| Last updated on November 3, 2020
Editors talk about who really invented Precision Scheduled Railroading, a California High Speed Rail comeback, the Transcontinental Railroad, and so much more.
This week, Jim Wrinn and Steve Sweeney talk about who really invented Precision Scheduled Railroading, a California High Speed Rail comeback, the Transcontinental Railroad, and so much more.
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Just read an update from Ed Dickens, The Big Boy has just had a fire built in her firebox. It won’t be long now. Also, I asked him if he knew where the “Big Boy” would be going after the ceremonies at Ogden, Ut.
Is you website at Rochelle not working?
Don, you’re right of course. But the tracking systems the Class I’s have are rudimentary compared to shipper expectations and the precise systems that truckers and others have that allow you to know exactly where your shipment is and exactly when it will arrive. Freight cars can go hours or even days without passing a reader and yards remain black holes for car tracing. The comparison execs make is that you can order a Dominos pizza using an app on your phone, and track the $5.99 pizza in real time as it’s being made, put in the oven, put in the box and delivered to your doorstep, yet you do not have anywhere near the same visibility on a covered hopper filled with $200,000 worth of plastic pellets.
Bill
Jim & Steve, of course Hunter Harrison did not invent P.S.R. Railroads used to take great pride in running trains and moving all types of cargo and passengers on schedule.(except during the various wars we’ve had), then they moved it even faster! It seems that it was sometime in the late 60’s that things went south, so to speak, I noticed the change after I came back from Vietnam, nobody seemed to care anymore and rail service just went straight down the toilet. As for tracking cargo, haven’t railroads always done that? The only way to keep reporting marks visible though, is to somehow take away all the spray paint from all the taggers who love to put their mark on stored or parked cars & locos in yards and business pick up & drop off points.
I don’t know what RRs didn’t have shipment tracking, but NS has had it through the Access NS on the corporate web page for at least 15 years, now. Shippers could trace cars, get shipment history, shipment ETAs – everything.