MP 173 - Along with mainstay manifest trains 474/475, you also have the sand trains plus the ethanol trains (which are actually routed from Marquette going northward to La Crescent; thence eastward via Portage), your 574/575 heavy crude oil trains originating from Canada and your 812/813 unit coal trains off the UP at Clinton that go to the Columbia Power Plant near Portage as well. Throw in the occasional potash train and you’ve got one busy subdivision.
UP has been a big user of DP on all types of trains for quite a while. Even when sometimes it doesn’t make sense to do so. Rear or mid-train DPs on manifests are normal on the east/west main.
Jeff
The initiative is G-55+0. Gut, I mean Grow the railroad to an operating ratio of 55 with no injuries. Everyone I know always thought the Grow part was just so much talk. Then in that Trains article awhile back some observer said growth was actually part of the strategy, but where that was going to come from wasn’t clear.
It seems like there has been more gutting than growing.
Jeff
PS. I don’t watch dwell time, but velocity seems to rise has carloadings go down. When velocity goes down, carloadings go up.
In the same vein, it has always been my observation that when dwell goes down velocity goes up and when dwell goes up velocity goes down.
There are a finite amount of resources available in the operation of a railroad. Crews, Motive Power, Terminal Space, Track Time for maintenance activities. Add in traffic and you have a juggling game to the extract maximum effect from all the resources.
I have always maintained that in railroading (and other businesses) there is an optimal amount of business…that point where the volume is very close to capacity. The industry experienced the issues a few years ago when the oil trains (plus a big winter) slowed things to a crawl. Incremental additions to capacity can allieviate shoke points but big investments are needed to really increase flow.
I am sure most railroads have some sort of planning and strategy group that is constantly reviewing the trains, tonnage, and locations where ROI makes sense for a new crossover, high speed turnout, CTC, etc. That would be a very interesting job.
One must wonder how the allocation of capital for PTC would have been invested if not for the mandate.
Ed
The railroads have been spending $billions to buy back shares to please stockholders, so I guess that any money not spent on PTC would have gone there.
Buying back shares is not always done to please shareholders. It is also done as a investment when company management feels the company is undervalued given it’s projected earnings or growth rate. Sometimes a stock buy back returns more to the company than available capital projects.