Eastern Railroad Discussion > How Conrail Works Financially

I\\\'ve suffered under some initial confusion over this myself, so I asked around to clarify how Conrail works financially.

What I\\\'ve been told is this.

Conrail has two items on its ledger - costs of operation, and revenue from leases and sidetrack agreements. Conrail does not gain any revenue from car movement, so there is no rate division as on a shortline.

Every month, the costs of operation are obviously much higher than lease revenue, so NS and CSX are sent a bill, split 58% NS, 42% CSX. NS and CSX then incorporate this bill into the prices they offer customers in the CSAO area.

Practically speaking, this leaves Conrail under constant pressure to cut costs, but with no incentive to provide better service and certainly with no commercial relationship to the customer.

Any corrections and discussion are welcomed.

Andy Byler

I remember a discussion I had with a CSAO crew a few months after the merger. The conductor told me that when NS got the first bills from Conrail, he had heard they went nuts over all the penalties Conrail was paying for shoving and other things. When I read the news a couple months ago, I was surprised that it took so long for NS to eliminate the shoving costs.

Conrail had the best "Shoving" penalty in the biz. More caboo-----Skip that "Shoving Platforms" now.

NS never paid the shove claims from Day 1 to my knowledge.

Conrail just abolished it formally effective April 1, 2003.

Pretty much all of the penalties were being paid for the first couple of months after split date. \'99 was a very good paying year for us! :)

~Kris