Eastern Railroad Discussion > Unions won't accept EHH "blame for service failures

Refreshing to read these even though I'm sure their hands are tied.
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2017/08/08-csx-and-unions?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=News0_TIN_170811_000000_Final&utm_content=&spMailingID=30132005&spUserID=Mjg2MDg1OTk3NDYyS0&spJobID=1101183645&spReportId=MTEwMTE4MzY0NQS2

Posted from Android

Wall Street MessengerBOY is emotionally too immature to accept responsibility.

Their hands aren't tied. Wall Street thrives on information, so a true reporting on what's happening is always of interest.

(Many gray beards will recall the Union Pacific execs telling Wall Street analysts about how well the SP merger was going. While T&E guys were describing sitting on a train for 12 hours, going off duty, and coming back to the train. In the same place. By the time the chemical people started squawking, many folks on TO had placed very profitable trades.)

SeekingAlpha, an investor site, has a discussion of the service issues today. Their opinion is that the STB is serious about demanding improvements in CSX's performance. One item, mentioned here several times, is CSX's inability to tell customers where their cars are right now. Your cars are late, we have no idea where they are doesn't inspire confidence in a plant operator with no material for the shift starting in six hours.

CSX is required to provide a weekly update on congestion in key yards (dwell time), average speed of trains, etc. It should be interesting to see if there's any improvement this week. It's possible that the closed, open again status of Avon, and closed, maybe not, of Barr yard, etc will be cited as excuses for poor performance.

Mr Harrison's plan for a scheduled precision railroad is someday in the future. It seems the customers and STB are more interested in today and this week...

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


> Mr Harrison's plan for a scheduled precision
> railroad is someday in the future. It seems the
> customers and STB are more interested in today and
> this week...


The backwards approach.

Develop precision plan then back what is not needed out of the plan. Of course, it is still the Frisco -> BN saga.

TAW

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> CSX is required to provide a weekly update on
> congestion in key yards (dwell time), average
> speed of trains, etc.

Parking trains on mainline sidings for days on end also reduces yard dwell times, when your plan isn't working.....

NSTopHat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > CSX is required to provide a weekly update on
> > congestion in key yards (dwell time), average
> > speed of trains, etc.
>
> Parking trains on mainline sidings for days on end
> also reduces yard dwell times, when your plan
> isn't working.....

Yes.

But that results in lower train velocity. Which is another measured item

Posted from Android

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> One item, mentioned here
> several times, is CSX's inability to tell
> customers where their cars are right now.

I find that statement somewhat puzzling. While at CSX Intermodal until I retired 2.5 yrs ago, there were multiple mainframe-computer screens that could be used to track a car's journey on the railroad as it passed by scanners along the way, about 50 miles apart, give or take.

But, being a mainframe screen, it wasn't 'user friendly' like those of today with multi-color headings, drop down windows, and the like. The format of the data presented also left something to be desired. But once familiar with the screen, it was quite usable.

Having formerly been a mainframe computer consultant that took some time off and nobody wanted an old geezer computer geek, I had a number of jobs ultimately putting in my last 7 working years as CSX Intermodal clerk. I was incredibly surprised at how archaic most of their online (non-Windows based) screens (that I could access) were. Some of those displays were simply 80-column punched card images (yes, I could read the holes way back when) displayed on screen 'as is' with column 1 & 2 or 79-80 used to identify card-type and its data formatting.

More amazingly, when I was looking for computer work in '03 and '04 after a couple years of day trading stocks (and going broke), CSX advertised for mainframe computer programmers with 3-5 years experience in a variety of IBM environments and languages. I had 15-25 years experience in all of the above and they wouldn't touch me! They couldn't ask ones' age on an application form but putting in high school and college information and dates in the '60s told them I would have been older than most of those working there! So, here they are, 12-13 years later, still stuck in the 'dark ages' in terms of computer capabilities and the shippers are left high and dry looking for their loads because nobody ever had the time/money/motivation to write it at CSX.

Bet Amtrak could use you (or me) to update their arcane reservation software.

There are very few people left who can read punch cards. And few companies that use mainframes to process them.

No wonder why they can't find anything.

Posted from Android

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> NSTopHat Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> >
> > > CSX is required to provide a weekly update on
> > > congestion in key yards (dwell time), average
> > > speed of trains, etc.
> >
> > Parking trains on mainline sidings for days on
> end
> > also reduces yard dwell times, when your plan
> > isn't working.....
>
> Yes.
>
> But that results in lower train velocity. Which is
> another measured item
>
> Posted from Android

Not when you yank the power off of it....

NSTopHat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > NSTopHat Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> > >
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> > > -----
> > >
> > > > CSX is required to provide a weekly update
> on
> > > > congestion in key yards (dwell time),
> average
> > > > speed of trains, etc.
> > >
> > > Parking trains on mainline sidings for days
> on
> > end
> > > also reduces yard dwell times, when your plan
> > > isn't working.....
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> > But that results in lower train velocity. Which
> is
> > another measured item
> >
> > Posted from Android
>
> Not when you yank the power off of it....

Understood, but the CSX Lordstown etc examples had power.

When power is pulled, does the train ID die, too?

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


> When power is pulled, does the train ID die, too?

In the railroad IT systems that I'm familiar with, train symbols can be made to disappear, power or no. That affects the car records, too, which may be related to inability to tell customers where their cars are (I've seen that trick before).

TAW

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There are very few people left who can read punch
> cards.


BN used an 80 column CRT interface. Queries were exactly the same as they had been for cards. The computer didn't know the difference.



TAW

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> NSTopHat Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> >
> > > CSX is required to provide a weekly update on
> > > congestion in key yards (dwell time), average
> > > speed of trains, etc.
> >
> > Parking trains on mainline sidings for days on
> end
> > also reduces yard dwell times, when your plan
> > isn't working.....
>
> Yes.
>
> But that results in lower train velocity. Which is
> another measured item
>

Not when they symbols are annulled in the computer and the car records are just loose out in the boondocks somewhere.

TAW

TAW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > There are very few people left who can read
> punch cards.
>
> BN used an 80 column CRT interface. Queries were
> exactly the same as they had been for cards. The
> computer didn't know the difference.

And I was under the impression that Cheap Skate eXpress was the only RR with ancient programs that were never replaced, rewritten, or updated. One would think they would have 'seen the light' and started replacing them from scratch with modern technology.

My first assignment while in the USAF in 1969 was replacing multiple groups of programs (systems) written in IBM Autocoder (IBM 14xx- and 70xx-series assembler language) to Burroughs B-3500 COBOL. Fortunately, I was writing Autocoder for pay while in college. Of course, much of the so-called documentation was the source programs themselves. Little did I know my last big project almost 30 years later was to replace all online processing methodology (Intercomm) in over 2000 COBOL programs (and some assembler) to CICS Command Level COBOL. At least the language stayed the same but there were multiple versions of IBM COBOL to deal with as well. I wrote a translator program in PL/I to do bulk of the code revisions needed. It was the last of 25 or so language translators I wrote over the years. Y2K conversion was being done by a competing contractor company, but I ran into a few of those problems while testing my converted programs and had to manually convert yymmdd dates to yyyymmdd dates so they'd sort properly after 12/31/1999 as well as calculate future payment streams 5 years out.

A trick they have used during past meltdowns in Chicago is to have a terminal railroad put
together an outbound train with CSXT power and pull it to an outlaying location on the terminal
railroad, air tested, paperwork on board, ready to go. Then CSXT does not provide a crew for days.
In the interim CSXT tells customers looking for shipments that the cars are being delayed on the
terminal railroad with the implication that the delay is due to a cluster on the terminal railroad.
The shipper then calls the terminal railroad where the clerks tell the shipper that the cars
departed days earlier on a CSXT train. How long should a shipper put up with such nonsense?

Bring back the ICC !!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/17 15:31 by Englewood.

Anybody know how much it costs to put a lo-jack on a rail car?

Most hazmat trucks already have transponders to let their owners know where they are, give or take a few feet.

Posted from Android

how many other rails on here have taken a cut of cars (that HAD a train symbol) out of a terminal to a siding and left them there and continued the trip light engines???

66

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anybody know how much it costs to put a lo-jack on
> a rail car?
They already have a transponder on them that gets 'read' every 50 miles or so. Whether or not the RR has the capability to make that information available to the shipper/consignee is the question.

And, for what it's worth, in the intermodal world, some refrigerator trailer companies have two-way (via satellite) communication with their headquarters. That way, HQ can query the unit and remotely turn it on, even overriding the drivers' manual setting, etc. I remember the time one of those companies called our office and said their reefer trailer 'reported' a sudden loss of fuel while parked at our ramp. Unfortunately, the security camera that looked 'down that line of trailers' was at the wrong angle to be able to clearly identify the fuel thief. Obviously, that trailer had GPS on it so it 'knew' it was in our yard.

Another time, a loaded container on our lot 'reported' to their HQ that the doors had been opened. We heard about that one, too. Unfortunately, by the time we heard about it, it was too late to catch the crook and they were long gone.

Next time you see trailers and containers passing by, you might just notice a small solar panel mounted to a small 'black box' which is mounted on the unit...typically on the front panel, but not always.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/17 17:12 by BRAtkinson.