According to data released by the Association of American Railroads, volumes for United States freight railroads saw record totals in 2006.
Full-year 2006 U.S. carloads totaled 17,380,102, up 1.2 percent (213,751 carloads) over 2005.
Full-year 2006 U.S. intermodal loadings were 12,282,221 units, up 5.0 percent (588,709 trailers and containers) over 2005’s 11,693,512 units, which had been the previous highest annual total ever.
The full story is linked below
Good, but something I have difficulty understanding.
If the class ones are hauling record breaking loads and “adjusting for inflation” are making far greater profits than they did 20 years ago, why are roads like CSX plagued with track maintenance issues? I can understand the locomotive shortages and the slow rate of replacements arriving but it would seem that there would and should be enough money budgeted to take care of the track issues. Some branch and industrial lines reportedly have track conditons similar to the Penn Central decades back.
Yes, I’ve read that CSX and UP are overhauling some stretches of deteriorating lines, but it seems a bit puzzling to read of stories where track and bridge conditions are not good and yet profits have been high for several years now.
I think that CSX is pandering to their stockholders. Making good profits, but ignoring the infrastructure. It can only be a short-term strategy that will come back and haunt them down the road. Other lines, such as NS, seem to be putting a lot of money into infrastructure.
I believe you hit the nail on the head! Capital expenditures on infrastructure do not bring immediate results to the bottom line, as a matter of fact they typically hit the bottom line hard. NS just announced late last year their plans to pump millions into rebuilding.
Interesting though. Not trying to say that NS outshines CSX but it often seems that there have been more reports of NS making track upgrades and repairs intransportation related magazines than CSX. I agree that infrastructure improvements/upgrades affect the bottom line in the short term, however, the financial officers with the masters degrees have to be aware of the long term benefits. Infrastructure improvement are one of the categories that Conrail received accolades for years back (yes, Uncle Sam was helping out though).
yes, but the fianance officers are “Junior” to the board of directors, who set policy and are more directly accountable to the stockholders.
But how much of CSX maintenance woes is related to having large sections of historically under maintained track they have to catch up with? Be interesting to know what percentage of revenue they spend on maintenance and upgrades relative to other Class I’s.
Now that is interesting. I remember reading back in the late 70s-early 80s that a big portion of former L&N trackage was in poor shape as was a lot of Seaboard Coast Line’s secondary lines. However, after CSX became “official” in 1986 I remember that a number of those lines were either sold off, upgraded, or abandoned. Yet back in 2003 we were still reading reports of horrible track conditions on various CSX segments in south central states.
Just made me scratch my head and wonder this: Were the lines in question that CSX decided to keep years back repaired and the 2003 reports were of lines that were in good shape back in the 90s? Lines on which CSX continued to defer or delay needed maintenance resulting in the poor track conditions by the time 2000 rolled around?
I may be wrong but the conslusion seemed to read that as long as CSX could run long manifests and get them to their destination…even if it was track that only allowed 20mph speeds…then maintenance was deferred (unless it was a line utilized by Amtrak or commuter trains). Add to that CSX and UP’s major yards have been suffering from overcrowding and back logs. So perhaps, except for hot-shot intermodals and Amtrak runs, a lot of the secondary route trackage does not need to be in tip-top shape to allow 50+ mph speeds.
This is just a guess. I hope I am wrong.
It could be (purely speculation here) the CSX is running their rails down into the ground. Then, when a particular section is completely falling apart, they upgrade/replace the entire section all at once, instead of continually making repairs over shorter lengths of track.
This would seem to have the advantage of 1) using resources to the fullest extent, and 2) reduce the overall cost of track maintenance/repair/replacement.
Talking about track maintenance–I think it is obvious that CSX does not take first place.
I saw something interesting last August while railfanning in the Kansas City area. I was amazed to find the BNSF Transcom not in all that good shape (Olathe, Kansas, the Courtney Street Crossing and Norborne, Missouri). Lots of soft spots with all those intermodal hotshots speeding by. In Norbonne, about 60 miles east of KC, the line is shared with NS (ex-Wabash). NS keeps up the eastbound and BNSF the westbound tracks. The difference was striking. The NS line was straight as a pin, flawless, while the BNSF had all sort of wobbly spots. To me, this was amazing since I had always heard that the BNSF was really in great shape and well-run. Is BNSF spending all their maintenance capital expenditures on enlarging the capacity to the west while neglecting the eastern half? This line is their bread and butter.
P Lammermeier
Lima, Peru
I’m sure that BNSF has several track projects, but I know that they are pouring money into PRB access.