Nothing burnishes an image like death. Ask Richard Nixon, not that you can, and that’s part of the beauty of the whole process. Once he or she is effectively and permanently silenced, memory can go to work blurring those hard edges, air brushing away those unfortunate blemishes on what some call a soul. And we’re left with “the great contributions.”
RAILWAY AGE, JULY 2020 ISSUE: Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), as we know it today, is rapidly reaching an inflection point. Escalating trade disruptions, rail strikes, blockades, weather events and the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the urgency to make supply chains more resilient. Weaknesses in international supply chains have been exposed, and escalating domestic transportation turmoil demonstrates the need for end-to-end approaches, standards, solutions, and greater service level accountability and safety. PSR has been applied to some Class I’s and has yet to be applied widely to Class II, Class III, tenant and passenger railroads in North America. This gap represents 40% of North American route-miles.
Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), as we know it today, is rapidly reaching an inflection point. Escalating trade disruptions, rail strikes, blockades, weather events and the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the urgency to make supply chains more resilient. Weaknesses in the international supply chains have been exposed, and the escalating domestic transportation turmoil demonstrates the need for end-to-end approaches, standards, solutions, and greater service level accountability and safety.
Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), as we know it today, is rapidly reaching an inflection point. Escalating trade disruptions, rail strikes, blockades, weather events and the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the urgency to
Having worked in the industry for 50 years, if you consider my postretirement involvement, I will be the first to admit that today’s railroads are, in many respects, much safer than they were when I was first employed as a locomotive fireman in 1970. Credit for that goes to railroad management, employees and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). However, in my opinion, greater progress has been impeded for economic reasons or organization priorities—more simply put, the pursuit of self interests. Having said that, it’s time to move to the point of this article.
A $385 million “non-cash locomotive rationalization charge related to the ongoing disposition and marketing of excess locomotives not required for future operations due to the successful introduction of Precision Scheduled Railroading” is the defining number for Norfolk Southern’s 1Q2020 financials. NS Chairman, President and CEO Jim Squires said that shedding the locomotives and taking the huge financial charge in this year’s first quarter will yield an “enhanced financial position,” longer term.
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
Railcar demand appears to be holding up at the modest levels seen in second-quarter 2019, “despite continued rail traffic declines and ongoing PSR implementation,” according to a Cowen and Company’s third-quarter shipper survey. “Barring a recession, orders are unlikely to fall below replacement demand of about 10,000-12,000 units/quarter for the balance of the year.”
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.