CN9634 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 13, 2023 8:24 pm
When Class Is have trains stacked up for days on end so it doesn't really matter what speed your track is if your network isnt fluid...
Interesting pivot -- seems as though the PSR fad is on its last leg if not entirely over. NS remarks that its going to return to service and growth... I can't help but wonder if the new NS regime is disappointed by how easily they gave away Pan Am to CSX, but hopefully they look once again at PAS as a route of interest.
PSR principles, which I'd hardly characterize as a fad, aren't going anywhere on NS or any other Class 1 except, perhaps, in name only. Railroad network congestion and recovery, the importance of the operating ratio as a measure, how to grow, and how railroads have historically responded to traffic downturns with labor are ever-present issues above, beyond and before PSR, and in this particular case with NS, their strategy is about how they will deal with labor resources through business cycles moving forward and, as a consequence, what they see as an acceptable operating ratio, not PSR principles.
While the greatest strategic improvement from PSR came to those roads, IC, CN, CP and CSX, where its application was made directly by Hunter Harrison with UP transformed but struggling, likely only in the short run, NS' approach to applying PSR has been been somewhat wobbly with CSX transformed and more competitive. And, I would not discount where the strategic benefits of PSR, including growth and service improvement, is the greatest are for those roads whose strategic opportunity has greater weight in the carload business segment, as is the case with CSX and UP as opposed to NS (and BNSF).
As to whether NS regrets not moving on purchasing the other half of PAS and PAR, they are getting a strategic intermodal improvement opportunity out of the deal, and, good chance with their weaker network position accessing New England, including via PAS, the greater capital and operating costs required turned them away vs. the benefits and in light of having to compete against other bidders, including CSX.