Eastern Railroad Discussion > Does NS or CSXT Handle More Merchandise Traffic?

Good Afternoon:

Which railroad, NS or CSXT, handles the most carload (loose car) traffic?

Also, which one handles the most unit trains, excluding intermodal traffic?

With all of the Precision Scheduled Railroading discussions, I think it may be an interesting comparison.

Thank you in advance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/19 14:02 by PRR_4859.

It might be a good discussion but the reality is that those breakdowns as such are not in the weekly reported numbers...   Intermodal loadings and the various types of freight loadings ARE in the reported numbers on carloads but as to how much is single car or unit train is not reported.

What was shown in the 2018 vs 2017 numbers (the year end reported numbers by both railroads) was that NS carries significantly more intermodal (about 40%, mostly trailers), and CSX carries a little more merchandise (about 8%) and minerals (about 6%).  Overall carloads (non-intermodal) in 2018:  CSX 3.60 million, NS 3.35 million

Some areas where CSX handles more carloads include farm and food products (other than grain), chemicals, autos/autoparts, forest/lumber products, pulp/paper products, and waste/non-ferrous scrap products.  Areas where NS carries more include grain, metal scrap, and primary metal products.

As CSX602 indicated the figures you asked about are not reported to the STB.
The below indicates the Originated / Received Commodity Groups both Class 1's reported for W/E 2/8/19
NSSpike

Phil Maton
Villa Rica, GA

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Thank you very much. Other than intermodal, it looks like noth lines are comparable. Since NS has more hump yards open, does carload traffic for example, Chicago to North Jersey, move slower than CSXT due to more sorting enroute?

Thank you again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/19 06:38 by PRR_4859.

You must be doing railroad consulting work and getting your homework done on TO LOL.  You ask allot of questions that make me think this. Good luck with your assignment.

Bruce

PRR_4859 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Good Afternoon:
>
> Which railroad, NS or CSXT, handles the most
> carload (loose car) traffic?
>
> Also, which one handles the most unit trains,
> excluding intermodal traffic?
>
> With all of the Precision Scheduled Railroading
> discussions, I think it may be an interesting
> comparison.
>
> Thank you in advance.

No. Just curious how one railroad doing against another. Honestly, not a big fan of CSXT and hoping NS does not make the same errors.

It's fine. No worries.Good luck in the project!

Bruce


PRR_4859 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No. Just curious how one railroad doing against
> another. Honestly, not a big fan of CSXT and
> hoping NS does not make the same errors.

PRR_4859 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No. Just curious how one railroad doing against
> another. Honestly, not a big fan of CSXT and
> hoping NS does not make the same errors.

It's all an alien conspiracy (LOL)!

Seriously though, my bets are that NS will be closing some hump yards.  NS does have a good number of hump yards bunched up in fairly small geographical areas.  I certainly could see one or two closed in the upper midwest to the northeast.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it like Elkhart, Bellevue, Conway, Enola (small one), and Allentown(?), west to east, that have humps?  Then down south, you have Birmingham, Chattanooga, Sheffield, Macon, and Linwood.  My bets are that NS learned its lesson on shutting down Chattanooga, but maybe Sheffield could be on the block?  After what I'm seeing UP doing with shutting down so many of it's yards, with this PSR disease, anything could be possible though.

As far as CSX goes, I argue that they have effectively one more hump yard, the BRC as they seem to use them a lot in Chicago for their switching.  Other wise, some of the hump yards that have been, and stayed closed, are smaller one's.  Willard had two separate humps, but the bowl yards on both of them were pretty small and neither one of the yards really have much in the way of departure yards.  Some of the same could be said for Cumberland.  As such, I doubt you could get a big "over the hump" car count at these yards, and since that seems to be a big factor in PSR, they were right in PSR's target for closing.  It always seemed like to me that Willard would've been a good place for a modern, large hump facility since it's at a central location.  But I doubt the "bean counters" would think so with Queensgate nearby, but on another route where it doesn't help much with the east-west traffic flows.

Even with all the "reasons" for closing hump yards that have been talked about, I still think they are the most efficient way of classifying cars.  I don't know why there is such a big push to put as many cars over the hump as possible, to judge whether it improves operations.  My guess is that it's an easy figure to calculate, so that's what they go off of.  I highly doubt that anyone actually goes through the work to do an all inclusive accounting of which yards are the most efficient.  It also baffles me that an "efficient" hump yard is judged as one that is right at its breaking point or yard melt down.  Why in the world is a congested (resulting in a slow processing and moving) yard the best way to go?!?!  Another one that gets me, is why railroads seem to have a tendency that if a manifest train goes by a hump yard, it should be switched there.  I believe that they should be used to build trains that can bypass yards down line, thus speeding up the transit times of cars from origination to destination.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/19 08:59 by spwolfmtn.

spwolfmtn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> PRR_4859 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > No. Just curious how one railroad doing against
> > another. Honestly, not a big fan of CSXT and
> > hoping NS does not make the same errors.
>
> It's all an alien conspiracy (LOL)!
>
> Seriously though, my bets are that NS will be
> closing some hump yards.  NS does have a good
> number of hump yards bunched up in fairly small
> geographical areas.  I certainly could see one or
> two closed in the upper midwest to the
> northeast.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it
> like Elkhart, Bellevue, Conway, Enola (small one),
> and Allentown(?), west to east, that have humps? 
> Then down south, you have Birmingham, Chattanooga,
> Sheffield, Macon, and Linwood.  My bets are that
> NS learned its lesson on shutting down
> Chattanooga, but maybe Sheffield could be on the
> block?  After what I'm seeing UP doing with
> shutting down so many of it's yards, with this PSR
> disease, anything could be possible though.
>
>

I could see them definitely getting rid of humps at Enola, Allentown, Sheffield...probably 1 2 or 3 other ones as well (Conway? Irondale? Linwood?)

I think everybody realizes that hump yards are a bit more efficient at classification, but the issue is their operational cost and whether the gains are enough to justify the additional costs.   The bean/penny counters have figured out the traffic level (hump number per day) at which they think the costs can be justified.   They don't foresee the operational issues beyond that (much less the additional operation costs they didn't think of) until they close one and see all the negative impacts to that location and the surrounding locations.