This is exactly the traffic that can be partially eliminated by optimizing the classification and train plan between roads.
It’s the “merger benefit” that can be had without merging.
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When I was working and able to view some of the Interline Plans that CSX had with the various carriers at the gateway points with those carriers - the ‘cross blocking’ between the carriers was on from 4 to 8 trains per day depending on the overall traffic level for the particular gateway.
Back in the early days of my career in 1966 on the B&O St. Louis Division the B&O had train Gateway 97 that operated directly to the SSW through the St. Louis gateway with the help of one of the St. Louis terminal carriers. As best I can recall, the train was assembled in Cumberland with blocks for the SSW to distribute out of St. Louis going West.
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Backshop, would you agree that “management style,” the way major decisions are reached,is different at BNSF than the other three, or even the other five?
It may not necessarily be. One of Buffett’s management tenets for ‘value investing’ is to acquire management knowledgeable in specific operations, and then delegate responsibility to ‘make their numbers’ without executive Berkshire Hathaway oversight.
That is quite good. Better than NS had at the end of my career. Still, it’s not a “clean sheet” approach. It’s finding opportunities ala carte withing the existing blocking plan. There’s a lot more “there” there if you could get RRs to undertake joint studies, answering the question, “What’s the best possible plan we can generate given this traffic?”
Every carrier - even when involved in projects with foreign carriers - protect their own ‘intellectual property’. They don’t give up all their ‘secrets’ in these projects as the want to have something to build upon going forward.
And it’s that plan accomplishing anything /reducing work or just changing where the work is done?
Goal is to reduce handlings per car-trip, so both. Should be same number of train miles, but less switching.
Until we went completely down the PSR rabbit hole we had run throughs with both NS and CSX between the Chicago area and North Platte. Ther were both an east and westbound manifest with NS (Elkhart) and a westbound manifest with CSX (Willard). There was that North Platte to Selkirk manifest with reefer traffic, before thr RailEx Z train. That changed from going via the exCNW to going via the exMP. The endpoint also eventually changed, at least the UP designation initial changed. I think it’s gone, but don’t know for sure. Those run throughs didn’t work intermediate yards.
The goal always has been to switch cars as little as possible. PSR ended that. In the beginning, it was get cars out of the big yards as fast as possible. That began the huge land barges working almost every intermediate yard. For awhile an eastbound with primarily NS cars would set out a CSX block at an intermediate yard, along with cars for that yard. A primarily CSX manifest would do the same with an NS block. Then the respective trains would pick up the proper block, along with other traffic out of those yards. It reduced the dwell time at the big yards, where the spot light was, but just moved some of the original dwell time to the intermediate yards. That part eventually changed. We still have some large land barges, but they do less intermediate work. The work done isn’t the same type of block swapping as before, but traffic going to on line points. It’s trying to keep switching from being done at hump yards in favor of intermediate yards. Some of which weren’t designed to process the volume pushed through them.
Jeff
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Why have a hump yard and a hump crew when you can just tack on 2 hours of ot a day to 1-2dozen locals to preblock stuff every day?
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My home terminal was supposed to get enlarged to handle the volume of cars that pass through it. A few preliminary items have been done, but everything is now on an indefinite hold.
Almost daily there are three manifests that need to work the yard that are back to back waiting their turn. Even getting the first one in line is almost a guarantee of 12 hours. Besides the eastbounds there are locals and an originating/terminating manifest that are more important. Plus the yard needs to switch the incoming cars. The yard has one yard engine on first and second trick. Third trick has a second engine on duty six days a week to make up locals and interchange with the Boone and Scenic Valley. The B&SV switches a few industries on the former FDDM&S that used to be switched by UP. They get a switching charge for doing the work.
My worst experience was being called to deadhead, then used to dog catch an inbound manifest. We got on about 25 miles out, first eastbound in line for the yard. We sat 8 hours before the yard was ready for us. That was an extreme case.
Jeff
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Not only that - set the blocks out on sidings on line of road and you can then blame every things on Train Dispatchers as the corporate train speed diminish. PSR is no more than a numbers game played by people that really don’t understand what the numbers are really all about.
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BNSF management a bit different than the others? All the managements balancev immediate profits againswtb long-term profitability. My impression is that BNSF tilts a bit more to the latter than the other three.
Which RR has the inadequate yard and regular holding-out of manifests described. If it is BNSF, that would prove me wrong on this question.
All of them. And the practice pre dates the PSR craze.
Hey, it is not only railroads.
Megacorp that owns our little company ($90m revenue per year) is merging with another megacorp to create supermegacorp. The decree is to cut head count, cut expenses, and increase revenue. We are up about 20% revenue YoY with about 8% reduction of headcount. Of course we cannot meet the due dates needed and must ship NDA or 2nDA to get to destination.
Another big morale boost was to reduce company 401k contributions to almost $ nothing. That went over well!
Mergers typically either do not workout or do not show positive returns. It is all about ego.
Ed
They always work out for someone, normally one whose title starts with a “C”.
Usually works out well for the shareholders, typically not the C’s
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It’s not that longer trains or flat vs hump or preblocking or mixing train types is good or bad by itself…
It’s whether or not you are properly set up to do it. Converting hump to flat with magic dust doesn’t make an efficienct flat yard…nor does it take into account more damage the more variable flat process.
Running longer trains is okay as long as sidings and yard tracks are also longer. Trippling out with DPUs is not efficient. Lineside help for mechanical failure on very long trains is also needed. Risk of failure goes up proportionally with train length.
Running ML in merchandise is okay as long as you don’t rely 100% on EOCC to prevent lading damage.
If UP and NS were running perfectly now, through weather, traffic and other variable factors, then they might have a case.
But, they’re not. They have insufficient excess capacity and less than bulletproof UT systems. Merger will be a hot mess.
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Is part of the yard problem a consequence of running much longer trains, 10-15,000 feet long? And it seems lengthening yard leads is difficult if not impossible.
Partly. It’s the arrival and departure (or forwarding as NS calls them) tracks.
You want them to hold your longest trains. If they don’t, you have to double out, which means having the headroom to do it. Departing is worse than arriving because you need pump up and do air test, so you’re hanging out for a good while.
Add in the time it takes to get the DPU set connected and verified, and that’s a lot of time not getting anywhere.
Older yards built in steam era often had tracks less than 100 cars. Not all of these have been lengthened for the steam era. (Allentown, I’m looking at you! - unless I missed something…)
Mgt at Bailey Yard (10 years ago) told me it took about an hour to get a DPU train out…and they were set up for it!
(Shameless plug for a next gen ECP system to be developed that eliminates air pumping, air test and DPU connection time!)