What is PSR really? Who benefits? Who looses the most from it?
Who gains the most?
I know this is a wide ranging topic but if possible just a general snyopis of my questions.
The actual point of Precision Scheduled Railroading is to run only the 'train you need', at the time you and your customers need, so that it makes best use of your assets and plant and arrives when you (and your customers) expect.
Not as quickly as possible, not as directly as possible, not necessarily as cheaply as possible, but with very careful control over the equipment and assets and how they are used.
A frequent consequence of this mode of thinking, however, is creeping expedience: for a given equipment and personnel situation, you can calculate how much you have to do to get satisfactory reimbursement ... and then start shucking types of customer or business, or negotiatin' with them to get your pound of flesh 'or else' to quietly rid yourself of business that doesn't pay enough by your standards, until the traffic matches the revenue net of all the pain and trouble involved in customer-relations management and service.
Then you have fun by looking at the wrong, or insufficient, metrics for what constitutes your service (often ignoring some aspects of what others, including governments, might historically consider aspects of 'common-carrier' responsibilities). One such that is commonly encountered is a fixation on OR as "the" index of clean and efficient execution: we have covered many of the difficulties and distortions that ensue when too much attention is paid to this or too much trust in it is assumed.
One timeless topic here is that "PSR" is a different thing to operating personnel than it is to owners/shareholders of a railroad, including those who are stock-market and analyst-oriented and who have a corresponding concern with short-period 'numbers'. One of the great failings of typical American 'capitalism' is that it concentrates on where the money goes, rather than how to provide actual goods and services that optimize the money. When the techniques, tropes and language of PSR get wrung around to investment-banking 'prioritization' -- severe problems occur that will be no mystery to folks who actually know how the trick ought to best be done.
Hunter Harrison must have got negotiating lessons from Vito Corleone.
From the ground, it appears that "PSR" was all and only about cutting costs.
And if laws, rules or contracts get in the way, guess what, you don't have to obey them anymore. It's that easy!
Actual Precision Scheduled Railroading, which is only practiced in places like Japan and western Europe, would result in train crews knowing when they have to go to work. You'll have to dig me up to tell me if that ever happens here.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
OvermodThe actual point of Precision Scheduled Railroading is to run only the 'train you need', at the time you and your customers need, so that it makes best use of your assets and plant and arrives when you (and your customers) expect.
You need to write that down and mail it to just about every major railroad.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
Keep in mind that the 'scheduled' in PSR is not the same thing as following an established schedule, although that is a part of some railroads' operations. It refers to knowing in advance how and where the train will move, and allocating equipment, cars, and time to that as appropriate.
The cost-cutting is secondary, but it usually follows as the thunder does the lightning. And after a while the bean counters, as they usually do, assert some control where they really shouldn't be tolerated...
Note that an implicit consideration in proper PSR is the 'input' involved with calling crews. When you can make up the train to arrive at a particular time, you can also figure out in advance how and where to call rested and alert crews, rather than oops! calling them at your convenience when you get something together. That's a very interesting potential change, and in my opinion a tremendous improvement, over the current system -- even before you start discussing how crews have requirement upon requirement piled on them, now with inadequate actual functional rest...
zugmannYou need to write that down and mail it to just about every major railroad.
I've just about given up on the idea that they can actually figure out stuff that's in their own best interests ... let alone their employees', or their customers'.
Which is not to say I'm the Wile E Super-Genius that knows and sees all the answers to fix American Railroading. Or even do operations as expediently as EHH in the ways he could actually make the trick work.
In a way we're in the same sort of place with these PSR railroads that 'conventional' conglomerate businesses were when Carl Icahn and the first group of vulture capitalists started to learn the art of junk-bond-financed takeover and 'repurposing'. I'm more than a little surprised that Paul Hilal has taken so little interest in actually doing precision railroading on the stuff he's taken an interest in, after taking the trouble to foist poor Huntrobot on CSX to try gittin 'r dun. It's not exactly rocket science to see what doesn't work.
Overmod Keep in mind that the 'scheduled' in PSR is not the same thing as following an established schedule, although that is a part of some railroads' operations. It refers to knowing in advance how and where the train will move, and allocating equipment, cars, and time to that as appropriate.
Except they don't know, and act surprised when "scheduled" movements show up. And if they do know, they don't tell the customers or employees.
Overmod The cost-cutting is secondary, but it usually follows as the thunder does the lightning. And after a while the bean counters, as they usually do, assert some control where they really shouldn't be tolerated...
The bean counters compose a majority of the executive suite, and have for some years now.
SD70DudeActual Precision Scheduled Railroading, which is only practiced in places like Japan and western Europe, would result in train crews knowing when they have to go to work. You'll have to dig me up to tell me if that ever happens here.
We had more of that before PSR. They got rid of most of the assigned trains and made everything a general pool.
Two lies and, if you think about it for a moment, they both kind of involve the same thing:
1. I'll love you in the morning.
2. PSR is good for customers.
Curt
OvermodThe actual point of Precision Scheduled Railroading is...
Is there another point besides the actual point? If so, what is it?
EuclidIs there another point besides the actual point? If so, what is it?
To paraphrase Billy, I could count the ways. But I'll be shorter.
FIRST are all the points related to how railroads get the 'actual principle' wrong in their practice. Concentrating on the wrong metrics is one of the first ones; on the OR as a primary metric, one of the cardinal sins. Thinking that established timetables are the 'scheduling' in PSR is another -- although any railroad that can 'make that trick work' effectively is of course getting some of the actual benefits of precisely-planned operation. Setting up operations without the necessary 'collateral' to realize them -- the thing that comes immediately to my mind is overemphasizing flat switching without comprehending the acceleration capability of the engine and the ground-speed capability of the yardmen -- is another.
SECOND come all the distortions of "PSR" when it becomes a management tool or codeword for extracting profit or eliminating 'costs' -- particularly when it screws up large amounts of actual operation, destroys what may be decades of accumulated wisdom in a brief paroxysm of parsimony, or shovels short-term revenue into quickly-absconding "stakeholder" pockets.
THIRD come all the misapprehensions by people with various degrees of actual knowledge about what "PSR" actually means in a given context. This includes a number of timeless topics here in the forum. I mention this here by contrast with "actual" points ... because you asked what the other points might be. Some of the viewpoints involved in misapprehensions may in themselves have validity; certainly many of them have interest - they just aren't, or can't be, reliably affirmed with data or properly researched enough to have high confidence in any conclusions.
OvermodThe actual point of Precision Scheduled Railroading is to run only the 'train you need', at the time you and your customers need, so that it makes best use of your assets and plant and arrives when you (and your customers) expect. Not as quickly as possible, not as directly as possible, not necessarily as cheaply as possible, but with very careful control over the equipment and assets and how they are used. . . .
. . .
Kind of reminds me of the joke about buying software: "There are 3 criteria: good, fast, cheap. For what you'll get, pick any 2".
But PSR as practiced these days ignores any of that and focuses on a criteria not specifically mentioned, and only alluded to: lowest Operating Ratio (equipment and assets/ plant are mentioned, but not operating income and especially not operating expenses).
- PDN.
OvermodTHIRD come all the misapprehensions by people with various degrees of actual knowledge about what "PSR" actually means in a given context. This includes a number of timeless topics here in the forum. I mention this here by contrast with "actual" points ... because you asked what the other points might be. Some of the viewpoints involved in misapprehensions may in themselves have validity; certainly many of them have interest - they just aren't, or can't be, reliably affirmed with data or properly researched enough to have high confidence in any conclusions.
I understand your first set and have heard a lot about your second set. What would be some examples of these misapprehensions that you refer to in your third set?
EuclidWhat would be some examples of these misapprehensions that you refer to in your third set?
PSR is just a tool to put stolen money in venture-capitalist or hedge-fund pockets.
PSR is a way to sell off capacity for short-term profit.
In a non-forum context: see any of the explanations made to CSX stockholders regarding why EHH should be given his 84 million special compensation...
... you get the idea. Read many of the prior threads that contain the words "precision" and the initials "EHH" for all the examples you could possibly want, and a great many more besides.
Overmod Euclid What would be some examples of these misapprehensions that you refer to in your third set? PSR is just a tool to put stolen money in venture-capitalist or hedge-fund pockets. PSR is a way to sell off capacity for short-term profit. In a non-forum context: see any of the explanations made to CSX stockholders regarding why EHH should be given his 84 million special compensation... ... you get the idea. Read many of the prior threads that contain the words "precision" and the initials "EHH" for all the examples you could possibly want, and a great many more besides.
Euclid What would be some examples of these misapprehensions that you refer to in your third set?
You nailed the lie squarely on the wall!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
A while back I worked with a guy who has a relative working for one of the elevators we serve up in northwest Iowa. He said his relative's employer was approached by the railroad and told that because of our new operating efficiencies (written with a straight face, but barely) the elevator would be getting quicker service. And they would also be paying more for the quicker service. The elevator operator isn't happy. They were satisfied with the service they were receiving and the rates they were paying.
I suspect the new service won't be worth the new higher rate.
Jeff
BaltACD Overmod Euclid What would be some examples of these misapprehensions that you refer to in your third set? PSR is just a tool to put stolen money in venture-capitalist or hedge-fund pockets. PSR is a way to sell off capacity for short-term profit. In a non-forum context: see any of the explanations made to CSX stockholders regarding why EHH should be given his 84 million special compensation... ... you get the idea. Read many of the prior threads that contain the words "precision" and the initials "EHH" for all the examples you could possibly want, and a great many more besides. You nailed the lie squarely on the wall!
Well if that is what PSR is, why wouldn't that be the actual point of PSR that Overmod describes rather than the alternate point of PSR he descibes as his point #3?
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.