last winter 2013 - 2014 was defined as the worse in thirty years. Although not a complete melt down it came close for the RRs. Traffic this summer is up in certain corridors 20% compared to 2013. If traffic especially across the northern tiers follows this trend for the upcoming winter what preparations are being implemented now ? No one can predict how the upcoming winter will be but lessons learned from last winter should be applied now ? There are so many items to be planned for. Example are there enough crews being hired now for the winter ? Examples of what the RRs are doing will be interesting !
Yes. Railroads prepare for winter every year. They start about this time of year. They do what they think they need to do based on past experiences, projected traffic needs, and hope for the best.
Hope really worked last winter ? ? ?
They are already praying for Spring 2015.
I’m sure every customer affected by last winter’s near meltdown is asking that very question. Are railroads being proactive by putting together a plan or offering anything that might assuage those shippers? Failures due to weather are not reasons, they’re excuses.
When I first went to work for the old ICG I rented an apartment in Richton Park and commuted into Chicago on the older IC electric line.
On a cold winter’s day we were having trouble on the way home and I heard the comment: “Every year winter catches the IC by surprise.”
As I came to know the ICG operating department I realized that the guy had a good point.
Winter does that, but it doesn’t have to. We can’t control the weather but we have one hundred percent control over managing customer expectations. I’m careful to manage them downward… that way, when things do go well people are pleasantly surprised, and when things go awry they were at least forewarned.
Most weather related issues aren’t really weather related issues at all. They are communications and over commitment issues.
Railroads and truck lines are pretty much captives to the vagaries [ : an erratic, unpredictable, or extravagant manifestation, action, or notion.] of Winter and its icy,snowy, nastiness. As greyhounds mentioned you try to degrade customers expectations while watching a Winter Storm moving in on your operational area. There are so many outside forces that can cause your individual schedules grief…Snow removal, sand for icing conditions, and traffic generally bound up by conditions.
As for the railroads, BaltACD can speak to that and what happens in his operational areas. Ulrich knows what to expect North of the Border when the weather turns on them.
There are some customers who are so committed to a’normal operation’ all the time. They just have to suck it up and probably pay out lots of dollars for ‘failures’ to deliver as scheduled. For a number of years , fought winters all over the country in conjunction with customers like “… Absolutely, Positively…” " Big Brown" and several other outfits that are in similar businesses. OUr best effort was Communication with the customer, and constant updates.
I would imagine that the UPRR’s Cheyenne Roundhouse Crew is looking to their added area of responsibility, and getting their stuff in order to be called out in the event of a blizzard. Everybody knows Winter is just ‘around the corner’ and we’ll all have to deal with whatever it throws at us.