OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific has paused its use of new embargoes to limit congestion.
The move, announced today (Friday, Dec. 16), comes after two days of Surface Transportation Board hearings where shippers, rail labor, and regulators were critical of the railroad’s increasing reliance on embargoes since 2018, the year it adopted a Precision Scheduled Railroading operating model.
“Thank you for the opportunity to appear at this week’s hearing regarding Union Pacific’s use of embargoes. I appreciate the feedback we received from our customers and the Board,” CEO Lance Fritz wrote to STB Chairman Martin J. Oberman. “I assure you, we are taking a hard look at our use of congestion-related embargoes. To facilitate that hard look, we are immediately pausing any additional embargoes under the pipeline inventory management program we began in November. The Board and our customers can expect to hear more from us on this subject in the coming days.”
Regulators last month ordered UP to explain why it has significantly increased its use of embargoes. With UP running short of train crews, the railroad has issued more than 1,000 embargoes so far this year in response to congestion, compared with just 27 in 2017. UP has issued the vast majority of Class I railroad congestion-related embargoes this year.
In April and November, with congestion rising in some of its local service yards, UP asked certain carload customers to reduce their inventory of private cars or face the prospect of an embargo that would limit the flow of inbound empties as well as loads.
I agree with all that Mr. Neill said. I to are from the SP and then UP, UP then and still just can not figure out SP, how to run a railroad.
That why UP is in the shape they are in now, no care about the customers.
Here’s another tale of daring and misadventure from my brief stint as an employee of that great big Brand X rolling railroad:
Back in late 1999, I was a (former SP) rules instructor in the UP Spring dispatcher’s office and around noon, my phone rang so I answered it and it was a man in a conspicuous level of panic. He gave me his name and identified his company and told me that he desperately needed a car that had been in a certain track at Englewood Yard for three days and he was going to have to shut down his business without the car.
I was about to tell him that I was a rules instructor and that I couldn’t help him but in a brief instant, I recalled being high agent for the M-K-T, FW&D, and CRI&P at Waxahachie, Texas, between 1970 and 1971 and that my only job was customer service back then. So, I asked this man to give me a car number and the known track number as well as his direct phone number and that I would call him back PDQ.
As soon as I hung up with that customer, I dialed the phone number of the Englewood train master and to my exceptional, wonderful great fortune, the man who answered was a friend who was a former SP train dispatcher I worked with for many years when I was also an SP train dispatcher.
I told my friend about the panicked customer, the car number and track, and asked him to do a computer search for it. Within a few seconds, he found the car and identified the location of the customer so, given the time was then about 1255PM, I asked if he could get the car on an afternoon road switcher and spotted to the customer by 501PM and my friend said that would be quick and easy and to consider it done.
With that, I called the customer back at 105PM and told him what I’d done and he was all but ecstatic, asking how I was able to do that. I told him, plain and simple, that I reverted to some old-fashioned jawboning and he told me that he was calling the Customer Service Center in St. Louis at least twice a day and usually four times a day for the past four days trying to get the car into Englewood and then spotted to his industry.
He lamented that he spoke to a different person every time and that there was no continuity or follow-up to his calls to St. Louis and worse, none of the clerks seemed to care about this customers problems.
So, end of story, right? Oh no. The next morning, the office supt berated me for getting involved in a customer service problem that was none of my business and that by involving myself in the customer’s problem, I circumvented established Union Pacific customer service problem resolution policies and practices.
Me being me, once again I told this person what I thought about Union Pacific, the intellectual degeneracy of its management, and that he oughta try resolving customer problems for several consecutive weeks as I did when I was an agent at Waxahachie so that he could really know what customer service was all about.
And I walked away when he shouted “I’m not finished with you” and I replied “Oh, yes you are because I’m finished with you.” Operating rules knowledge was a similar matter. My perception as a rules instructor, coming from SP to UP, was that of going from the Marine Corps to the Girl Scouts.
The UP types just couldn’t figure out those of us from SP.
Just like field crews have to pass a physical test, yard and office supes need to go work in customer service for 30 days a year to keep their focus in place.
Yes, the rules exist for a reason, (to keep people from playing favorites with customer cars) but the work rules shouldn’t be used as a blockade to customer service.
When hierarchy becomes more important than the customer, then the CEO is directly to blame because he or she is not imparting the right mentality to the rest of the company. If its important to the one at the top, then it becomes important to everyone.
UP has become incensed about its fuel bill. Powering trains in hilly country with enough power to get over the road but, not a track speed. That is evidenced by all the stored locomotives they have. Even on their triple track in Nebraska you will see many trains running 40 mph or less even though that track now carries about half the number of trains it used to..
Come on UP. If the practice had merit, you should continue doing it. Quitting because the STB called you to task revealed it for what it was, abuse of the embargo process.
PSR may have been good for some investors but it is one of a number of things wreaking havoc on our economy. The whole point of regulation is to ensure reliable, in this case, transportation of goods, along with safety, and humane treatment of employees. Railroads these days treat employees like dirt. UP has been talking about improving time off, sick leave, etc., but we’ve no way to know yet if this is just a way to put off their problems.
Re-regulation. Look at a calendar or your cell phone. If the calendar or cell phone says that today is the 19th of December, that means re-regulation is coming. If on the other hand your calendar or cell phone says that today is February 44th, it means that the railroads can continue as they are doing now.
Sad to see what has happened to the UP. This was the railroad that operated some of the finest motive power anywhere, form the Challengers, Big Boys, Gas Turbines to Centennials. There were consists of multiple diesels on the Overland route. Once a year I drive from Colorado to Connecticut and return. Often on the return trip I leave I 80 and travel on US 30 from Kearney, Neb to Big Springs, Neb. paralleling the railroad. I marvel at the engineering along the tracks and roadbed. And of course the trains themselves operating at speed. So tell me, what the hell has happened to this railroad. It always seemed to reflect American strength and know how. Sad to see this happen.
What happened to UPRR? Frankly I no longer even want to know, I just want it to go away. The railroad reminds me of a prominent recent US President (like the railroad, bloated and arrogant) who did some genuine good in his better years, but now his mind and his ethics are rotting away with a stench.
Its just a game.
They had to convince Wall Street Inc. they could duplicate PSR like the rest of them did to keep the short termers off their case. They simply shifted the effects over to embargoes to compensate for it. Now that they have been smoked out in front of the STB, they have to go look for another shell to move to keep all of their masters (Wall Street and USG) happy.
Sure, and right now they are planning on getting rid of thousands of conductors and buying a couple of pickup trucks!! That’ll solve all their problems!!
one of the main reasons you are short of train and engine crews is because you do not allow enough time off . if I had worked under the existing conditions 30 years ago I would have found another line of work
Woody wilson
union pacific railroad retired
I wholeheartedly agree.