D&H South End Sale to NS - APPROVED 5/15/15

lvrr325 wrote:The NYS&W is now run by CSX and NS with enough independent management to keep actual running of the railroad out of their hands.

Matt Langworthy wrote:Lvrr325 has a correct assessment of Suzie-Q. NS and CSX each have a 45% share of NYSW. The estate of Walter Rich owns the remaining 10%

I'm confused... I thought that during CR takeover, NS and CSX had made deal with NYSW.... They each would own 10% of NYSW... Walter would still be main owner of NYSW.

sd80mac wrote:I'm confused... I thought that during CR takeover, NS and CSX had made deal with NYSW.... They each would own 10% of NYSW... Walter would still be main owner of NYSW.

No, Walter Rich sold off 80-90% (sources vary on the amount) of Suzie-Q to NS and CSX in the late '90s.

Anything Walter Rich was involved in legally generally has all the tangles of a plate of spaghetti; once the public stock was bought out, it all became a private matter so it's mostly rumors and speculation with regard to who owns what, but it's fairly clear in the running of the railroad that NS and CSX have a fair amount of say of what goes on.

My understanding is the split was 45-45-10, which sort of gave Walter some control as the deciding vote with neither large road owning a majority, but at the same time prevented him from objecting to much with regard to the split. There's also a rumor that Walter then financed buying back more of the shares from CSX/NS but financed it through one or both of those roads. Whatever did happen, it must have conditions to it that have kept the road in existence, otherwise I would have thought the two big roads would have liquidated it by now.

The bottom line is NYS&W serves it's purpose for the sake of operating the entire original NYS&W plus the former Erie east of Binghamton, and that's as much as it will ever be at this point.

thank you for clearing it up...

I'm surprised nobody posted this yet. From the investors conference taking place now:

"Canadian Pacific has an agreement to sell its Delaware & Hudson Railway, Harrison said yesterday. He didn’t elaborate and said he wasn’t at liberty to disclose the buyer. Canadian Pacific is open to acquiring assets such as grain elevators, he also said. "

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-0 ... limbs.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Looks like NS is finally going to connect the dots in the northeast. I don't see them letting a shortline run it like the CNYK runs the Delaware Division. There's far too much traffic, and far too many opportunities for more traffic.

And Harrison once again proves he's a businessman, not a railroader. "Longer" and "faster" are pretty much mutually exclusive qualities when it comes to freight trains. You might improve your operating ratio thanks to fewer crews and locos, but don't try to fleece anyone into thinking your speeds and on-time performance and level of service will go up. SLower accel, longer decel, slower climbs on hills, greater chances of derailments, longer walks to fix broken knuckles etc. basically can never add up to "faster". ALso, if there's only one train and it misses or delays it's connections, EVERYTHING missed it's connection or was delayed. There's no picking up 901's slack on 903 later or whatever if there's only one or two trains in and out of town each way in a day. There's also a reason CN has a long-standing record of at least one major catastrophic accident ever year or so somewhere, whereas I'm struggling to recall more than 1 or 2 on CP in the last 20+ years. Just saying.

oibu wrote:And Harrison once again proves he's a businessman, not a railroader. "Longer" and "faster" are pretty much mutually exclusive qualities when it comes to freight trains. You might improve your operating ratio thanks to fewer crews and locos, but don't try to fleece anyone into thinking your speeds and on-time performance and level of service will go up. SLower accel, longer decel, slower climbs on hills, greater chances of derailments, longer walks to fix broken knuckles etc. basically can never add up to "faster". ALso, if there's only one train and it misses or delays it's connections, EVERYTHING missed it's connection or was delayed. There's no picking up 901's slack on 903 later or whatever if there's only one or two trains in and out of town each way in a day. There's also a reason CN has a long-standing record of at least one major catastrophic accident ever year or so somewhere, whereas I'm struggling to recall more than 1 or 2 on CP in the last 20+ years. Just saying.

It may be that EHH & Keith Creel mean longer trains means fewer train starts meaning fewer delays meeting opposing trains on single track. But of course it means sidings in many cases must be lengthened to accommodate 10,000' trains. Plus I think CP execs have de-emphasized intermediate classification yarding so traffic doesn't dwell as long en route.

I remember reading that Conrail did something similar years back: they claimed that if they ran a very long manifest every other day from point A to point B rather than a daily train of traffic headed in the direction of point B, the traffic for point B would actually arrive sooner because intermediate classification could be eliminated.

Well, yes, undoubtedly if you've given away your traffic to trucks and other RR's like EHH has done on the D&H, the couple of trains you still run won't be delayed due to opposing traffic. Doing away with intermediate classifications is one thing, too, where it makes sense to do it. But the time savings, if they in fact ever materialized with CR, came from the reduction in intermediate classifications- not from the increased train lengths per se- the reduced classification time probably simply made up for the slower trains and increased likelihood of incidents or mechanical failures enroute.

One way or the other, runninga longer train in and of itself doesn't save any time. And while reduced intermediate classification might mean the majority of traffic gets there faster, it also likely means that some customer's traffic either gets bounced around on a lot of duplicate mileage, to eventulally get where its going, big trains have to make more intermeidate p/u's and s/o's, or it takes forever to get spotted. And that will tend to chase traffic away. But from a business sense, yes, your operating ratio may be higher moving less traffic. But Mcdonalds makes a lot of $ selling hamburgers, but cusre doesn't make a super-great hamburger.

oibu wrote: But from a business sense, yes, your operating ratio may be higher moving less traffic. But Mcdonalds makes a lot of $ selling hamburgers, but cusre doesn't make a super-great hamburger.

Well, frankly, EHH was hired by people whose goal is to make a lot of $$, not to move traffic or get things delivered quickly. And so it goes, whether the rest of it like it or not... JS
JS

Guys, can we please steer back to the news of the D&H sale, and not a critique of CP in general? Thank you.

-otto-
Moderator

Remember all the excitement about NAFTA and CP getting trackage rights to Fresh Pond? Did they ever run a train to Fresh Pond? The track configuration from the Harlem Line onto Hell Gate Bridge would have been a bit problematic.

Remember all the work to get the Oak Point Link built? A really interesting project that seemed like a good idea. The Harlem River Intermodal Yard never really developed much business. Does any real intermodal use it or is it just garbage now? You would think that there would be lots of freight business between New York City and Montreal, but for some reason it never developed. Even the tiny New York Cross Harbor was going to benefit and help connect the water gap to Fresh Pond.

This is going to be interesting to watch. Norfolk Southern has to be the buyer of at least the southern end. The State of Massachusetts is studying clearing Hoosac Tunnel for double-stacks and that opens up a lot of New England to Norfolk Southern (working with Pan Am east of Mechanicville). Norfolk Southern can now reach further than CSX into New England and the Canadian Maritimes including future oil trains to Irving in St. John.

There's a discussion going on on the Trains.com forum suggesting that there may be a Chicago tie-in to this.

If that's already been mentioned, sorry 'bout that.

This is certainly exciting for NS, who I am pretty sure is the buyer. This is just another cog in the machine that is the "Crescent Corridor" project.... which basically aims to remove trucks off i95, i90, i84, i81 and a few other major truck routes. Even here in PA, i81 is plugged to max with trucks and is a dangerous road. The trains are getting bigger on NS as JB Hunt continues to entrench and go after the business (JB Hunt is by the one, number 1 in Intermodal right now). I imagine you will see a new pair of trains coming out of New England going Southwest, instead of just to Chicago. Most likely a train to Kansas City, Memphis, or even Dallas via Atlanta. Look for a fluid and comprehensive system from New England to Atlanta in a decade or so... watch out CSX A-Line

oibu wrote: But from a business sense, yes, your operating ratio may be higher moving less traffic. But Mcdonalds makes a lot of $ selling hamburgers, but cusre doesn't make a super-great hamburger.

If I understand the point you are trying to make, I believe you meant "your operating ratio will be lower moving less traffic". Or am I not following?

NS is raising their prices all over. Is this because they want less business?

http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en ... eases.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;