Western Railroad Discussion > UP To Reduce Workers By 3,000 In 2020

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/union-pacific-says-it-will-need-3000-fewer-workers-in-2020

How many companies have to show poor earnings, slowed growth and business stagnation before we actually call it a recession?  The stock market is NOT the economy. The stock market is just a single market that trades in "securities," which are perpetually propped up by the FED and its monetary policy and artificially low-interest rates.
People in general seem to believe that the stock market and the economy are one in the same though......

HogheadMike Wrote:
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> How many companies have to show poor earnings,
> slowed growth and business stagnation before we
> actually call it a recession?

Mike.. are you living in the same country as I am? Look at the workplace participation figures, just for one thing.  Don't judge the country by the RR industry. They now contract out most of work that was done by employees and four sure the new monster trains with remote/DPU units have cut back crews.

Oh wow so UP needs to cut jobs, how about BN? They too are doing the same as was told late last year.  Things change in the business world job market is still in need of workers in many areas, trades as they are called was the area I retired from has needed qualified people for well over ten years.  And wow whats next its Trumps fault but Obama left with a booming economy? Nothing new never stops with the left wing bunch.

I agree with Mike. I'm not seing many actual signs of a robust economy like I have seen in the past. Around 4,000 TY&E, mechanical and maintenance furloughed on BNSF (including me). Thousands and thousands more on all the other class 1s too. Traffic/carloads down from last year (although I don't completely trust the AAR's figures). My wife works in air cargo and their business is down too, and the company has clamped down on spending. Housing starts down in 2019. It doesn't add up.

I lean conservative and I like a lot of the things the current administration is doing but my intuition is telling me that the claims of a robust economy by the WH are dubious. 

Yes, I am living in the same country as you and it is NOT just the rail industry.  Trucking is suffering as well as air freight and sea transport.  It is the transportation industry as a whole.  Have you not followed the Celedon bankruptcy?  How about the fact that year over year, per the AAR, carloadings were down 10%. Yes, corporate earnings are LOWER across the board, not higher.  GDP is down to a crawl.  As for workforce participation, most of those jobs are low paying, service sector jobs without pensions/matching 401ks or livable wages.

And this is most certainly NOT a political thing.  Immediately someone made the response that "Nothing new never stops with the left-wing bunch."  Are you really accusing me of being "left wing" because I see right through the Fed and their repo operations and quantitative easing?  I'm libertarian and I don't get suckered into partisan politics.  This is non-partisan, not left, not right.  This is an economic issue and the problem just becomes worse and worse every year that people blame the economic issues on one particular party or the other.  

Go look on the Federal Reserve.gov website and look at their balance sheet.  Overlay this balance sheet over the Nasdaq average for example.  You will see that they mirror eachother.  Every time they inject new money into the economy the stock market goes up.  Meanwhile, real business growth is stagnant and it isn't just the railroads.
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/20 08:13 by HogheadMike.

Keep the politics out of the conversation.  You are not going to change any minds and this is not the place to talk about it.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

Denver Tansit needs light rail operators and I think other systems need them too, like Los Angeles openning a new line this year.

Anyone want to drive buses,  transit systems needs drivers.

Factors . war on coal (biggest driver).  Export grain affected by tariff policy.  Higher trucking capacity reduced demand for intermoal. All of which has hit the RRs hard.  Most of which are not basic indicators of overall economic health. 

UP's chemical business  2015 =  874,193

Same for 2019 =  942,361

Difference = up 68.168 carloads

UP traffic 2015 (MINUS COAL/GRAIN/INTERMODAL) =  3,405619

Same for 2019 =   3,386,362     

difference =  down  19,257 carloads

Consider during same period COAL was down 480,401 carloads 2015 vs 2019   
2019 was first year in decades UP's coal carloads dropped below 1 million / yr.  It's only going lower no matter who wins in November.

GRAIN down 16,679 carloads 2015 vs 2019
This has potential for making a comeback, however, there has also been somewhat of a war on grain especially in western countries.  
____________________
2020 so far  YTD  chemicals  56118

Same time last year 53971

difference up 2147 (4 percent)


 

"Keep the politics out of the conversation. "

Thanks, Todd

Dick
Roosevelt, Utah

Don't forget about New Jersey Transit that for the last year or so has had to cancel rush hour trains almost on a daily basis due to lack of engineers.

mundo Wrote:
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> Denver Tansit needs light rail operators and I
> think other systems need them too, like Los
> Angeles openning a new line this year.
>
> Anyone want to drive buses,  transit systems
> needs drivers.

Seems to me that often lower freight rail volume is an indicator of a future downturn. I'm old enough to have seen quite a few.

> Don't forget about New Jersey Transit that for the
> last year or so has had to cancel rush hour trains
> almost on a daily basis due to lack of engineers.

Does anyone out there want to live in New Jersey on New Jersy Transit wages?  I know I sure don't.  

UP like most railroads is a lost company having no idea about the present world or the future.

Posted from iPhone

HogheadMike Wrote:
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> Does anyone out there want to live in New Jersey
> on New Jersy Transit wages?  I know I sure don't.

Me neither. Also most transit jobs don't pay into railroad retirement. If you are trying to get your 20 or 30 years into RRB and are willing to take a low paying job in order to continue contributing, even most of these transit jobs won't help you.

Judging by watching the Tehachapi and Kearney cams the the number of tank cars on manifest trains has increased. It's been suggested that's because margins on this business is higher than intermodal and boxcar.

I also see alot of lumber moving on many of these trains, more than I would expect to see during January.


Allen

Posted from Android

Why do I keep seeing pop-up ads on the internet that say Union Pacific is hiring? 
Gonut

Ooh let's get political!! Like it or not the complexion, make up, basis, etc of jobs is changing. Just as a guess, 90% of the economy of California
(big number) has zip, zero, nada, association directly with rail transit. Yes some comsimer goods, fuel, etc does get moved by rail but the jobs they
represent don't. Coal in terms of ton miles was a huge number, it's going to be difficult to make that up. But, saying all that, I still think there's a
place for shortlines, decent service and attention to small to mid size shippers. The crystal ball says that at some point there are going to be
trackage rights agreements with people other than the class 1s, trucks aren't going to tyake over everything.

Out 

nedzarp Wrote:
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> Seems to me that often lower freight rail volume
> is an indicator of a future downturn. I'm old
> enough to have seen quite a few.

RR carloadings have always been a Wall St benchmark.  Thing is, carload freight is down some, but certainly not off the table. It's coal that is dragging down the overall numbers. Coal is not an economic indicator.  Intermodal is down, but RRs have lost to both an overcapcity in trucking and uncertainty on imports due to tariff negotiations, plus their PSR downsizing.

https://railfax.transmatch.com/ 

You can factor for baseline, cyclical, and others.
 

Gonut1 Wrote:
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> Why do I keep seeing pop-up ads on the internet
> that say Union Pacific is hiring? 

Those are third-party job sites (like Monster, Indeed, etc.) that use old information to create phishing campaigns. They just want your personal information. There are no job openings unless they are on the UP Careers website.