Western Railroad Discussion > PSR bandwagon

With what seems like "monkey see, monkey do" among the Class 1's, why is it BNSF appears to not have embraced this methodology?  Possibly because it's privately held and not on their knees in front of Wall Street?  Just wondering?
Rich S

The general opinon from previous discussions is that not having to keep Wall Street happy on a quarterly basis allows BNSF to think long term and avoid various kinds of short term nonsense.

Did you read the Matt Rose interview in RA? Kind of encapsulates their position on PSR. But make no mistake, elements of it have infested BNSF too.

https://www.railwayage.com/freight/class-i/matt-rose-less-is-not-better/

BNSF will no doubt continue to put parts of PSR in place where they deem it warranted. They are just not in a huge rush to do so. Still, expect to see more double coal empties (at the minimum) and a trend to maxing out loaded coal trains due to pressure from coal producers to keep transportation rates down.

Allen

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/19 11:39 by bradleymckay.

richs Wrote:
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> With what seems like "monkey see, monkey do" among
> the Class 1's, why is it BNSF appears to not have
> embraced this methodology?  Possibly because it's
> privately held and not on their knees in front of
> Wall Street?  Just wondering?
> Rich S

For the most part, Richs, you hit it on the nailhead.

SantaFeRuss

Berkshire Hathaway enjoys two parts of the halo effect.

One is the near saintly view of Warren Buffett held by much of Wall street. In spite of OK, but not great, performance in recent years.

The other is that RAIL stock analysts don't cover Berkshire. Meaning that part of the firm escapes deep critical analysis.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/19 14:39 by Lackawanna484.

It's always funny to read that people think BNSF is privately owned.  BNSF is owned by Berkshire Hathaway.  BRK-A is currently trading at north of $310,000 per share on the NYSE.  They are just part of a larger conglomerate and not 'immune' from the whims of Wall Street, but perhaps shaded by reporting to Berkshire and not directly to Wall Street.

tracklight Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's always funny to read that people think BNSF
> is privately owned.  BNSF is owned by Berkshire
> Hathaway.  BRK-A is currently trading at north of
> $310,000 per share on the NYSE.  They are just
> part of a larger conglomerate and not 'immune'
> from the whims of Wall Street, but perhaps shaded
> by reporting to Berkshire and not directly to Wall
> Street.
****************************************************************
i stand corrected, thanks tracklight for pointing it out to me.
Rich S

Everyone who owns that stock is more than happy with how it is being run.  The activist shareholders here would be pitching a fit if they changed to some other business model.

jlcKS Wrote:
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> Everyone who owns that stock is more than happy
> with how it is being run.  The activist
> shareholders here would be pitching a fit if they
> changed to some other business model.

Damn share owners!  If they don't like how we run our business, they should sell their stock and go away.

BNSF publicly says they're not using PSR, from operation side says otherwise...

Posted from Android

SantaFeRuss Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> richs Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > With what seems like "monkey see, monkey do"
> among
> > the Class 1's, why is it BNSF appears to not
> have
> > embraced this methodology?  Possibly because
> it's
> > privately held and not on their knees in front
> of
> > Wall Street?  Just wondering?
> > Rich S
>
> For the most part, Richs, you hit it on the
> nailhead.
>
> SantaFeRuss

Mr Buffett has stated that he is open to some form of PSR.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/warren-buffett-open-to-precision-railroading

On the UP side of things from what I have read here and there, not on TO, there big problem has been for years what they transported, large quantities of coal and oil both of which are market driven. So it seems that to redo there routes so slowdowns in those commodities would be very costly and hard to do.  BNSF seems to be positioned with there routes better so there is less effect on them so far.  I agree that  Buffets image being the driving force for Berk helps things out greatly and having that railroad being somewhat propped up by it helps.  Just my take on things.

My take is that BNSF's  operating plan is to serve and satisfy their customers and continue to grow their business doing that.  Where I come from there is nothing wrong about that.

BAB Wrote:
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> On the UP side of things from what I have read
> here and there, not on TO, there big problem has
> been for years what they transported, large
> quantities of coal and oil both of which are
> market driven. So it seems that to redo there
> routes so slowdowns in those commodities would be
> very costly and hard to do.  BNSF seems to be
> positioned with there routes better so there is
> less effect on them so far.  I agree that 
> Buffets image being the driving force for Berk
> helps things out greatly and having that railroad
> being somewhat propped up by it helps.  Just my
> take on things.

BNSF hauls, by far, the most oil, not UP.

What has hurt UP is being underbid on several coal contracts by BNSF. In general UP has done a better job recently keeping the domestic business they have and expanding coal exports.

Allen

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/19 11:55 by bradleymckay.

The impact of grain shipments is significant for both Union Pacific and BNSF.  Grain farmers have been hit hard by the tariffs, and by the weather

Ironically, the reduction in oil train and grain train starts may be contributing to the [false]  appearance that PSR is a good thing, and it's working well

More on PSR.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/union-leaders-criticize-precision-scheduled-railroading

Lkirts Wrote:
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> More on PSR.
>
> https://www.freightwaves.com/news/union-leaders-cr
> iticize-precision-scheduled-railroading

Let's play Let's Figure This Out.

(From the cited article)

“If [the rail industry] is left to self-regulate, the PSR operating model will do what is cheapest and not what is safest and in the best interest of the public or our members,” said Jerry C. Boles, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen
~~~
Union witnesses said the deployment of PSR, an operating model which seeks to run trains on a fixed schedule,
~~~
worker fatigue and a sense of job uncertainty because of the railroads’ efforts to lower headcount and spread out job duties among fewer employees
~~~
The railroads are furloughing employees while running longer trains on the strictest of schedules and forcing employees to meet deadlines, he said.
~~~
“Across the Class I network, we’re seeing a reduction of costs, labor and service, all for the sake of achieving lower and lower operating ratios,” DeFazio said
~~~
Pierce said that PSR has eliminated many of the jobs related to train line ups and the balancing of crews when rail traffic is not even, which has resulted in an unpredictable work schedule for engineers and conductors.
~~~
He asked the committee to press FRA to pursue regulations governing rail worker fatigue.

So basically, there is no precision, there is no schedule, and whether it is railroading is questionable.

Lots of folks here knew that.

The telegraph office call at Los Banos CA was BS.

Hello Los Banos. It's...

Precision Stock Manipulation.

TAW

Ah, the beloved Warren Buffett.  Didn't he push for his pet bank Wells Fargo of the crooked practices to get a bailout?  He's still peddling high fructose McDonalds and Coke crap for the addicted, overweight masses.  Great guy, that Warren Buffett.  Knows a lot about running a railroad, too! 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/19 09:44 by RRTom.

RRTom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ah, the beloved Warren Buffett.  Didn't he push
> for his pet bank Wells Fargo of the crooked
> practices to get a bailout?  He's still peddling
> high fructose McDonalds and Coke crap for the
> addicted, overweight masses.  Great guy, that
> Warren Buffett.  Knows a lot about running a
> railroad, too! 

Mr  Buffett rightly delegates the running of Berkshire's owned companies to their managers.  He allocates the capital to them, and collects the dividends from them.

While Mr Buffett's stock picking and deal making has received wide praise, his corporate governance over American Express, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Heinz, etc doesn't earn much praise.