2 and a half miles of trouble, or why I hate Precision Schedule Railroading

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

On my last couple of railfanning trips i became aware that there were fewer trains, and what trains I did see were monsters.

 

 

Sometimes physics beats business 'innovation'.

 

I seem to recall railroads tried this back in the 70s and 80 and were defeated that time by a lack of reliable DPU technology.   What will it take this time?  

[PaulRhB]

We’ve seen it in the UK with trains being combined in slow times of recession, not to the extent that they can in the US though. There are so many photos of lines of stored locos at present I’m not surprised they are maxing the available trains to save money. It’s efficient with large blocks as they moved further away from individual carload where they can but I guess the crunch comes where splitting the train down in a yard takes more time offsetting time and labour cost savings. In theory loco usage of fuel and parts should be calculated by train so the ratio of power to train should reflect the revenue it makes and be less of a factor? 
I guess as traffic picks up they won’t hold traffic to make bigger blocks as they will have the manpower available. 
Quite the contrast to the UK passenger operation where they have set trains to run so in theory always have the staff to hand. 

[dave1905]

One has to remember that overall traffic has been declining due to a bunch of factors (low natural gas prices, recession, trade wars, etc.)  Most commodities are down at least 10% year over year, some (autos and steel) are down 25% and coal is down 25-30%.  If you lose 25% of your business then you don't need 25% of your engines and crews and have more/excess capacity.  If you are a railroad with a fleet of 8000 engines, and you cut 25% that means 2000 engines stored.

 

Before I retired several years ago, when costing delays the value of an engine in a delay was negligible because the railroad had an excess supply.  Fuel was also much less of a component because it was so cheap.  Because so many of the cars in use today are private cars, car hire (per diem) for the use of the cars is driven more by mileage than time, so car hire is less of a factor.

 

One thing that is also different on US railroading is the distance and the number of crews.  In US railroading, big trains is big business.  A US train can run across anywhere from 2-10 crew districts.  If you combine 2 trains into one, you aren't saving 1 crew you are saving 2-10 crews.  On multiple track freight routes, a 14,000 ft train occupies more or less the same "slot" as an 8000 ft train.  Very little rail traffic is truly "expedited".  Most traffic doesn't matter whether it takes 24 hours to get there or 48.  Because trains travel such long distances, you can actually speed up the railroad by reducing the number of trains over a long distance.  Having 100 trains go 40 mph will OVERALL be faster than having 200 trains half going 40 and half going 60.

 

It might take longer to yard a 14,000 ft train, but incrementally the extra cost is more than offset by the savings of having a bigger train.

 

The risk is when something goes wrong with a 14,000 ft  train it can be ugly.  On the other hand, when something went wrong with a 8000 ft train and a two man crew, it wasn't pretty either.  If you save 30% of your costs and then have 10% higher expenses, you still come out ahead.

 

Not saying I like what's happening in PSR, and I much preferred working for a railroad in a boom, but I started my career pre-Staggers and a lot of what they are doing in PSR was what we were doing when I started.  The difference is the technology has allowed a lot more consolidation than we could have ever dreamed of back in 1980.

 

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

I remember the last days of the boom in the summer of 2003.  Siding after siding on the old single track Sunset Route packed with parked freight trains going nowhere, waiting to enter yards that were already full.  It was great for a railfan, but not so good for the railroads.  Leasors and rent-a-wrecks abounded, everything was either stationary or moving slowly so photography was easy.  What a joy it all was.

 

I haven't been since 2015, and even then things were much quieter and the all-new super swish Sunset Route was a freight super highway.  Soulless, but efficient. 

 

I heard the BNSF is a hold out against PSR.

[dave1905]

Sorta.  They are also shutting down yards and consolidating trains.  A friend of mine is a Yardmaster at KCMO and had video of them knocking down his former yardmaster tower.

 

They are owned by Berkshire Hathaway so don't have to specific stockholder pressure to do things the other railroads are doing.

[Regularity]

Railways were built for bulk haul. It’s just that both the bulk and the haul keep getting bigger.

 

My only concern over this is short-termism. As an example, a lot of capital went into producing local railways in the UK, some of which was only relevant for as long as bulk (well, wagonload) delivery of coal to local merchants was a fact of life. The rapid and wanton ripping up of railways under Marples and Castle, employing a businessman who thought 5 years was too long to recoup investment (the much-maligned Dr. B. who was only doing what his government asked him to do) meant that the potential for long-term yield at low rates of return was simply ignored. The risk is in PSR being taken too far, and all the slack/duplication of routes is removed, only to be regretted later when land has been re-purposed and infrastructure neglected.

 

Something like a railway is a long-term investment, requiring far-sighted stakeholders who are not aiming for a quick win.

[mdvle]

14 hours ago, Regularity said:

My only concern over this is short-termism. As an example, a lot of capital went into producing local railways in the UK, some of which was only relevant for as long as bulk (well, wagonload) delivery of coal to local merchants was a fact of life. The rapid and wanton ripping up of railways under Marples and Castle, employing a businessman who thought 5 years was too long to recoup investment (the much-maligned Dr. B. who was only doing what his government asked him to do) meant that the potential for long-term yield at low rates of return was simply ignored.

 

A thought game, for those whose experience is the UK.

 

There is lots of moaning about the cuts of the Beeching era is something of the constant in the UK railfan community, with lots of pointing at lines that have since been reopened / planned to reopen / proposed to reopen as examples of the failure of Beeching.

 

Now consider how many of those lines would be in any of those categories if the only consideration was freight/goods, and not the moving of people?

 

Over here in North America the railroads are for the moving of bulk commodities, and in many cases are poorly located for passenger service given the way towns/cities have grown over the last 50+ years.

 

Yes, a handful of shortlines have re-started abandoned rail lines - but in most cases when a line gets abandoned it stays abandoned as there never is a return of business.

 

So can the closure of a line in North America be considered dangerous short-termism?

 

14 hours ago, Regularity said:

Something like a railway is a long-term investment, requiring far-sighted stakeholders who are not aiming for a quick win.

 

But the railroad company also has to financially survive long enough to even worry about that - and we are very poor at predicting 20+ years into the future.

 

See for example the large passenger stations built in Detroit and Buffalo, neither of which were ever fully utilized as circumstances changed - and the only reason both stations still stand is because they were overbuilt and there was no other demand on the land they were built on.

[dave1905]

14 hours ago, Regularity said:

The risk is in PSR being taken too far, and all the slack/duplication of routes is removed, only to be regretted later when land has been re-purposed and infrastructure neglected.

 

There is a difference between "slack" (excess capacity) and "duplication of routes".  Excess capacity is good if traffic is highly variable or if traffic can surge.  Duplication of routes is generally not as good because it the most expensive way to "add" capacity.  One of the things that saved the US rail network back in the 1970's and 1980's was the government finally giving railroads the ability to shed duplicate routes.  The ICG at one time owned 5 N-S routes across the state of Mississippi.  At one time there wasn't a spot in Iowa that was more than ten miles for a railroad,  really cool in 1880, way, way, way, way over built for 1980. 

 

I don't have a problem with reducing duplicate facilities and routes, I do have a problem removing excess capacity in some cases.  The problem is it take a railroad 10-20 years to do a large infrastructure improvement in the US (double tracking a 1000 mile route, building a new large yard.)  It takes 2 years to buy and receive new locomotives.  It takes a year to hire and train new employees.  The railroad industry, because of the large lead times is not as nimble to changes.  The UP and BNSF spent 20 years building a huge infrastructure to handle Powder River Coal and then it was gone in 5-10 years.  There are dozens of cases where the railroad built something to support a growth in an area or industry, only to find that by the time that had is built, the market or technology had changed and they were stuck with a huge "white elephant".  One person I worked with started in the signal department.  His first job in the signal dept. was installing CTC on a duplicate N-S route to bypass a major terminal and less than a decade later, his last job in the signal department was removing the CTC from that route when things changed and redundant line was no longer necessary.  

 

It's tough to know what will happen in a decade.

[Allegheny1600]

Here’s a thought!

If it is deemed that a rail line is no longer needed, why not simply mothball it until the next boom or bust is over.

 I know it would take a deal of time and money to refurbish such a line after it’s been out of service for a couple of decades but it must be easier and cheaper than buying the land back from farmers, housing, industrial units etc.

The idea, followed in the UK, of selling off railway land for a very short term addition to the bottom line, is so short sighted, I cannot believe it!

 The German government along with other European countries, is looking at reopening numerous closed lines, as a political ideal and most of their lines are still intact. There is still opposition, of course but if the will is there, it can happen.

[mdvle]

5 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

If it is deemed that a rail line is no longer needed, why not simply mothball it until the next boom or bust is over.

 I know it would take a deal of time and money to refurbish such a line after it’s been out of service for a couple of decades but it must be easier and cheaper than buying the land back from farmers, housing, industrial units etc.

The idea, followed in the UK, of selling off railway land for a very short term addition to the bottom line, is so short sighted, I cannot believe it!

 The German government along with other European countries, is looking at reopening numerous closed lines, as a political ideal and most of their lines are still intact. There is still opposition, of course but if the will is there, it can happen.

 

Works if the government does it.

 

But for a US railroad, they would still be paying property taxes (though reduced once the rails are lifted), and they would still maintain legal liability for anything that happened on that land - a somewhat serious issue given that, authorized or not, people with motor bikes / snowmobiles / etc will all start using it.

 

So anything beyond a couple of years and they aren't going to want to keep it.

[pH]

6 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Here’s a thought!

If it is deemed that a rail line is no longer needed, why not simply mothball it until the next boom or bust is over.

 I know it would take a deal of time and money to refurbish such a line after it’s been out of service for a couple of decades but it must be easier and cheaper than buying the land back from farmers, housing, industrial units etc.

There’s a process called ‘rail banking’ in the US which accomplishes much the same thing as you’re talking about:
 

https://www.railstotrails.org/build-trails/trail-building-toolbox/acquisition/railbanking/

 

There have been ‘mothballed’ routes put back into service. BNSF brought the ex-Northern Pacific route over Stampede Pass in Washington State back into service after several years out. It hadn’t been railbanked, but did need a huge amount of refurbishment.

 

 

[dave1905]

6 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

If it is deemed that a rail line is no longer needed, why not simply mothball it until the next boom or bust is over.

 I know it would take a deal of time and money to refurbish such a line after it’s been out of service for a couple of decades but it must be easier and cheaper than buying the land back from farmers, housing, industrial units etc.

 

Depends.  Sometimes they do that, and stop operating but do not abandon.  There is even a "rail bank" program that allows former rail lines to be converted to trails with the provision that it can be reused for rail later on.

 

However....

 

The question remains whether the line is needed.  Why would the rail line be considered to be reactivated?  If its just a matter of increased traffic, then in most cases improving the existing line is a better option.  Adding an additional main, lengthening sidings, adding CTC are all  in most cases a better solution than reactivating a parallel line.  I managed the dispatching on numerous "paired track" arrangements where two separate, roughly parallel main tracks are used effectively as double track.  The problem is that it is much less flexible than conventional double track.  You can't "crossover" because the lines may be 10-50 miles apart in places.  Running against the flow becomes very difficult because of the volumes of trains, so local service is a pain.

 

If you have a 100 mile N-S paired track and an industry on the SWD line 20 miles from the south end, you have to haul a car originating from the south end 100 miles to the north end and then 80 miles south to reach the industry.  

 

Also if its a longer run, 200-300 miles, then you will have crew change in the middle.  Since the lines are 10-20 miles apart typically that means every crew in both directions has to be moved from one line to the other line to go the other direction.

 

Another unexpected issue is uneven rail wear when all the traffic is in one direction on one track because loads tend to go in one direction.   For example between Kansas City and Oklahoma on the UP, NWD trains operate on the former MP and SWD trains operate on the former MKT.  All the loaded coal and grain trains operate on the former MKT and all the empties operate on the former MP.  Therefore the rail wear is uneven.  On the other hand between Southern Illinois and Houston the UP runs NWD on the former MP and SWD on the former SP/SSW.  In that case the traffic is more balanced.  

 

Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't.  

[mdvle]

Related to what Dave said, why was the line abandoned in the first place.

 

While it may be more relevant to the north east, where the amount of duplication was significant, with the consolidation of railroads one of the decision criteria would have been the pros/cons of each line.

 

If the duplicate line misses a major revenue source (industry or town/city), or if the duplicate line has geographic issues (more/tighter curves, steeper grades), than as Dave noted the better option will be to add capacity to the line that has been kept that has all the advantages.

 

 

 

[ChrisH-UK]

On 16/12/2020 at 13:56, dave1905 said:

 

Depends.  Sometimes they do that, and stop operating but do not abandon.  There is even a "rail bank" program that allows former rail lines to be converted to trails with the provision that it can be reused for rail later on.

 

However....

Please prove me wrong, but I've not heard of a line that has been formally rail-banked that has been allowed to return to rail. IIRC any place where it has been tried the municipalities have objected , fought it in whatever court is available and generally made it so costly as to be pointless.

[dave1905]

The UP re-activated a section of the MKT in Texas, don't remember the exact dates.    And the UP recovered some bridges from a trail in Missouri (former MKT) to use when they completed double tracking the St Louis-Jeff City line.