Eastern Railroad Discussion > Being a better railroad?

Rantoul posed a very thoughtful and interesting post on the G&W thread.
------------------------------

What does 'being a better railroad' even mean anymore?  With automated right of way operations coming the only way railroads may survive is to learn how to handle car load business (i.e. single and/or once in a while containers) and open-access lite competive environment....today's large scale (138 lb rail, 110 tons per car, 100 cars per unit train) capital intensive inflexible take-it-or-leave-it pricing platform may prohibit today's railroad scale from even competing

-----------------------------

I've thought for a while that the next step in railway transformation is NOT big, end to end mergers. It is selling off branches, and secondary main lines. Lots of them, maybe 80% of miles run.  And then, offering open access in a fashion to large shippers who can finance their own rquipment.  Or rent the "host" railroad's power and crews on the remaining 20%..

Both NS and CSX have begun the process.  BNSF did it a few decades ago with Montana Rail Link.  As smaller, maybe non-union or shortline companies buy long stretches of railroad, the game will change.  Fast.  Guilford Transportation did that with the Boston & Maine and the Maine Central and Portland Terminal.  Use a terminal railroad agreement to operate a big piece of railroad.

"Divide and conquer" removes the big national unions from the equation. And sweeps away the craft rules.  In theory , a short line hustles for loads, assembles loose cars, etc.  And delivers unit trains or long strings to the connecting Class 1.  Or what's left of it.

Capitalism means a lot of things. But, the railroads waste capital in the form of people and right of way. Just turning it over to motivated people will change the business into a rents collecting business, and away from a class 1 operating business



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/19 13:14 by Lackawanna484.

I’ve always kicked around the idea in my head that the class 1s should have an independent division for local traffic. Get some adept person to manage the local traffic on a subdivision and a few people to help and run it like a short line. The manager has total control over crews and when trains run to best service the customers. If that manager can’t grow traffic then find someone who can. The key being that the local person makes the decisions and not corporate.

Posted from iPhone

I have wondered why railroads have not just gotten out of the people business altogether. They have sort of done that with locomotive and car repair and do a lot of it for steel and track gangs. Major bridge repair and signal upgrades are contracted out. I can see either BLET or SMART becoming a hiring hall for crews and dispatchers like hiring halls for construction projects like city buildings and highways. It will make lots more crappy jobs on the railroad and could wipeout railroad retirement as we know it.

So the OP wants non union low wage operations. You get what you pay for. Look at trucking.

Railroads have adapted for many years. Some foamers may want non union railroads and open access but that comes with a cost.

Posted from Android

stash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So the OP wants non union low wage operations. You
> get what you pay for. Look at trucking.
>
> Railroads have adapted for many years. Some
> foamers may want non union railroads and open
> access but that comes with a cost.
>
> Posted from Android


Go back and read, stash. Don't imagine what the OP wants.

Class 1 railroads are what they are today for two reasons. First is pure greed. They don't want single car customers, all they want is unit trains going from point A to point B. Second is the fact that most all class 1's quit promoting from within years ago and started hiring only college grads as "management trainees". I spent 38 years on a class 1 and saw it start going downhill when they starting hiring college grads that majored in child psychology and the like. I had management trainees that came into my tower and actually ask what a gondola was. These are the people that are running the RR's now. Most of them had never seen a RR yard when they were hired, and I guarantee most of them still could not tell you the purpose of a classification yard. They can sit down with a pencil and come up with all kinds of things that look great on paper, but as we all know, NOTHING on the RR is like the real world. The class 1's have let these idiots destroy them, and soon the mergers will begin, just to try and stay competitive. The RR's are their own worst enemies.

Create legislature to mandate x amount of their lines be electrified...or their should be some sort of emission tax for the toll taken on the environment

Posted from iPhone

NS tried this on the Delmarva, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia area a few years back. They called it the Delaware Business Unit. We see what happened with that plan. It’s now owned by the Carload Express Group of shortline railroads and called the Delmarva Central Railroad.

Why did the NS sell the Delmarva lines? Were they not making money? Or not making enough money?

DevalDragon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why did the NS sell the Delmarva lines? Were they
> not making money? Or not making enough money?

The original story was the company wanted to create an "internal shortline". Local people to hustle business, be local to customers, etc.  The politically powerful Perdue company, especially. 

The story I heard was the operation worked as intended, but didn't generate enough profit to move the needle at giant NS. So, they took the cash, and outsourced the business to the shortline. NS gets the line haul, and the short line gets the "last mile".  Don't know how the work rules differ, or if they do.

Today's definition of "better railroad" = better for short-term profits. This has been forced on them by Wall Street, to a large extent. You can see the difference in BNSF's approach to PSR. In the 1950's, you'd be talking about service. In the 60's, merger and diversification. In the 70's, cost-cutting. Etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/19 18:17 by halfmoonharold.

I was there last week and spoke to an official. The answer is very simple, NS never did any marketing, just assumed that the business would come to them because they were there.  Since Carload has taken over, they instituted an agressive marketing program to not only develop new business, but to assure their existing cutomers of first-rate service. As with most short lines there are no craft distinctions; every one works for the railroad and shares in its success; no more union "that's not my job" philosophy, it's everybody's job! And as a result, business is booming, and everybody's happy; Carload, the employees, and most of all, the customers. That's how to run a successful railroad.