Service

In a wide-ranging presentation at the RailTrends conference in New York last week, Adriene Bailey, partner and head of the North American Rail Team at Oliver Wyman, offered up detailed insight and analysis on various topics impacting the North American freight railroad market.

LM Group News Editor spoke with Larry Gross, President of Gross Transportation Consulting, on the state of the intermodal market.

How capturing data about service events drives a virtuous circle back to operator coaching opportunities and better-informed equipment choices.

STB Chairman Martin Oberman said he will not seek reappointment, at the end of his five-year term, which expires on December 31, and will continue to serve several months into next year, which is within his one-year holdover period.

A focus on continued service improvements and making railroads a more desirable place to work were key themes presented by Joe Hinrichs, President of Jacksonville, Fla.-based Class I railroad CSX Transportation at last week’s NEARS (Northeast Association of Railroad Shippers) Fall Conference held in Portland, Maine.

STB said that this order requires “certain updated information” from BNSF Railway Company, CSX Transportation Inc., Norfolk Southern Railway Company, and Union Pacific. And it added that it has directed the carriers to submit biweekly service reports for the next six months, through May 5, 2023.

The STB said it will direct and require certain railroads to submit service recovery plans and also additional data and regular progress reports on rail service, operations, and employment. And it added that the objective of these measures is to “to inform the Board’s assessment of further actions that may be warranted to address the acute service issues facing the rail industry and to promote industry-wide transparency, accountability, and improvements in rail service.”

Railroad service was front and center at last week’s hearing hosted by the Surface Transportation Board (STB), an independent adjudicatory and economic-regulatory agency charged by Congress with resolving railroad rate and service disputes and reviewing proposed railroad mergers.

Martin Oberman, Chairman of the Surface Transportation Board (STB), an independent adjudicatory and economic-regulatory agency charged by Congress with resolving railroad rate and service disputes and reviewing proposed railroad mergers, issued letters to leadership to all seven North American Class I railroads, calling for updates on their preparedness to meet demand for rail service amid the ongoing economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

All eras are disruptive—it’s only a question of which disruption and when. The key advice from analysts for both shipper and carriers is to not get too greedy when you have the upper hand—your counterparts will remember when you are on the downside of the next disruption.

At a time when coronavirus, or COVID-19, continues to wreak havoc on the economy, e-commerce retailers, in particular, have faced many challenges, as evidenced by this week’s release of United States March retail sales by the Department of Commerce.

Total units for the month of May were up 6.3% annually to 1,632,461. Trailers showed the largest annual percentage gain, rising 21.8% to 122,656. Domestic containers were up 6.2% to 686,519, and international, or ISO, containers were up 4.4% to 823,286.

Two Class I railroads, BNSF Railway and CN, recently offered up their rebuttals to leadership at the Department of Transportation’s Surface Transportation Board (STB), regarding ongoing concerns over railroad service issues. This comes on the heels of letters penned earlier this month by STB Chairman Ann Begeman and Vice Chairman Deb Miller to the top executives at the seven North American Class I railroads, requesting each carrier’s service outlook for both the near term and the rest of 2018...