Is NS in the ditch?

[BaltACD]

Murphy Siding

Every company has ups and downs. Why is it that when a Class 1 railroad hits some rough times we always assume that there's a merger in their future? Over the last dozen years or so, has NS's and for that matter all the Class 1's business had more ups or more downs?

ps. I've bever had an orange girlfriend. Should that make me blue?

Rough times are one thing.  Self mutiliation is something else.  NS troubles are self inflicted.  Just as CSX's problems were self inflicted by the BoD thinking EHH had the answer and installing him and his successors to tie the company up in operational knots.

[Murphy Siding]

Every company has ups and downs. Why is it that when a Class 1 railroad hits some rough times we always assume that there's a merger in their future? Over the last dozen years or so, has NS's and for that matter all the Class 1's business had more ups or more downs?

ps. I've bever had an orange girlfriend. Should that make me blue?

[Mookie]

tree68

I had a girlfriend like that once

Once?  Past due now?

[tree68]

Mookie

I threw out all the orange in my crayon box.

I had a girlfriend like that once.  So what did I send her from Hawaii?  Bird of Paradise flowers.  They're orange.

[Eastrail11]

BNSF= Buy Norfolk Southern FAST!!! BNSF also could mean Burlington Norfolk Southern Fe... any works I guess

[Mookie]

Murphy Siding

But would the locomotives be orange or black? Or orange and black?

I threw out all the orange in my crayon box.  No orange is allowed on locomotives.  Keep the black/white accent/horse and BNSFNS tucked in there somewhere.

[caldreamer]

the STB is going to want to know what is going on and what they are going to do to fix the mess.  The BIG STICK is coming out of the closet.

[Murphy Siding]

Mookie

I am starting to sound cryptic like Der Chicken.  I do so want BNSF to pick up the option on NS.  I know 100% disagree with me, but something way deep in the brain is saying, this is possible if they would just do it.  

 

But would the locomotives be orange or black? Or orange and black?  (Imagine Halloween icon here.)

[Mookie]

I am starting to sound cryptic like Der Chicken.  I do so want BNSF to pick up the option on NS.  I know 100% disagree with me, but something way deep in the brain is saying, this is possible if they would just do it.  

[oltmannd]

No signs anything has gotten any better.  7 of 13 sidings between Austell (just west of Altanta) and Birmingham are full with dead trains or car this morning.  There has been trackwork outages on the line, but this is unusual for even for that. Things are not good.

[Mookie]

Mr. B... you would make this Nebraskan very happy if you took a closer look at this.  Injury on aisle 8 - could be roadkill in the offing....

Call me a cockeyed optimist....

[oltmannd]

NS's deteriorating performance measures have reach a pretty low point this week.  Train speed is at 18.1. 

 http://www.railroadpm.org/home/RPM/Performance%20Reports/NS.aspx

 

 

The lowest month in the winter of 2014/15 was 19.3.

http://www.nscorp.com/content/dam/nscorp/get-to-know-ns/investor-relations/performance-measures/monthly-performance-reports/2015_NS_Monthly_AAR_Performance.pdf

 

System dwell is now at 29.5.  Worst month in 2014/15 was 30.1 hrs.

Anecdotally, I was out on the RR at Austell GA last weekend.  The Atlanta Terminal area was completely congested.  There were merchandise trains three days old sitting in sidings (FWIW, trains that have more than 3 days running time between any two points in their schedule are filtered out of the train speed calculation as "bad data" - and most of it is...and data is still "apples to apples".)  Trains were running into and out of the terminal nose to tail doing a low speed conga line.

I don't know exactly what's going on or what has been going on specifically, but it's clear the railroad on the south end has not run right since the "Chattanooga plan" went into effect.  I suspect the current mess has run the RR out of crews in spots since the big push of the past couple years to drop OR fast has relegated some of the "lessons learned" in 2014/15 mess to the scrap heap.

There have been lots of distractions in the past couple months to keep the spotlight off NS's performance numbers.  That can't go on forever.  NS better get it's act together or it will only be fueling the reregulation gang's narritive.