Winter is always a challenge for the railroads, but the one we’ve just had was at least milder than normal. Apart from being the warmest on record, it included just one Arctic
We’ve of course been watching the back and forth between the Ancora group and Norfolk Southern ahead of the May 9 proxy contest. We don’t feel a need to comment on every
This report often—and necessarily—focuses on the individual railroads that are struggling the most, for one reason or another, and trying to right the ship. Norfolk Southern has spent the most time on
The Smokehouse Creek wildfire in Texas, which severed BNSF’s Transcon route on February 27, was the latest in a series of problems that have significantly slowed BNSF’s network and impacted service. After
While it’s still technically winter, that hasn’t stopped the largest wildfire in Texas history raging in the panhandle, northeast of Amarillo. There aren’t many people living in this part of the world,
I’ll start with the good news, which concerns volume trends in the three reported weeks following the Arctic Blast, which struck the railroads in the third week of January. The quick operational
Arctic Blast recovery, week 2: We’ll be able to shift focus shortly, because most of the damage from the Arctic Blast in the third week of January has now been corrected, and
Before we talk about the recovery, let’s compare the recent Arctic Blast with comparable cold snaps over the past four winters. There were two Arctic Blasts last winter, falling in reporting weeks
The Arctic Blast has been our singular focus over the past few weeks, starting with foreboding anticipation, then some historical context, and we’ve now reached the quantifying the damage stage. Here it
In recent weeks we’ve focused on the big tailwind from Thanksgiving and its subsequent slingshot effects, which accelerated the overall system and propelled some key metrics at Union Pacific, BNSF, and CSX
