The railroad is moving faster than it has in nearly two years as average train speeds have climbed 28 percent during the past eight weeks.
Last week’s 22.8-mph average train speed was the highest NS has posted since the spring of 2017 and was 20-percent above the 2018 average speed of 19 mph, according to data NS reports to the Association of American Railroads.
Terminal dwell, which measures the amount of time cars spend in yards, is inching downward. It stood at 25.1 hours last week, down 6 percent in eight weeks. In the first three months of 2018, dwell was above 30 hours in 10 NS yards. Now only two terminals have dwell times greater than 30 hours.
The number of cars online has fallen nearly 4 percent even as NS traffic volume is up 16 percent.
NS declined to comment on the rapid improvements, which coincide with the naming of Michael Farrell as senior vice president of transportation in early November. The railroad said more detail would be provided during its fourth-quarter earnings call on Jan. 24.
As a consultant, Farrell for a year had been leading the railroad’s “clean sheeting” efforts to build new local operating plans from scratch.
The process, which starts in terminals and local serving yards, aims to make service faster and more efficient. Clean sheeting will be the foundation for NS’s new operating plan, which is under development and will incorporate elements of Precision Scheduled Railroading.
Farrell previously worked for Canadian Pacific and Canadian National, two railroads led by E. Hunter Harrison, who championed the Precision Scheduled Railroading operating model.
NS had been mired in an operational slump for more than a year and was particularly sluggish in Georgia and Alabama. The railroad’s single-track network in the Southeast was the epicenter of both traffic growth and congestion.
As the railroad slowed down in the Southeast, operating officials brought in more crews, stepped up hiring, pulled locomotives from storage, and leased more than 150 locomotives. The partial reopening of the hump at DeButts Yard in Chattanooga, Tenn., in May helped clear congestion, as well.
NS officials are expected to provide more detail on the new operating plan during an investor day scheduled for Feb. 11 in Atlanta.
The railroad is still learning how to run a railroad. Remarkable.
still can do better when and only when the single tracks are double tracked cause the siding are now to short for the longer trains ,case in point you build a new Portageville bridge over the Genesee river in upstate NY. between Buffalo and Binghamton and its a single track span , you build this new bridge then make it wide enoff for two tracks theirs plenty of room to have done this . nice bridge poor planning , that is all .
Was there comment on reducing the congestion in Atlanta?
As to trackage rights in the Chattanooga area, NS has its own track from Chattanooga to Wauhatchee (former AGS to Meridian), and uses CSX between Wauhatchee and Stevenson for its Memphis traffic.
It’s an impressive improvement – with a ways to go. About 2 mph on train speed and 2 hrs dwell to get the RR back to where it was in 2013.
Train speed and dwell are indirectly related to shipment performance, but correlate pretty well. You can be assured that as these go, so goes shipment performance.
It’s especially heartening to see some of the hump yards which have has lousy dwell for a couple years now, snap around to close to plan numbers. (most NS humps should be close to 22 hrs dwell by plan)
Steven; thank you for the laugh! I think your drinking game idea is perfect.
I think I am going to start a drinking game similar to the “Hi Bob” game related to the Bob Newhart show in the 70’s.
If I read an article that mentions PSR, I drink a shot. If I read an article that uses “The Late Hunter Harrison”, I drink a shot. If I read an article that combines them with the phrases “who championed PSR”, or “championed by”, that’s a double.
I think the only people who dont know it was his idea are either living off grid somewhere or are living on Mars.
The best number is customer happiness, but unfortunately, no spreadsheet has that column, so PSR can ignore it.
Numbers are always great but the only real number that counts is the actual on time or late arrival of cars for customers.
The less dwell time freight cars have, the less time taggers have to deface them.
If Norfolk Southern were to double track former Southern Railway’s Memphis Division between Sheffield and Stevenson, Alabama there would be much excavation and fills. (NS has trackage rights on CSX between Stevenson and Chattanooga.) Chase Cut in northeast Huntsville would require widening. A second bridge or one accommodating two tracks will be needed to cross the Tennessee River at Decatur, Alabama.