that management makes a decision, that has little to no logic to the union employee, only because the union employee does not have the big picture.
Remember to take the story you are hearing with a grain of salt, as talked about before, there are many times reasons that management makes a decision, that has little to no logic to the union employee, only because the union employee does not have the big picture.
Spoken like a true dispatcher.
Sometimes, I think I don't want to see the "big picture." I'm afraid it would like something done by Picasso.
Jeff
I was wondering if any railroader would pick up on that famous ds phrase...
Hunters appointment at CP Rail has really driven the stock price up.
CMStPnP Hunters appointment at CP Rail has really driven the stock price up.
The stock price went up in anticipation of his coming, he has to produce for it to rise further, that will take some time.
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