Hunter...so far

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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When I started railroading 15 years ago, I was taught by the guys, “Keep the wheels turning this is how we earn our money, and never sluff a customer.” About the time Fred Green took over as CEO the mentality changed, “Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt”. This became our new slogan. It was thought that being number one in safety would create business as customers would line up to work with such a “safe” railroad.

Railroading is a business. It’s about making money. To me it was obvious that if CN could offer a customer the same product as us at a far less cost, then obviously, the customer will go with CN. It is simple economics. Safety at the railroad is not the customer’s concern. It’s all about earning money.

I remember one time our employee website boasted that CP earned $300,000 for some safety award that nobody ever heard of before. Really! We earned $300,000 for safety but lost millions in business for safety. Does this make business sense?

I learned many years ago in college a basic marketing principle. It is the law of “diminishing returns”. For example, a farmer puts fertilizer on his field and sees a great improvement in his crops. “Well, this stuff is great”, he thinks. The farmer then puts more and more on his crops. Finally, he puts so much BS on his crops that they start to die. He can’t figure it out. How can something so good ultimately be so bad? Easy, there can be too much of a good thing. At CP the old CEO must have been sleeping that day when they taught the law of “diminishing returns”. Our fertilizer was/is safety and we were/are drowning in it.

Enter Hunter Harrison. I and my coworkers at the operating level have the feeling (at least where I work) that we may start to railroad again. For years we have been scoffing at safety meetings about management’s new safety initiative and how it will not work.

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See Fred Frailey’s blog for other developments. It’s hard to take exception to most of Harrison’s changes so far.

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Good stuff.

When I saw F. Frailey’s blog the other day, and he said WB manifest trains out of Montreal were being humped four times before cars reached Vancouver, I could not believe my eyes. But I can see what happened.

In the absence of strong central leadership, the regional operating bosses developed a fiefdom building and a CYA mentality. More train starts, but not too many, means you must be building business and that makes you look good. But in Toronto’s case, not humping all of the cars that come in from Montreal would mean that you would then have trains with a Montreal origination point leaving Toronto. And you know what is going to freeze over before that happens.

Hump operation will still be necessary for normal local activity in and out. There is no way you could flat switch a yard the size of Alyth.

And I’m so glad you brought up the Lethbridge, AB situation. I have been reading about this starting back around last Christmas. Railfans were reporting movement observations, and actual employes were not contradicting their conclusions, but no one would actually say there were problems. CP is trying to cross two major business corridors there where all the lines in and out are old school dark territory. They have got to get some of that new fangled electric signaling (CTC) on those lines, as well as bigger sidi

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Bruce

Take a drive the Alyth. I believe the hump is shut down already. Hunter says if you cannot hump 1500 cars a day, then it is not viable. At best Alyth was humping 1000 a day. If it is not closed yet. It will be soon.

I have spoken personallly with a manager who submitted an operations plan for flat switching Alyth.

Lethbridge, I dont know what is happening. I worked out of there many moons ago and I remember it could be a busy place with trains coming and going in all 4 directions. I guess you have seen 896/897 from coutts. I assume this coal is coming from PRB. It makes its way all the way to Prince Rupert. This train is causing all sorts of headaches down south as there is not a siding large enough for a meet with the coutts turn. Actually, you probably know better than me.

I dont know about the humping of trains 4 times from Montreal to Vancouver but I would not be surprised. The local operating plan leaves me shocked. I have gone to management with my ideas and I don’t know why they don’t listen. They know where the bottle necks are and I have given them possible solutions but they wont even try it.

I am actually nervous to divulge who I am and where I am. I would not be the first employee facing discipline for having a “not so rosy” opinion of management. However, I have hope for the future.

As the rumours continue, I will share the news.

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Thanks I did. Fred obviously has contact with somebody with a eye on the big picture. My view is obviously down at the switch stand. His points are very interesting and I like what I hear. I am keeping my stock.

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The news about Alyth is just one more piece of sad news atop an increasingly large pile. Since PSM has bought its’ share, the kinds of news I have been reading goes beyond alarming. I’m not sure of the word I am looking for, but I’m glad Dad isn’t around to see it. After reading item after item it becomes so obvious that Fred Green had to be replaced, but even yet I am not sure EHH is the man to do it.

Not to short change his expertise at all, I just don’t buy his bull in a china shop routine. And I wish the new CEO was young enough to have a viable ten year run at dealing with these problems.

After I made my last post, I realized your item about the Chicago manager was yet another example of what I was getting about here in Canada. I hadn’t realized that the rouge middle management problem had spread down there, as it has only been just over twenty years since the Soo Line was integrated into the CPR. That is an unfortunate bad habit that has caught on too quickly.

I included your mention of the Coutts line because the fellow who was likely the last Agent at Warner, first open station north of Coutts, was the man who introduced my parents to each other. When I look at my 1964 ETT it truly is astounding how little has changed down there compared to the si

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For us non railroaders, can you explain the rational for closing down hump yards? Is it cheaper/more efficient to flat switch rather than hump?

Thanks,

Ed

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It’s a throughput vs. cost thing. Up to a certain level of activity it is cheaper to flat switch. And of course if you need to handle a large number of cars, then you can justify the number of extra men needed. But there is a middle ground where it might seem like too much work to be flat switched, but not enough to go to a hump operation. EHH seems to be saying he wants 1500 cars per day to resume operating the hump facility.

If you start handling a large number of cars by flat switching you get into more fuel used by more locomotives, and when you are running more locomotives you need more men, and when you have more men you might run into overtime issues if you don’t have a deep spare board. And of course in bad weather flat switching would be more affected than a hump operation would be, because the men can’t get around as fast.

EHH is hanging his hat on 1500 cars, but it is the kind of call that can turn around and bite you on the butt if you don’t stay on top of all the potential issues. We shall see.

Bruce

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AgentKid, I am confused by your contradictory posts. Is the news out of CP “good” or “distressing” – and why?

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Ok, I understand that at a certain point it is cheaper to flat switch vs hump, but I do not understand the cost structure (and obviously the mechanics involved).

Flat switching involves a crew or two that pushes and shoves cars into hand operated tracks.

Hump involves a crew that pushes and shoves cars over a hill and allows gravity, retarders, and electrical controls to move a car safely and correctly to the correct track.

Once the infrastructure is in place, what costs are involved which makes humping more expensive at a lower threshold? Just trying to figure it out. Terminal operations are very intersting to me, perhaps from my LTL trucking days.

Ed

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Ed even with a humpyard you normally have a least two crews working, one humping cars filling the bowl, and another working the opposite end triming the bowl and making up outbound trains. Most departing trains consist of more than one block and since normally each track represents one destination it normally pulls four or five tracks to makeup each outbound train. The retards are a significant maintenance expense, particularly if they are the older Beam retarders. You need large air compressors feeding air to operate them, they have friction shoes, like brake pads that need to be replaced periodically and they need adjustment. Then there are all those power switches.

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This is all very interesting and certainly indicates that CP could make operational changes in many areas that could lead to improved results.

However, there is a lot of danger in a “Do it my way…NOW!” approach. Just ask the Union Pacific.

Starting with the obvious, a large railroad such as the CP is a very complex interactive system and a change in Toronto can impact operations in Vancover. It is all in the details. Overlook something such as a relatively short passing siding at a critical meet point and trains can start to stack up at some point in the middle of nowhere.

The next big issue is the learning curve. Consider the plan to convert hump yards to flat switching. Even if the yard layout makes the change possible, there is still the need to plan out how the job will be done. After that supervisors and crews need to learn how to put it all to work efficiently. I am sure Ed Blysard, our resident expert on flat switching, can attest to the skills necessary to get the job done right.

Even though not up to Harrison’s standards, CP does appear to have some trains running close enough to a schedule so that there is something of a daily pattern to movements. Dispatchers and road and yard managers get geared to these patterns and with experience over time also develope solutions to handling the unexpected. A well planned and highly disciplined operation can actually make the job easier for the people involved, but adopting to the new patterns and dealing with new conditions for the inevitable “unexpected” takes time and experience.

I like to put it this way. It is all well and good to grab the low hanging fruit. Just watch out for the widow maker branch high up in the tree.

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The news is indeed distressing, I was meaning to say it was good to see this kind of information. These latest posts have been the most informative of anything I have read anywhere outside of F. Frailey’s blog.

Bruce

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Make a few minor changes, including the first part of the name but retaining the second part, to the above part of the original post and it could well describe another major railroad. Except they have made record profits.

Jeff

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Union Pacific also had their problems after they bought SP… CP is on the right track now… The company has a good, fairly simple, physical plant. Now they really need to focus on filling the sales hopper. Some have proposed trimming the plant in order to cut costs and to focus on opportunities in the West. However, I believe that would be short sighted as one rarely or never makes gains by doing LESS or by have fewer capabilities. Any line can be made profitable by putting enough business on it…and CP has no lines that lead to nowhere, so that shouldn’t be all that difficult to do. It ain’t all about cost cutting and operational efficiency…a big part of it is generating new business.

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That and also getting the Works UNSTUCK with needed investments in Sidings and Signals on lines that need it. They need to quit trying to make trains longer and start getting the ones that they are over the lines that need the Improvements FASTER. Like a Friend of mine says if the Wheels aint Turning We as a Company Are NOT MAKING MONEY. He outa know he OWNS the Company.

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Absolutely correct Ulrich. Fill the damn hoppers. The time is now to increase volumes on railroads at good fair rates. Not $1 over variable costs, but at profitable levels.

However…it is going to take some time to grab that good paying freight. If service has been substandard and or CP really hasnt worked the marketing department in order to find and secure this business, then the shipping public will want to see results before making changes.

The biggest challenge, that I see, is in the oil patch. Volumes are growing pushing capacity to limits. Investment is needed to convert to CTC line, however…how long will that oil remain on the rails? When will it move to pipeline? What a fascinating issue. I would price it to make as much $$$ now and negotiate longer term as needed.

Ed

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I had the same thought when I saw the talk here (first I had seen) of closing yards and forcing the cars into other yards. It was the closing of a

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Dwight,

They didn’t close a yard, what they did was take the chemical plant switching away from Strang yard, trying to make Strang into a SIT and storage yard, and moved the switching to Englewood yard…this created 4 or 5 big trains a day into and out of Englewood just to switch the cars that were already at Strang, and take them back out there to service the petrochemical customers…which is pretty much all Strang does.

Englewood is the home of Tower 87, if it moves east or west across the old SP system, it most likely crosses tower 87, Amtrak included, and Englewood runs at capacity all the time, so the extra burden created a domino effect, trains that should have been switched in the morning didn’t get switched till late the next day, which pushed back other work, which pushed back…you get the point.

Add in the horrible screw up of UP assuming their computer car tracking and inventory system would work without a test run, and when they flipped the switch, whole trains disappeared.

The entire inventory of Englewood yard, every track, simply was gone, and no way to get the old SP computer to recall it, so they had to have people actually walk the tracks making written lists just to figure out what they had in the yard and what was out on the system.

Englewood is huge, just look at a map of Houston and the biggest yard in the northeast corner is Englewood.

They didn’t know what was headed towards them, what needed to get out of town, what tracks they had available in what yards…all of the information needed was gone.

To compound all of that, they forced retired a lot of older SP management and officers, so they lost a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge about what does, and more importantly, doesn’t work in and around the Houston Metroplex.

Omaha had no idea where you could “hide” a train for a day or two, but the old SP yardmasters knew what fit where, and how long it could stay there till it “had” to move.

The total lack

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I remember the UP backup when the switchover was activated. Railfanning in Tolono Ill. and there was a IC curfew for railwork and headed over to Sidney where the NS crossed over the UP. NS was busy but there was a UP stacker off in the distance. Sat there all day. Next day the same thing happened on the IC so back over to Sidney again. Same train was sitting there. Got back to Tolono and there was a local fan there fanning also and asked him what was going on with the UP and told him about the stacker in the siding. He said that train had been there for 3 days waiting for Houston to get unclogged for him to head south a little more just to sit. He claimed that there were 15+ trains waiting from Houston just about to Chicago waiting.