Listen to Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono’s March 2020 interview with Union Pacific Chief Operating Officer Jim Vena on Unified Plan 2020, UP’s version of PSR, Precision Scheduled Railroading, and how
Editor’s Note: At an Oct. 8, 2019 presentation before the W.A.R.E.S. (Washington Area Railway Engineering Society) Annual Conference, Steve Ditmeyer, Principal of Transportation Technology and Economics, presented his vision of what he calls “NextGen Train Control,” or “What comes next after Positive Train Control.” Following are excerpts from his talk. The entire presentation can be downloaded from the link following this story. – William C. Vantuono
Out of a remote location in a corner of New England comes an interesting operations research view of what Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) is, and is not. Peter Swan, a Ph.D rail and logistics expert from the Penn State School of Business Administration, spoke Oct. 3 at the NEARS (Northeast Association of Rail Shippers) Fall 2019 Conference in Burlington, Vt.
Former CN President and CEO Claude Mongeau has been elected a director of Norfolk Southern Corp. Mongeau, 57, has been appointed to the Compensation Committee and the Finance and Risk Management Committee of the Norfolk Southern board and will serve as an independent director.
RAILWAY AGE, SEPTEMBER 2019 ISSUE – For rail customers, Precision Scheduled Railroading is a mixed blessing. At a North East Association of Rail Shippers (NEARS) conference earlier this year, PSR’s promises and perils took center stage.
Norfolk Southern (NS) noted that during the first week of July it was able to roll out the railroad’s new TOP21 Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) operating plan “in a seamless changeover with minimal impact to customer service and network operations.”
Six out of the seven Class I freight railroads in operating in the U.S. (including CN’s and Canadian Pacific’s subsidiaries) have implemented or are in the process of transitioning to Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). While programs and processes will certainly vary from one railroad to another, all are likely designed around five foundation principles, as defined in 2016 by CP and the late Hunter Harrison during its aborted merger attempt with Norfolk Southern.
Norfolk Southern (NS) recently announced that it is preparing to unveil TOP21, its Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) operating plan.
THE FINANCIAL EDGE, MAY 2019 – In a recent TED talk, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey suggested that, in an attempt to combat abusive speech and harassment, Twitter would consider moving from threads written by individuals to topic threads. Dorsey suggested these interest networks would be easier to monitor for Twitter code of conduct breeches.
Much is being made in the railroad industry and transportation media about the Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) wildfire sweeping from coast to coast. Proponents of PSR will tell you that it will prove to be the industry’s savior. But it also begs the following question: Just what does the industry need to be saved from?
