Western Railroad Discussion > BNSF closing hump yards

I heard from a friend at BNSF that BNSF is closing its hump at Memphis TN.  On many levels, it appears that BNSF is starting to head down the same PSR road that CSX, UP, and NS are going, just a lot more quietly.

BNSF closing this yard sounds even more interesting because IIRC, this is the yard that E. Hunter Harrison, the father of PSR and someone that seems to have a high disliking for hump yards (as closing these yards figure prominently in his PSR program), began his management career with the Frisco.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/20 09:09 by wyeth.

 E Hunter Harrison and Memphis.

In my shortline career we had a President who came from BN, at the time of the Frisco merger he was CMO, cars for BNSF, after the merger he made a tour of Frisco facilities to see what they had.  One stop was Memphis and since Hunter was the head Mech Officer for SLSF in 
Memphis it fell to Harrison to host his new boss.  The BNSF officer was in the habit when visiting new, to him, terminals to on completion of their main mission to ask to be driven around the terminal and observe what the other railroads in the terminal had for facilities.  So the time came and the BN guy asked Hunter to drive him around and what the otter railroads had to offer.  Hunter's jaw dropped, and his face turned pale and pained, Mr, Harrison had absolutely no clue where any other railroads yards were, and couldn't even fin a map.  They eventually stole a Yardmaster who had been a terminal conductor for decades and new every nook and cranny of the place.  E. Hunter Harrison did not make a favorable impression on that date!  Maybe that's why Hunter seemed to have such a passionate hate of yards.

It looks like a case of monkey see monkey do...Hump yards are good for sorting cars and routing them in the right direction..PSR by passes humpyards moving large cuts of cars and skipping service to the smaller shippers.  Another case of greed coming forward, it sure looked like BNSF was not going in the PSR direction until they started running these super long trains ans cutting out crew changes and laying off many men and women...

I'm thinking that this has more to do with the Coronavirus slow/shutdown then it does to BNSF and PSR.

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Shortline614 Wrote:
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> I'm thinking that this has more to do with the
> Coronavirus slow/shutdown then it does to BNSF and
> PSR.

This would be correct.

It's the carload stuff that gets humped and many of the companies producing carlaods are closed down at
the moment, let's see what happens when things pick back up. ASll BNSF has to do is look at the example
that the UP is setting and do the opposite.

Out 

Forty years ago, Santa Fe had a lively industrial business between Los Angeles and Riverside.  Pico Rivera had 13 road switchers covering the Vail Field, Ford Plant, Santa Fe Springs and La Mirada.  Just La Mirada alone accounted for 3500 loads per month.  Fullerton worked 6 road switchers and probably handled 5000 loads per month ( in and out).
Corona had a day and a night switcher to serve the industry there.  I mention this because discussions of closing hump yards seem to overlook the fact that the conventional carload traffic as described above has largely disappeared.  There is still some remaining traffic but it is a fraction ( perhaps 25%) of the hey days of the 1970s.  You don't need hump yards to sort trafrfic that has disappeared.  Unfortunately, this has happened all over the American rail network.  Why?  Around Los Angeles, the warehouses are filled with containers bringing manufactured goods from Asia,  trucking has taken all the short haul business i.e., LA to Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Francisco,  and of course, California is no longer a great location for heavy industry as we know.  In short, the decline of conventional "boxcar" business means there are far fewer cars to switch.

Norm

Norman Orfall
Helendale, CA
TIOGA PASS, a private railcar

rantoul Wrote:
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> Today there is a robust plastic (pellets) industry
> whose end use industries include many receiving
> small car counts (not unit trains).  Ditto food
> manufacturing.  The large loss of boxcar use
> for manufacturing industries is true but there
> has been some new industries requiring single car
> handling.  I'm surprised intermodal (boxes and
> trailers) hasn't become more integrated in
> domestic originated and delivered rail transport.
> The rail industry still can't figure out how to
> integrate the first and last miles of delivery
> services into a rail business model.

The bulk transfer business is alive and well in many places. Industrial bakers, some plastic products makers, etc. The linear descendant of the team track, alongside the freight house.

trainjunkie Wrote:
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> Shortline614 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I'm thinking that this has more to do with the
> > Coronavirus slow/shutdown then it does to BNSF
> and
> > PSR.
>
> This would be correct.

According to the friend I talked to, and he got his info from his union official, that these are more "structural" permanent changes, not temporary one's because of the Covid crisis.  He also said, but they don't know any details, that there are suppose to be big changes system wide come the first of June.

Warren Buffett has said they would look at some parts of PSR.  There's nothing wrong about running your railroad more efficiently.  It's what you do with the assets after reaching that goal.  Do you use them to grow more business or do you dispose them to generate cash for the short-term stock holders?

The story I've heard is that young Hunter was in a yard tower with his boss looking over the yard full of cars.  His boss asked him what he saw.  EHH said he saw a lot of good business out there.  His boss said that he saw cars just sitting there.  EHH supposedly then had his epiphany about keeping cars moving.  Of course, EHH figured the way to run more efficiently was to run the railroad and have customers conform to it's needs instead of the other way around.  Run off any business that didn't fit the railroad's model. 

I can just imagine in the great beyond, EHH runs into his former boss and he says to EHH, "you idiot, I meant for you to move the businees, not run it off." 

57A26 Wrote:
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>
> I can just imagine in the great beyond, EHH runs
> into his former boss and he says to EHH, "you
> idiot, I meant for you to move the businees, not
> run it off." 

Beautiful, I totally agree with this, and the rest of the post.  

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

I am familiar with that story, Hunter's boss was Bill Thompson (WFT) aka Pisser Bill.  I worked for him on the Rock Island and TRRA.  I think you are correct, he wanted to move business when I worked for him.  That was also before he got the nickname.  The story I heard, from a reliable source, was that he took a leak at an online construction site on BN and accidentally peed on a worker in the ditch.  He did hate to be ignored.

57A26 Wrote:
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> Warren Buffett has said they would look at some
> parts of PSR.  There's nothing wrong about
> running your railroad more efficiently.  It's
> what you do with the assets after reaching that
> goal.  Do you use them to grow more business or
> do you dispose them to generate cash for the
> short-term stock holders?

The real question is:  are the PSR railroads actually running their businesses more efficiently under PSR?  If you ask them, they'll definitely tell you "You betcha!"; what else would one expect to hear - but is that what is actually happening???  There's a good chance, if the industry survives like it is today, that in ten years, another new group of managers will be criticizing todays management saying out totally stupid this PSR thing was and how much damage it did to the industry.