Over the last several decades, some shippers have complained that Class 1 railroads have turned their backs on small and medium sized customers.
At the same time, short lines and regionals are attempting to recapture business the class 1 railroads abandoned. There is a lot of freight out there going on trucks that could be going by rail. A short line or regional can provide excellent service to a customer but if something goes wrong once it is handed off to a Class 1 then all of the service provided by the former was for nothing.
Are there any Class 1s where the management is actively looking at adopting some of the small and medium sized friendly customer service practices used at the short line and regionals?
The Norfolk Southern actually has a small customer sign up program and does a lot of work with short lines lines to develop new business. There has been a lot of improvements the last few years with providing better service to loose car customers and speeding up transit time. The Bellevue hump yard expansion and use of real time mobile info devices on locals are 2 examples of efforts being made to service small and large loose car customers better.