Eastern Railroad Discussion > HH responds to railway age

i expected something better than this reply

http://m.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/william-vantuono/hunter-harrison-responds-to-railway-age.html?channel&Itemid=491



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/17 05:44 by n.

Wow!!

Phil Maton
Villa Rica, GA

I don't believe his statement "...we are increasing frequency of service to our customers...".

Is this true?

Usually cost cutters, downsizers, or whatever you want to call them-- don't do this. They just cut everything--claim cost savings--and get a big bonus.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the NS is gaining some business already from the CSX. Small so far, but like Hunter sys, he is just getting started.

Sounds like he has worked diligently on his speech and uses all the current buzz words in the right places.

Is he talking about the same CSX I know ? I still say the plan is " Take the money and run "

Well a fair amount of the "inaccurate and anonymous comments" were lifted from this very site; some of them were even words I typed... What the hell do I know? I'm just a foamer who's bored to tears with the blue GEVO parade...

MC6853 Wrote:
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> Well a fair amount of the "inaccurate and
> anonymous comments" were lifted from this very
> site; some of them were even words I typed... What
> the hell do I know? I'm just a foamer who's bored
> to tears with the blue GEVO parade...

Yes. That's one reason why getting news from multiple and conflicting sources is a good idea.

Posted from Android

Isn't increasing local service a CN and CP hallmark? That's in his book as part of asset utilization IIRC.

Using NS as an example, local service can be delivered many ways. The intermodal center in Bethlehem gets containers to a shipper dock two or three days faster than waiting for a local train delivery.

Posted from Android

Reads like the same speeches when he was at CN and CP.

Bill Miller
Galt, ON

Written by a PR guy. This is standard blather.

Yeah, that is a meaningless reply full of generic statements greatly at odds with reality. He/it (because I doubt he wrote it) skirts any specific details and criticisms.

Yet there are so many on the ground reports of chaos and meltdown that it can't just be swept under the rug with a PR statement. Take this one, said to be by a conductor, which has more factual detail than anything in HH's PR release:

"Of course Hunter isn't going to respond to the comments in that article
because he wants the public to think it's just rumors. It's fact! And
as a matter of fact, alot of those same cars I told you about are still
parked everywhere while customers get no shipments. We went past
probably 40 or 50 autoracks today, loaded, sitting in a siding 70 miles
from where they go because all our other sidings are full of Willard
freight that they can't handle. 2 main in new castle has about 150
cars parked on it. There is a stone yard customer in Girard that
hasn't received his freight on a week, and there are probably 100 cars
for him parked in 5 different places. They are pissed and have called NS
for a quote. There is a cold storage place in Warren that handles french
fries for McDonald's, they are making arrangements to utilize another
facility where a different railroad can deliver to them. They received
a reefer car that sat so long, it ran out of fuel and damaged the whole
load. These are not rumors. There is a pipe manufacturer that gives us a
loaded train about once a week or so, we can't get their loads out and
their empties back to them because our yards and sidings are congested
with week (or two)old Willard freight. Again, not rumors. These aren't
small customers."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/17 12:56 by inCHI.

EHH is in the big leagues now. State and Federal governments have been intimately envolved with railroad service for 190 years.

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
My Flickr Shots

Here we are on the fringes of CSX system even tho on a key mainline. Some of what EHH alludes to is true here, even tho I am no supporter of him. His elimination of some tiny, irregularly schedule intermodal and short unit trains has freed up capacity on this single tracked, only 50 mph railroad to the point where train counts daily have been reduced fro 19-20 to 12-14 thru trains. For a few weeks in early summer most of them were on time, or so it was said. Since CSX does not make their train schedules public, and a good inside source dried up years ago, I can go only on dispatcher comments, which I hear a lot when I am listening. The other positive note is several carload trains have been made daily when until July 1st they were just 4 or 5 days per week. This has evened out car counts reducing the number of giant trains but also means trains work more locations and blocking requires a lot of switching, and it seems to change often. And also our locals still run five days per week with one exception.

On the flip side, I've seen a number of cars passing both ways in a few days time too quick to unload and return. I don't get consists but some cars have unique graffiti and you do notice that. Last Tuesday Q375 arrived here and left each with only 43 cars but some different. Off the five units the second was dead in train fresh painted DCR SD-40 3506. That is the new Delmarva Central railroad that leased NS's remaining lines on the Delmarva Peninsula below the C&D canal. I have not paid much attention to it because when I worked in Conrail's Shortline Marketing the logical buyer was the well established Maryland & Delaware. But another operator got it. When a railroad leases or sells a line they are not legally bound to put it up for bid. Anyway, I do know DCR only connects with NS. There is no connection with CSX. So why an obviously rebuilt or repainted DCR engine was on CSX is curious, unless the shop that did the work was only on CSX. Since there is a CSX/NS connection here in Wilmington, served only once per week by each RR and not necessarily on the same day, I surely thought the DCR unit would be set off here. No, it went west to Cumberland, at least. But this afternoon, Friday it was at the East end of the yard and taken to Philadelphia by the local crew that just went down to West yard! So how the engine will get to DCR, and how long it will take, is a good question.

n Wrote:
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> i expected something better than this reply

Then you set your own expectations too high.

What were you expecting? "Oh, wow. These anonymous attacks are 100% correct. I will change my management decisions to please anonymous people on the Internet."

Not getting into the details of dozens of anonymous complaints is a good policy. First of all it lends credence to the complaint by addressing it individually - and if one addresses some of the anonymous complaints without addressing others readers can think that only the complaints that can be refutes are being address and all other complaints are true. Readers of the complaints are thinking that already so why reinforce their (incorrect) opinions?

CSX has fired thousands of people under HH. My guess is that some of them are not happy about losing their jobs and that those who remain are not happy about doing the work of the thousands who have left. Give a few thousand people a reason to be mad and a few will express their anger on the Internet.

It would have been good to see HH address the "credible" complaints that were not anonymous. But those should be addressed with the individual shippers not with the public. Previous public comments can stand on their own without being repeated. His response was exactly what I expected.

justalurker66 Wrote:
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> CSX has fired thousands of people under HH. My
> guess is that some of them are not happy about
> losing their jobs and that those who remain are
> not happy about doing the work of the thousands
> who have left. Give a few thousand people a reason
> to be mad and a few will express their anger on
> the Internet.

Having been merely a disgruntled employee...who prevented several collisions and derailments that were a result of pathetic management practices, I am usually suspect when complaints are labeled as merely disgruntled employees.


>
> It would have been good to see HH address the
> "credible" complaints that were not anonymous.

Having spent the last 15 or so years of my tenure at BN wearing a target for being vocal about the serious problems, and having been set up (intentionally put into hazardous situations in an attempt to get me to make a fireable offense) several times, and threatened repeatedly, I certainly understand why legitimate complaints are anonymous.

I wrote a letter (more like a manifesto) to the CEO of BN listing several serious and frightening conditions the dispatchers in the Seattle office were dealing with. We all signed it, with my signature first, in the middle, and big, like John Hancock. We got tired of dealing with the three levels of management above us and went right to the top. The CEO sent the letter to our local bosses for an explanation. The explanation was that we were merely disgruntled employees and none of what was in the letter was true.

When folks make that statement about "credible" complaints (from here in this forum to that big house on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC) and disgruntled whomever, I think of a situation in which a reporter cites an anonymous source, the source of which was the surviving member of a platoon that was wiped out in combat, that he had been complaining about being supplied with insufficient ammo but the officers did nothing about it. I assume that would be merely the complaint of a disgruntled employee too.

TAW

TAW for the win

DrLoco Wrote:
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> TAW for the win

Set and Match

dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:
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> Sounds like he has worked diligently on his speech
> and uses all the current buzz words in the right
> places.

I was thinking the exact same thing!

The win goes to HH (who remains in control of the railroad) despite Internet comments.

Are you saying that NONE of the charges raised by the disgruntled are invalid?
I am sure that there are valid complaints among the noise. But there seems to be a lot of noise.