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Railroad taskboard1/5/2024 Railroads trimmed their train and engine crew levels at the onset of the pandemic-related traffic downturn in 2020, just as they have done whenever volume falls. Making PSR as the sole culprit for the job cuts, as the chairman appears to be doing, ignores this history as well as current economic forces that are out of the railroads’ control. In other words, today’s funk is not a new phenomenon. They also have a history of not having enough crews or locomotives to bounce back from disruptions caused by hurricanes, floods, fires, or a polar vortex. While it’s obvious that job cuts related to PSR are a contributing factor to crew shortages, railroads have a history of having trouble flexing up their resources when traffic spikes. Oberman will take the railroads to task over Precision Scheduled Railroading, related deep employment cuts over the past few years, and kowtowing to Wall Street demands for ever lower operating ratios. Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin Oberman. And they’re likely to take advantage of the crisis, too, by advocating for things that have long been on their agenda, such as reciprocal switching and rate reforms. They’ll also show how delays have caused plants to curtail production or shut down for lack of raw materials. Shippers will tell the STB about missed switches, cars delayed by days or weeks, and loaded unit trains that have had to wait two weeks or more for crews and locomotives. Department of Agriculture and the Federal Maritime Commission, as well as representatives from five railroad labor unions. They’ll be joined by officials from the U.S. Nearly two dozen shipper associations and individual shippers are scheduled to air their complaints during the April 26-27 hearings at the STB’s headquarters. This comes despite traffic volume being 4% lower than last year. And the number of trains held per day for lack of crews and power remains stubbornly high. Average train speed is down an average of 9% over the past four weeks compared to a year ago, while terminal dwell is up 12%. railroads - BNSF Railway, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific - will take turns in the hot seat next week during two days of Surface Transportation Board hearings on widespread service problems.įederal regulators, fed up with ongoing shipper complaints, will want to know how and when the railroads will get their service out of the ditch. (Trains: David Lassen)Įxecutives from the big four U.S. railroads to appear at hearings on April 26 and 27, 2022. Crew shortages are at the center of current rail service problems that prompted federal regulators to order executives from the big four U.S. A Norfolk Southern crew member boards a locomotive at Canadian Pacific’s Bensenville Yard.
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