Western Railroad Discussion > MRL furloughs

Missoula Mt newspaper Missoulian is reporting that MRL is going to furlough upwards to 36 engineers system wide. Laurel, Helena, and Missoula will share in the layoffs plus 2 in Livingston.

BNSF must be watching out for their crews.  There's been an uptick in empty coal trains coming back down the BNSF's Laurel sub on their way back to the coal mine.  Unit coal trains empty or full disappeared from the Laurel sub for quite sometime until about a month ago.  Now there's an empty coal train headin home at least once a week out here.

Natural gas is really doing a number on coal with the strong dollar slowing the export of grain leaving the MRL on the short end of the stick.

Going rumor is the BeeNSF marketing dept is looking at selling both intermodal and manifest service between Seattle and Birmingham via the MRL soon.

Posted from iPhone

MM171 Wrote:
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> Missoula Mt newspaper Missoulian is reporting that
> MRL is going to furlough upwards to 36 engineers
> system wide. Laurel, Helena, and Missoula will
> share in the layoffs plus 2 in Livingston.
>
> BNSF must be watching out for their crews.
>  There's been an uptick in empty coal trains
> coming back down the BNSF's Laurel sub on their
> way back to the coal mine.  Unit coal trains
> empty or full disappeared from the Laurel sub for
> quite sometime until about a month ago.  Now
> there's an empty coal train headin home at least
> once a week out here.
>
> Natural gas is really doing a number on coal with
> the strong dollar slowing the export of grain
> leaving the MRL on the short end of the stick.

BNSF is looking out for its market not its labor.  The MRL route is important to them, crews are just a commodity to be adjusted for the # of trains necessary to move rail cars from point A to B.