NS article in Oct. TRAINS

[Modelcar]

....Not quite finished with the article by Fred W. Frailry but it is an interesting rendition of what's happened and happening now since NS has their portion of Conrail....Good reading. [8D]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

....Not quite finished with the article by Fred W. Frailry but it is an interesting rendition of what's happened and happening now since NS has their portion of Conrail....Good reading. [8D]

Well, I'm gonna have a long wait till the news stand issue is out, what is the general gist of the article? [:)]

[Modelcar]

...In general.....The lead up to the purchase of their portion of Conrail....how it took place, etc.....and then operations that fell on their face after it did happen and now how success is happening along with profits and upcoming projects to improve even more....

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

...In general.....The lead up to the purchase of their portion of Conrail....how it took place, etc.....and then operations that fell on their face after it did happen and now how success is happening along with profits and upcoming projects to improve even more....

OK, so as was rumored in the CSX version of the story in the sept issue, NS fell further on it's face faster than CSX (after the splitup), but then appeared to recover faster....getting it's act together first.

Why? [:)]

[Modelcar]

...I certainly don't have that complete answer but seems [via the article}, the tone of individuals involved had a lot to do with getting the NS system in order to get the job accomplished.....

[nanaimo73]

Does the article answer any of Gabe's questions about NS trackage rights into Indianapolis from Lafayette and Muncie ? They don't seem to be using them very much.

[Modelcar]

....If it does I've not got to that part of the article yet....I still have quite a way to read in it yet....Hope to finish it maybe yet today...{Before the west coast Nascar race}...ha.
On the Muncie question....I've not seen any NS operations on the CSX main from Muncie to Indy....{The CSX double track east and west line through here}.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

....If it does I've not got to that part of the article yet....I still have quite a way to read in it yet....Hope to finish it maybe yet today...{Before the west coast Nascar race}...ha.
On the Muncie question....I've not seen any NS operations on the CSX main from Muncie to Indy....{The CSX double track east and west line through here}.

That old Nickle plate line that parallels I-69 under I-465 is long gone, isn't it?

Any idea for how long?

[Modelcar]

Gates: I'm trying to think which line you may be referrng to....I can remember seeing a ROW passing under the northern area of I-465 but farther west than I-69.....and I'm not familiar enough down there to know which RR that may have been....If you are referring to a possilble abandoned RR near and parallel to I-69....that is a new one on me...Sorry don't know about that one. Being a transplant albeit many years ago....to Muncie area, I know the rail routes much better near by here....

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

Gates: I'm trying to think which line you may be referrng to....I can remember seeing a ROW passing under the northern area of I-465 but farther west than I-69.....and I'm not familiar enough down there to know which RR that may have been....If you are referring to a possilble abandoned RR near and parallel to I-69....that is a new one on me...Sorry don't know about that one. Being a transplant albeit many years ago....to Muncie area, I know the rail routes much better near by here....

This was right across I-69 from Ft Benjamin Harrison http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=15&Z=16&X=90&Y=689&W=3&qs=%7cIndianapolis%7cIndiana%7c

If you look at the Arials you can still see the old ROW, all the way up to kokomo

[nanaimo73]

Gabe said yesterday on his trackage rights thread that the Indiana Rail Road stopped using the line when a coal fired power plant around Noblesville switched to natural gas. The Indiana Transportation Museum still uses it.

Have a look at this.
www.urbanophile.com/arenn/trans/nec-lightrail.html

[MP173]

Yeah, the line from Indy up to Michigan City is still intact, according to my Indiana DOT map (2005-06 edition). I have seen the line in question and it runs just west of I69.

Up at Fishers there is a Nickle Plate Bar and Grill...always wanted to stop in, but never with the right crowd to do so...perhaps next trip down.

ed

[nanaimo73]

Ed-
The line from Kokomo through Peru to Rochester is gone. Gabe says the connection south of Tipton is gone as well.

[Modelcar]

nanaimo, Gates....Yes I see the ROW you are refferring to now and yes, I concur that line is still in place as stated above and understand that trackage is used by the "Fair Train", each August during the Indiana State Fair...Believe it is run by the museum folks. Didn't Bob McClain, Channel 6 weather man work with those rail operations including 587.....

[bobwilcox]

The interesting thing I took away from this article was the importance of execution. I remember at the SP it seemed we had a room filed with consultants reports about how to fix the SP. The all said the same thing and were correct. The way to run a succesful railroad is well known; do not incur costs that do not produce value. However, execution of the plans is a whole different world.

[Modelcar]

In taking another look at the TRAINS map....and looking at the trackage rights on CSX to get to Indy from Muncie....{and it's really a round about way to have to do it}, it's hard to tell from that map just where that is but maybe it's {from Muncie}, down the NS line {south}, to the New Castle area and then connect on a CSX line that must run north west...{really out of the way}, and across I-69 to roughly Noblesville area and then south from there to Indy....So, if it actually is done, that is go from Muncie to Indy via trackage rights, that must be the way it would have to be done.

[Modelcar]

...Reading the Light Rail Study {above}, for the Indy area and seeing it comes to a conclusion that seems to be in contrast to many areas around the country now installing it....I've always thought a light rail direct line...from the Indy airport to downtown near the 'Union Station" Area would really make sense and to watch the slow and stopped traffic coming south into the city on I-69 some mornings one would think that route would make sense to have it too.....

[MP173]

Just read the NS article. That is one well executed plan.

Several points:

1. Interesting how they wanted the ex PRR line thru Pennsylvania for the coal reserves.
2. Contrary to what CSX did, NS seems to have hung on to quite a bit of their lines, which gives them flexibility to run trains, particularly in the south. I always thought that the NS line thru town...the ex NKP Chicago to Fort Wayne line would be downgraded after the Conrail merger, but these days it seems pretty busy. They can invest their capital on revenue growth, rather than operation's growth (capacity).
3. Interesting how they do not walk away from short haul intermodal. It will interesting to see if they can gather the Chicago - Columbus intermodal back. If so, there is another train on the NKP line thru town!
4. Their trains seem to run on pretty tight schedules, at least on this division anyway.
5. Most importantly, while CSX seems to have jumped from plan to plan and changed out managers frequently, Goode realized his managers were top flight and they stuck with the plan. I wonder how long it will be before CSX changes again?

All in all, two great articles on the eastern railroads. The magazine is to be commended, as it has been awhile since the eastern roads got this kinda coverage. It seems as if BNSF and UP got a yearly report detailing either A. how great they were doing or B. how much they had stumbled.

Hopefully, a comprehesive review of the Canadian carriers is next.

And by the way...anything written by Fred Frailey, whether it is in Train, Kiplingers, or book form, is well worth it.

ed

[Anonymous]

Also, the article made a point that the NS is pretty de-centralized compared to the computer-eight-states-away approach of BNSF and some others. It does indeed seem to be the case that regional managers who can envision a problem can better have it solved down the line than some quant in a faraway city can.

[jsanchez]

Not much was mentioned about how the NS has greatly rebuilt the carload business in the Northeast that Conrail tried to destroy. The NS does a great job with loose car freight and small shippers. I think the UP and BNSF should take note, it is one of the reasons why the NS is more profitable. Even the branch lines that NS operates in the Northeast are seeing increased business and new customers at a time when CSX and other class ones continue to spin them off.

[fuzzybroken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jsanchez

The NS does a great job with loose car freight and small shippers.

This, above all else, is the biggest advantage NS has over any other major railroad! I am continually amazed at how many customers Class 1s could have, but don't even bother to contact them because "they won't ship enough" blah blah blah! And this is not a new practice, either. Milwaukee Road, Chicago & North Western are just a couple "local" railroads that continually ignored potential shippers in favor of the long haul, big train, unit train.

Anybody wondering why, for many years (and possibly even today), the railroads were considered to be "in decline"???

This would be it.
[soapbox]
-Mark
www.fuzzyworld3.com

[Anonymous]

I was a very good article - I would love to see a longer version of it. But, the map could have been better. Locations shown incorrectly that I notice are Bluefield, Elkhart, Crestline, and Huntington. Also, NS has only trackage rights on the Northeast Corridor.

[cpbloom]

All this is nice and all but the most important thing in railroading is the paint scheme, so I still hate NS for those black and white units!!! [:(!]






Now you know I'm just kidding. [:o)]

Hats off to Norfolk Southern [8D] what a way to run a railroad !!!!

[swknox]

You can set your watch by the local here on the NS Delmarva Secondary 11:30pm. - 12:30am. every night. I'm glad to see Trains will be covering Delmarva car float operations in next months issue, I CAN'T WAIT. You almost never see anything in print about railroading here on the eastern shore of Delaware, Maryland, and Va. The Eastern Shore Railroad still uses the old PRR car floats to ferry cars from norfolk to delmarva and then to NS Delmarva Secondary. But hey this is one of the last lines that PRR used its Sharknose units on.

[Anonymous]

So, I see where the fed is gonna pay $90million to make NS's tunnels tall enough for double stack. What a wonderful gesture to NS's stockholders...

Gee wizzz, that way they can bring in even more containers of goods manufactured over seas that USED to represent American jobs... I wonder if Walmart is hiring?

[gabe]

You may accuse me, if you want of re-applying for my resident sycophant status, but I think it was the best Trains Article I have read since MWH was the Editor--although some of his recent articles may make me think they are, at least on par.

In any event, I thought it was as good of an article could be considering it had to handle a subject as comprehensive as NS' success.

gabe

[Modelcar]

....Yes, Gates....that really is a situation we've been dealt here in our country....such as your point of larger tunnels for stuff from China....How did we ever get into a set up such as this. One thought in my mind is over the years we spent money from our budget, pouring it into "lessor" countries bringing them into the "modern world" and gradually they have now taken over our jobs from this great country...Manufacturing, clothing, electronics...and the list goes on....What an ironic twist. And at the same time, we've been acting as the peace keeper in the world....and spending what money we had left to the point now....we have record debt piled up for our citizens as taxpayers to try to deal with for the decades ahead.....Wow, how did we not see all this coming...!
I'm glad NS really does have something to haul but what they're carrying and from where is really eye opening.....

[dwil89]

It is a good article...I've read it through a few times already....interesting point that was brought up is that NS is running more trains over Horseshoe Curve than Conrail was in 1995...62 a day now average now (not including Helper movements) vs 47 in 1995.....One can argue that the Pennsy ran well over a hundred trains a day back in its prime, but trains were much shorter then too, so tonnage is comparable....and with reports of mine reactivation in Windber, more coal will be added to the traffic mix in the Johnstown to Altoona area. Dave Williams @ [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

.....How did we ever get into a set up such as this. One thought in my mind is over the years we spent money from our budget, pouring it into "lessor" countries bringing them into the "modern world" and gradually they have now taken over our jobs from this great country...Manufacturing, clothing, electronics...and the list goes on....What an ironic twist.

Well, I'm just a casual observer, but my opinion on how we get ourselves into setups like this is that we don't think things through, we tend to ignore the really big picture, and we have a buncha crooks running this place.

Economics is the driving force. The Wal Mart mentality that if you price even junk low enough, someone will buy it, surely plays a part. Then you have the goals to maximize profits to the stockholders

If I am a stockholder in the ABC refrigerator company, and by having the plant in columbus OH we pay the workers $20 per hour and my annual dividend is 45 cents per share, or if we move the factory to malaysia we pay the help $2.45 per hour and my dividend goes up to $1.15 per share, ...guess what I am gonna do? those guys in Columbus never did anything for me except threaten to strike, etc.

The "rub" if you will, is that in order for that plan to work, I've gotta squeeze every advantage out of my shipping strategy.

Enter "Joe Sucker, American tax Payer"

Think about this. Here we have a railroading forum, which is part of a railroading magazine. And we are currently elaborating on the benefits of raising tunnel heights to allow trains to haul doublestack. Sounds like an heroic accomplishment, doesn't it? After all, whatever benefits the train, is good, right? That's what your politicians will tell you, raising that tunnel with your tax dollars will mean more ease in bringing you lower cost goods from the local container port, and build a stronger America. (rah rah rah) . The locals might even see a few $8.00/hr warehousing jobs spring up in the trade off

That same politician is telling the residents near that container port that the secret to building a stronger America is to deepen the harbor, and tear down a perfectly good bridge, to build a replacement that will accomodate todays larger container ships, thus making their port city modern, and competitive with the other ports down the coast, so they need to dig into their pockets, and build a stronger America (rah rah rah). The locals might even see a few $12.00/hr container jockey jobs spring up, IF they shell out extra and add a few new berths to the harbor, while they have their hand in their wallet anyway...


And. lets not forget the REAL REASON we are doing this,..for "lower prices" everyone loves lower prices, right?.

Except, for some strange reason, the only way to get a cheaper refrigerator is to buy one of the lower quality 'econo' models, because the ones that are full featured are just as expensive as they have always been.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PROMISED SAVINGS? Why is it that a full featured fridge that was $400.00 10 years ago is now $700.00 and likely will last only half that long?

The stockholders who depended upon your willingness to deepen your harbors and raise your tunnels to make their new business model work, decided they need that money more than you do, so prices stayed up to help preserve forcast dividends.

And that smiling politician who talked you into building a stronger America? Well, he probably sells refrigerators in the Bahamas now...

That's my take on it anyway.

[Modelcar]

Dave....if you can, comment a bit more of what is happening in Windber...More mines coming to life....Sounds good. I know the PBS branch into Shanksville that connects to the S&C CSX line near Coleman, {Rockwood to Johnstown}, is being reactivated as work has started to rehabilitate it since it's been unused for 6 or more years....Brian Brant {on the forum} here has been keeping me updated on the progress and I visited it myself back earlier in the summer and did see some of the work being done to get it reopened....So sounds like the coal business is going back up on it's cycle. Hope so, that's good news for the area.