Western Railroad Discussion > E Hunter Harrison goes to CSXT, it's official

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,4242462

Yes, it will affect the western carriers.

God prepare to help the hired help....

Let's see if he's gonna force a western road to merge with CSX after he gets everything going!

Or kick Amtrak off his system.

Posted from Android

Get a rope:)

There goes the neighborhood.

Will probablly be boom times for NS when customers leave CSX because of even worse service.

I continue to maintain that HH has one desire in life...be the man that forged the first true transcontinental railroad from Atlantic to Pacific. As they did with CP + NS, shippers will fight this one hard. There is no benefit for shippers, just the hedge fund backing HH.

Forget all the hyperbole about reduced overhead and elimination of redundant labor and equipment, rates are based on originating carrier, destination carrier and the division of rates on gateways. Reduce choice, increase rates...Economics 101. I am not sure BNSF or UP will dance, however.

Posted from iPhone

BNSF has no shareholders that he can use his snake oil on, they have just one person that he would have to convince and I don't think Mr. Buffet is someone he could bamboozle.

jlcKS Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BNSF has no shareholders that he can use his snake
> oil on, they have just one person that he would
> have to convince and I don't think Mr. Buffet is
> someone he could bamboozle.

Wouldn't that be poetic if it ends up being Mr. Buffet to create the first transcon RR, and not EHH??

Following this and other threads about Harrison, I have but one comment to make:  I don't like E. Hunter Harrison's management philosophy, but I understand completely how guys like him come to power in the railroads in this country.  Once again, people hating on him are missing the point in the big picture:  if one is going to successfully manage a for-profit business that has to compete against massively taxpayer-subsidized competition--the trucking industry--where the profits are privatized, but many of the costs are socialized onto the taxpayers, then that manager has to be absolutely ruthless about efficiency and cutting costs.  Now, add to that mix that investors--from large institutional investors down to the individual stockholder--only care about next quarter's results and no longer give a damn about anything much farther in the future than that (a product of our "instant gratification" and 30-second attention span national mentality) and E. Hunter Harrison is the kind of manager that rises to the top.  He delivers what the investors demand.  (Warren Buffett, by contrast, is one of the very few large "institutional" investors who actually invests with long-term results in mind.)

So, for railroaders and railfans alike, if we don't want the EHH's of the world running the railroads with no thought toward the long-term good for either the railroads or the country, then we should lobby a ) to drive a wood stake into the massive taxpayer subsidization of the highway system and b ) to start to have some concern for what this country is going to look like in 20 or 30 years.  If we don't do those things, we are going to hand the coming generations a wreck of a country--a Third World equivalent with no real way to be anything more than that ever again.  Our collective stupidity and obsession with short-term pleasure over long-term survival is what empowers guys like E. Hunter Harrison in business and government.

My thoughts with their employees as he plays with another company. Many will be booted; emotional damage, physical damage, and prbably economic too. But hey, you can wipe away their tears with all your stock money.

WW ---
Amen!  Amen! Amen!!!

Well... we all have our work cut out for us.  It is very
very hard to fight the huge power and gigantic sums of
money the 1% have poured into getting their way, part
of which has been and is being used to deceive and
mislead and misinform and miseducate us ordinary
people about what is real and what is not, and what is
important and what is not important.

We all need to adopt then Dutch philosophy: "The difficult?
That will take a while.  The impossibole?  That wil take a little
longer."  And we absolutely must be in it for the long, long
haul -- and be satisfiesd with small victories, as we work
relentlessly toward fixing the huge mess our poor, suffering 
country is in now.  The huge problem is: exactly how do we
ordinary people find ways to bridge the giant divisions between
us?  It seems as though we no longer even speak the same
language, and, because we must talk to each other in order to
fix these big problems, we must find some things we agree on.
But it is impossible to hold any meaningful and productive 
conversations if one side refuses to listen to te other side.

"Houston, we got us a problem!"

Only a society in deep trouble would ever elevate anyone like
EHH to any position of power.  A decent society would see to it
that people like EHH wold get the help they so obviously need
and deserve, and would probably prevent anyone from becoming
cruel and nasty and unbalanced the way EHH is.  EHH is a symbol
of a lot of things that are wrong in our society, not only in the
transportation sector, but everywhere.

One thing we ordinary people can do to start fixing our society's
gigantic problems is to band together with each other and raise
money and outbid the 1% for politicians.  Yes, that does seem
impossiboe, but remember that Dutch saying abot things that
seem to be impossible.  There are far, far more of us ordiinary
people than there are the mega-wealthy, and they need us
desperately, while we really do not need them at all.  Most of
them are parasite, and do absolutely nothing we cannot do 
much better.

But the biggest problem is that a large part of the ordinary people
do not even agree that there is a problem, or, if they do, they strongly
believe that the rest of us ordinary people are the real cause of their
problems, which we are not.

The 1% are playing many of us like an orchestra of violins, and
those who are being played like that of course will refuse to admit
that, as it is humiliating to realize that they are being manipulated.

"United we stand; divided we fall," and, boy, are we ever falling.

However -- there is an enormous amount of human potential
and abilities that have been mostly untapped -- and when we 
begin to find ways to let people do what they are really good at,
and encourage people to share their ideas and to get involcved
in solving our many problems, then we will finally be able to turn
the corner to become a truly worthwhile and wonderful society.