When my wife and I had another couple over for dinner back in April, the cork was barely out of the wine bottle when our friends popped the question: What on earth is going on with railroads?
In the wake of the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and intense media coverage of subsequent wrecks both large and small, our friends wondered why so many trains were running off the rails. They also asked about labor strife and how, in 2023, railroads could be so backward as to deny their unionized workers sick days.
Both were fair questions, and naturally I tried to clear up the misconceptions. Despite the headlines, railroads are safe and until now the unions and railroads had traditionally negotiated really good long-term sick leave benefits at the expense of paid sick days.
But perception equals reality, right? And the reality is that the railroad industry’s image has taken a beating over the past two years. It has one black eye from derailments, another one from labor upheaval and massive job cuts, and a bloody nose from the fallout of service problems that followed the onset of the pandemic. No wonder the public, employees, customers, lawmakers, and regulators are alarmed.
You can argue how much of the industry’s reputational damage has been self-inflicted and how much has been the result of media piling on and a public that knows next to nothing about railroads. But we all should agree that this turn of events is too bad, because railroads have a good story to tell, especially when you compare trains and trucks.
You know the details. Railroads are far safer than 18 wheelers. Due to their significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions, trains are better for the planet. Freight trains operate over a heavily taxed and privately funded network, while 80,000-pound big rigs beat the tar out of publicly funded highways, don’t come close to paying their way, and contribute to traffic jams.
Yes, railroads are sharing Association of American Railroads talking points all over social media. The problem with Facebook, Twitter, and the like is you’re either preaching to the choir or attracting trolls. Plus, railroads face a noisy social media landscape, where they’re competing for eyeballs with Taylor Swift, the latest political outrage, and whatever’s going viral on TikTok.
It’s hard to grab the public’s attention – and harder still to keep it long enough to explain why we need railroads.
Yet railroads have at their disposal the ultimate public relations tool: The steam locomotive. Nothing can attract people to railroads like a living, breathing mainline steam locomotive. They’re a nostalgic novelty in the era of Tesla, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality.
Which is why the industry should assemble a steam-powered train or two to criss-cross the continent coupled to cars that contain exhibits on railroad safety, history, technology, and how moving freight by rail benefits all of us. They could even put an exclamation point on progress by tucking a Wabtec or Progress Rail battery electric and a Canadian Pacific Kansas City or CSX hydrogen fuel cell locomotive between the tender and the exhibit cars.
The train would create a spectacle in every city and town it visits. People would flock trackside. National and local media would show up. And railroads could tell a positive story, including reminding folks of the vital work railroads do, from keeping the lights on and hauling crops to delivering your SUV and the imported goods that ultimately wind up on Walmart shelves and in Amazon warehouses.
By virtue of its size, Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014 is the most impressive railroad ambassador ever created. But it’s by no means the only one. Plenty of other locomotives – Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 765, Norfolk & Western 4-8-4 No. 611, Canadian Pacific 4-6-4 No. 2816, Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 No. 261, Santa Fe 4-8-4 No. 3751, and Southern Pacific 4-8-4 No. 4449 – have star power too. Any of them could lead a barnstorming trip in celebration of railroading’s past, present, and future.
No railroad has recognized the power of steam quite like UP. But the other Class I railroads, with the exception of Canadian National, have at one time or another used mainline steam to pull people to the railroad. Steam’s allure is why CPKC CEO Keith Creel took the 2816 out of mothballs and will have it on the point of the business train from Calgary to Mexico City this summer in honor of the CP-Kansas City Southern merger.
There’s no denying big steam’s ability to captivate the public: Just look at the throngs who have come out to gawk at the Big Boy and then toured the Experience the Union Pacific exhibit car. There’s also no denying that the Class I systems – which are making record profits – can afford to organize, outfit, and dispatch a steam train that shows off the power of railroading.
The question is can railroads afford not to take dramatic steps to burnish the industry’s image? Railroading is on the defensive. It’s time to play offense, with steam leading the way.
You can reach Bill Stephens at bybillstephens@gmail.com and follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter @bybillstephens
“It has one black eye from derailments, another one from labor upheaval and massive job cuts, and a bloody nose from the fallout of service problems that followed the onset of the PSR.”
There. Fixed it.
During World War II Union Pacific operated some of the most modern and powerful steam locomotives ever built. Among them were the famous “Big Boys,” the largest steam locomotives in the world. Working with them were the “800-class” high-speed passenger locomotives, as well as hundreds of older class steam engines. Union Pacific’s steam legacy continues today with the preservation and operation of its historic fleet – No. 844 and No. 4014.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
No other railroad in America has retained its historical equipment and honored its past like the Union Pacific. The preservation of its fleet speaks to the high value UP places on its heritage and its role in America’s history. The fleet itself dates back to 1912, but most of the passenger cars are closer to a half-century old – built during the height of passenger train travel. Each car is unique and chronicles a different chapter of Union Pacific’s past. For more than a century, they’ve transported iconic individuals – presidents and senators, generals and soldiers, artists and architects, singers and actors – people who influenced and transformed America.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Union Pacific recently gave most of that equipment to the heritage group operating in Silvis. Illinois.
Here is a PR slogan that a Class 1 would never say.
We get all freight and passenger trains that just operate on our RR to its destination 90% or better 1 hour or less of the scheduled time. That means we are often very early.
Bill, I know from personal experience that making a cogent argument, then having readers take potshots at your piece is par for the course in this business. Your piece is excellent and spot on. However, I’m compelled to point out, as others have, that the message of your piece is not new. As you may remember, I grew up with Southern Railway and worked on many of the Southern Steam Specials. Rolling along on these trips, with freight trains that included early DPU technology in the 1970s, sent chills up my spine. And, seeing the genuine excitement among the dense crowds along the line made me proud as a peacock. W. Graham Claytor knew what he was doing when he initiated the SR program.
I can’t tell you how important your piece is, 50 years after the start of the SR program, to me. I think several of today’s Class Is have looked back on history and have learned from Claytor’s example. For those roads that have done it on their own, I’m glad they woke up and smelled the coffee, to use an old, hackneyed phrase.
Thanks for your piece!
David Lester
Editor-in-Chief
Railway Track & Structures
David, I attended the University of Tennessee during the early seventies and rode/worked many of those steam excursions sponsored by the Old Smoky Chapter NRHS. You accidentally hit the nail on the head. The Southern Railway had the finest steam program ever operated. But they also had at the same time one the finest freight railroads in America running alongside it. The two were complimentary. And what could match the grace and elegance of the Southern Crescent not to mention dome cars to Asheville. Look ahead. Look south.
I’m sitting here at my desk looking up at the promotional wall piece we did in 1991 for the 3751 transcontinental excursions. Yes, the steam engine was an amusing diversion, but I challenge you personally to tell me which looked better on that train, the 3751 or the three Warbonnets right behind it. And wasn’t that the ghost of the Chief strung out behind the locomotives???
To borrow some quotes from my recent Classic Trains article on my personal experiences with the Santa Fe Mystique, “If image is everything then Santa Fe has (had?) it all.” “The mystique that was (first) created (in 1937) still lingers today.”
And finally, Santa Fe had their version of those cute little Heritage Locomotive Fleets assembled by those other guys. We called ours the “Super Fleet”, one paint scheme that starting in 1937 looked great no matter what we put it on!!!
It’s perplexing, given Kalmbach’s history, that Bill would say no one has recognized the power of steam quite like Union Pacific. I submit that the Norfolk Southern, and predecessor Southern, steam programs were far superior than Union Pacific’s. Engines of NS predecessors went far and wide over its system. An exhibition car was part of the program. The road often partnered with the NRHS and other railfan groups. The success of the NS program was well documented in TRAINS and other railfan publications.
Railroads have still a wonderful and gigantic story to tell, but they need to grab the younger generations’ focusing attention first. And nothing can do that like the steam locomotives and the railway museums!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Curious. RBMN 2102 is the only big engine currently working passenger, now that 611 has gone back to Virginia. Yet it is not listed above.
FYI 2102 will run Reading to Jim Thorpe August 13 and September 2. This includes up 1.6% from Tamaqua to Haucks. You will know it’s 2102 actually operating.
https://www.rbmnrr-passenger.com/specialevents
And didn’t it pull the American Freedom Train for part of the journey so it was used in exactly the same purpose as being proposed!! But the article was about the Class 1s doing this. UP 4104 can’t go to a lot of places so 2102 is a good candidate.
Ride the Reading!
Running a steam locomotive or two and even painting diesel locomotives in heritage colors is great p/r and it helps bost their public image. But the real business of a railroad is making money and shipping goods and commodies and providing good and timely service to their customers as well as attracting now customers as well. That is where the railroads need to have and hire a good sales force and promote good selling points and stress the fact that a railroad is the best for shipping goods and products. Also better relations with the trucking and airline industires where they can all work as one cohesive and supply chain to move oods and services from Point A to Point B. Railroads also need to have and work to promote a better working relationship with Amtrak and this calls for full cooperation as well. Amtrak is here and even if it is replaced with something else, the freight railroads will have to work with any passenger carrier who uses an shares their rails. Attract a new and younger generation of people to work for the railroad industry and stress the fact that trains are not some ancient form of transportation but very modern and current. Learn to work with and have a good relationship with responible and mature railfans and railfan groups and treat them with respect and be willing to share how a railroad works and their history and legacy and that includes having open houses with groups to tour their facilities and shops and also include sending representives to schools to give talks and info on their history, operations and safety as well. Finally railroads have to break the grip that Wall Street has on them and their operating practices. Railroads must learn to follow and chart an independent course of doing business and atrracting new business as well operating their trains free from the controlling nature of Wall Street. Wall Street dominance and control has led to the decline of railroads and put the industry in a very negative light. Also it is time to scrap PSR, an idea and practice that has failed and has also put the railroads in a negative way with declining business and losing customers as well as turning or discouraging new customers who would do businees with a railroad. Once railroads can gain back their independence and shake off the iron grip of Wall Street and discontinue PSR, it will be a step in the the right direction and begin the slow but steady return to respectiblity and profitibility and a postive image with the public, something that any painted heritage diesel locomotive or steam train excursion alone will not turn the tide back. It is a nice promotional move but it can;t alone reverse the downward trend that railroads are experiencing right now
Joseph C. Markfelder
Well said.
A frosty morning in a classification yard
Make a bunch of diesel switchers miss
The permanent heat of the steam era
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
When steam came of age
Then the Iron Horse took
The name of the locomotive
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Railroaders have never had long term sickness benefits administered by the railroads themselves, only through the railroad retirement board which has nothing to do with the railroads day to day operations let alone union bargaining for such things…… the railroads want the media to think that,yet under their breath they will tell you they have nothing to do with them at all, and that’s why there was such a rub in the last contract negotiations about them.
Bill- Canadian National did field a steam program from 1964 and 1980, albeit while it was still nationalized.
Run a few steam engines to distract folks from the real problem?
How about the freight rails focus on running a better railroad. Like giving Amtrak it’s legally mandated preference in operations? Like shorter trains so (among other things) kids going to school won’t have to risk their lives climbing through stopped 3 mile long freight trains.
Run a better railroad. Imagine that!
So the magic bullet is having a steam locomotive to distract attention while the railroads continue the very practices that got them in this predicament in the first place? That is naive and wishful thinking. Wouldn’t a much better option be to correct the self inflicted problems and short term thinking that currently inflict railroad management? Start with the practices that have clogged the mainlines with half as many trains as they used to run when traffic actually moved on a schedule. Continue with an operating plan where the customers actually matter and have a greater say than the hedge funds. Concentrate on actually meeting and exceeding customer expectations. That’s how you rebuild for the future.
Norfolk Southern has had two very good example of how to do this, SOuthern and Conrail. And the COnrail example should be a blueprint for how to dig yourself out from a situation that in many ways mirrors the end of Penn Central: excessive cost cutting, a rash of derailments caused by track or equipment failure, etc. It can and has been done before. What the industry needs now are people willing to do it again. And shareholders willing, for the long term good of the industry, to get out of the way and let what has to be done get done.
All that NS has to do is run nickel plate 765 around northeast ohio and they will all warm and fuzzy again about NS are you kidding me! They will need a lot more PR for many years.
Misconceptions? Truckers 80,000lb rigs “hammering away” at roads without fair recompense? Wait, don’t they pay fuel taxes too? (and taxes on tires, licenses and payroll taxes on the drivers?) Only the showing of steam engines can wipe away the misunderstanding of the railroads?
I enjoy trains as much as anyone, but this analysis seems to make Mr Stephens (with all due respect) look like his head is well into the clouds (clouds of steam I might add).
There are no ‘golden arrows’ for the Class 1’s that can redeem their latest behaviors. Only by developing a culture of mutual respect, for their customers, for their employees, for the public, and finally for the shareholders who value their investment over the long term, will they begin to turn the tide of negative perception.
Can the display of steam help? Of course it can, but it is just one small part of a larger culture change they need to embrace.
This doesn’t require a shotgun PR effort, and it doesn’t require lobbyists, it requires a culture change, that has to come from within.
All the; fuel taxes, permits, fines, and license don’t pay for the infrastructure they use… Trucking is subsidized by a tune of roughly $0.35/mile..
Yes trucks do hammer away at roads. Just drive in the truck lanes. New York built parkways in the 1960s that were not built for trucks. They have many ways not required any rebuilds. The blue ridge parkway which is built on very unstable shale has held up very well due to no trucks except maintenance vehicles. Damage to highways goes up to the 4th power based on wheel weight to the pavement.
While I would love steam being brought back, I am afraid there will be some who will say that it is increasing the carbon footprint and use that as another club to beat the railroads over the head.
Suggest the AAR get it touch with the producers of the IMAX movie “Train Time” Excellent film that documents the who, what, where, when and why of today’s modern rail system. AAR may wish to fund the conversion of the IMAX version to conventional viewing options. Post on streaming platforms, PBS, and rail carrier sites. Very positive point of view of the industry. IMHO would certainly garner interest of a diverse population.
I’ve been a railfan and model ralroader most of my life. And, I enjoy seeing steam in action. However, very little preserved steam is actually in action. There is always a Diesel in attendance on the train. Whether it’s 4014 on the UP or 1309 on the Western Maryland Scenic, the reliance on the Diesel detracts from the historic appeal of steam. Indeed, some may ask (as I have), ‘Is the steamer actually operatiing?’ Rather than focus on their past, the Class 1’s need to emphasize their positive relevance in the present and future.