JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – CSX Transportation has resumed hump operations at Radnor Yard in Nashville, Tenn., which was among the eight classification yards converted to flat-switching facilities last year under then-CEO E. Hunter Harrison.
Radnor’s layout ultimately proved cumbersome for flat switching. So in June the railroad began work on retarders and other infrastructure necessary to reopen the hump at the former Louisville & Nashville yard. [See “CSX Transportation preparing to re-open hump at Radnor Yard in Nashville,” Trains News Wire, June 29, 2018.]
“We just turned the Nashville hump back on. So that should give you a sense of our willingness to revisit things over time,” Chief Financial Officer Frank Lonegro told an investor conference this week.
“It was absolutely the right decision to make.”
CSX will revisit other hump-yard decisions if merchandise traffic grows significantly in certain areas, Lonegro says. The railroad’s merchandise traffic is up 4 percent this year, though it remains well below levels of a decade ago.
The Radnor hump was idled in July 2017 as part of the broad operational changes made by Harrison.
In 2016, Radnor was CSX’s third-busiest hump — behind only Waycross, Ga., and Selkirk, N.Y. — as it classified an average of 1,477 cars per day. That’s within the range that Harrison said was sufficient volume to justify the operating costs and capital expense of a hump yard.
CSX would not disclose current volume at the yard, which remains among the railroad’s top 10 busiest terminals. Officials have said they expected to increase employment at the yard by 40 to 50 positions to support hump operations.
CSX operating officials are looking for opportunities to reduce car handling and out-of-route miles and to boost compliance with trip plans. The plans set strict schedules for every car’s movement across the network.
“We’re really getting down to chasing every single car at every aspect of its trip,” Lonegro says.
Efficiency gains allowed CSX to store an additional 100 locomotives in August as the railroad handled more tonnage by operating longer trains.
Lonegro spoke on Sept. 5 at the Cowen & Co. Global Transportation Conference in Boston.
Thank you for your feedback, Daniel. In my 25 years with a Class 1 railroad, I was involved in many rationalization/capacity optimization projects. We studied the impact and then implemented the change–there wasn’t a need to reverse course (at a higher cost) because the change was properly assessed before implementation. Don’t confuse an apparent lack of willingness to re-evaluate whether current practices are still appropriate with a “ready-fire-aim” execution of the change.
I don’t know there Mr John Eull but CSX lingered at a share price of $26 to $30 a share until the mass shake up happened. Now it is at $74+ a share. You tell me how much shareholder value has changed and rather it had anything to do with Radnor being closed or opened or another can of spikes fell off the rail train.
“We’re really getting down to chasing every single car at every aspect of its trip,” Lonegro says.
Believe UP’s [and MoP’s] TCS system has been doing that for about 50 years. “Right car – Right train – On time”. It does work.
I never did know what calculus EHH based his ideas on about humps being uneconomical to operate under 1500(?) cars throughput. Could someone share that?
Bingo!
Makes one wonder how much “shareholder value” that closure, re-opening, and associated disruption actually cost!
What is financial formula?
There is a difference between knowing things from being well read and knowing things first-hand from the inside. Most of us don’t have that option.
BOB W. Are we uninformed? Yes, sometimes. When it comes to EHH, we know the facts from reading TRAINS-MAG, this blog, and each other’s comments. CSX’s hiring of EHH for an ungodly sum of money was met with derision, his awful performance at CSX was met with a bunch of I-told-you-so’s, and the reopening of the Nashville hump after his death speaks for itself. AUSTIN: Bensenville has a hump? I’ve been there once or twice, look over it from the SB Illinois Tollway (can’t see it from the NB Tollway) and never knew it had a hump.
Reminds one of the early CP decision to convert Bensenville, one of the plums desired in purchasing the Milw. Rd., only to reinstall the humps shortly thereafter.
The uninformed continue to pass judgement without really knowing the facts.
The Long Train Precision Scheduled Railroad is currently running the Amtrak Capitol Limited 2 hours and 46 minutes late…..
DENNIS asks – is sanity returning to CSX? Sanity will return to CSX if/ when they admit their terrible mistake in hiring that over-priced jerk.
Another of the idiotic EHH decisions being walked back. Is sanity returning to CSX??
Closing the humps was a bad decision. Mishandling in yards is the main reason for most L&D claims.
A modern freight railroad can never be judged on its Amtrak scheduling. 2500 tons of train moving 35 tons of people just gets in their way…
Yes, the Milwaukee Road had a hump at Bensenville with a classification bowl of 70 tracks at one point. Then it was shut down by the Soo Line, IIRC, only to be reopened later as a sort of mini-hump. And EHH shut it down again. I think the flat-switching crews take some advantage of the slope that’s still there.
This operation is some distance west of the Tri-State crossing. Before the Union Pacific was forced to move its line a few years ago, it crossed Bensenville Yard just west of the hump and the car repair facility (which is still there). The UP was forced to relocate the old CNW line due to O’Hare Expansion (that’s for the second time–I wasn’t around for the first). The CP facilities might be more visible from the proposed west access tollway (Interstate 490) when it’s built.