A Matt Rose interview

BoxcabE50 Dec 11, 2018

  1. Tony Burzio

    Tony Burzio TrainBoard Supporter

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    Also remember that the push to move to something “else” came from the government imposing changes on railroad. Railroads are huge bureaucracies, loathe to change anything. Remember, for the last five decades, nothing pretty much since diesels took over from steam. Then, BAM!
     
  2. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Sadly, the railroads used to provide such service. But once we got into the mega-merger era, that quickly began to go away. People used to know what time of day it was, when the freights came through town. And that also included at least one local, which also served customers of all sizes. Not just the easy or cherry picked stuff, as today.
     
  3. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Too, railroads once kept numerous salespeople in the field, not Customer Service Representatives at 1-800 numbers at desks a thousand miles away. I recently found a few dozen business cards from early in my career, all from local rail salesmen who I knew well and could depend on to get things done.
     
  4. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I have heard this complaint from many a shipper. The impersonal voice of someone you will likely never see. Who will never be truly familiar with you and your company. Who is simply working out of a playbook, just like any telephone call center. Who may be on a time clock, per call- required to take a minimum number of calls (quota) daily. About as much fun as talking to a lump of soggy cardboard...
     
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  5. mmi16

    mmi16 TrainBoard Member

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    PSR is all about doing away with 'loose car' railroading. Give a carrier a train and they can take it to destination with a level of efficiency. Give them a car load of freight and they will flummox you to the point of frustration that you will not give them another car load of freight.
     
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  6. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Actually, the RRs, at least BN/BNSF, having been doing this for years. Hence the building supply which gets it's drywall on a truck. The steel fabricator which gets materials on a flatbed and ships the same way. Etc.... The trucking industry is delighted!
     
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  7. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member

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    We in Grand Junction CO (BNSF GRAJUP) are completely dependent on overhead traffic or any "new customers", meaning on new track ( BNSF trackage rights, via UP SP merger), or in certain circumstances new customers on old track, not gonna get into all the details (there are MANY). Point is myself as a Union leader went with my counter part Union leader, along with our Trainmaster(s), over 10-15 years, we went to many locations on just a rumor of new business. We worked together on a local level to make it work, pitch ideas, suggest operating plans, and has been said before in this post, we all had a vested interest to make all this work over here, and it was a rare thing to see Union leaders with officials trying to make something happen. We met with marketing agents that appeared to listen to our ideas, were cordial, then left for years, with no new news. I want to say for the record, that our local and division level officers were supportive and they knew we had good ideas, among the best officers I ever worked with. This stuff is complicated, has to go thru so many layers of all parties involved, legal, bean counters, operating, marketing and others again from all parties involved, anytime any differing proposal is made, now introduce another carrier, (RR or other) and the whole process starts over.
    We are talking decades of contracts, with all the other issues that can come up. RR's dont like 1-3 year contracts, they strive for decades long contracts, so that employee, locomotive, car assignments and or infrastructure allotments can be made on an economic basis. Again Its complicated. Nothing ever really happens, until all efforts fail, to stop it.

    Operating a RR, class 1,2,3 is expensive, in the last 20+ years it has been a challenge, there is no change in sight. What was service driven, went to bean counter driven, or Legal driven, and now Wall Street driven (we can debate the semantics). It has been my opinion (mine) that RR's are a public service, or they should be. Just like when you turn on the lights, or water faucet, they should work. This does not mean they should loose money, just means they should be available where/when for service if they have trackage to run on, 1000 cars or 1 car or LCL, for a reasonable yet profitable fee. The way our national RR's are configured right now, we are no better off as a nation than we were during the Robber Baron years 100+ years ago. As long as short term gains drive an industry that is 150 years old that our nation relies on for our very survival in crucial times, we are in trouble, whether we know it or not.

    I am not a GE loco fan. But as an example the GE officials of 15 years ago, planned as an organization for project/products that would come to fruition in 15/20 years. Now if anyone plans for fruition past 6-8 months, they are considered non conforming and will be forced out.
    This philosophy may work in tech. But until they figure out how to use transporter beams like in the old star track shows to move stuff, it still has to actually be moved, some by tens of thousands of tons. EMD made this same mistake 15 years before GE did. I now wonder if Wabtec or Clatterpillar can make a locomotive that the entire world bought variances of.
    EMD so far, not so much. Lets hope GE does better.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2019
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  8. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    They have completely forgotten who they are and how they exist. I have never seen a service industry where the business dictates absolute terms to the customer. Or simply just snubs them on a continual basis, yet can survive. All hail trucks.

    Some of us do see it, and even some of us have watched for quite some time. I am thinking this will eventually implode in a nasty mess. (Then and only then, might they think "oops?!") Meanwhile, the rest of us couild be pulled down with them, by them.

    Railroads want less workers, I know the ever growing trucking industry, (thank you railroading), needs more drivers. Someone I work with is leaving us, going back on the road again this very week. He was trying to talk me into considering it, too. If I could still pass the physical, (which I have doubts), I might think of getting back into a truck again. .. :rolleyes::eek::(
     
  9. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    From Trains Magazine, another road is taken private.

    07/01/2019 DARIEN, Conn. — Genesee & Wyoming, North America’s largest shortline holding company, is being purchased for $8.4 billion. The acquisition, for $112 per share by (Toronto-based) Brookfield Infrastructure, was announced shortly before 7 a.m. EDT today. The deal will result in G&W becoming a privately held company. <snip> Genessee & Wyoming owns 120 shortline railroads, 114 in North America, with additional operations in Europe and Australia. Its North American railroads serve 41 states and four Canadian provinces and have over 13,000 track-miles <snip> [End]
     
  10. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Saw this elsewhere, and could not help but to think- how will they rape and pillage G&W, to quickly recover their acquisition costs? :(
     
  11. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Some months ago NS's CEO admitted the road lacked experience with DPU operations and he was right. On July 6th, NS put 11 cars of NS 34A (a westbound manifest freight) on the ground at Horseshoe Curve. Fortunately there were no injuries or lading spills. All three mains were shut down as NS appraised the clean up. When a 141 car train is clawing upgrade on a 9 Degree curve with no helper, bad things are likely to happen. Adding to it all were light loads and empties up front and loads toward the rear. Lesson learned.
     
  12. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Sure hope so!
     
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  13. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    July 19, 2019 (Reuters) - [Edited for brevity] Kansas City Southern reported a 4.6% rise in quarterly revenue on Friday, helped by an increase in petroleum shipments to Mexico. Net income available to common stockholders fell to $1.28 per share in the second quarter ended June 30, from $1.45 per share, a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, Kansas City Southern earned $1.64 per share, beating analysts’ average estimate of $1.61. Revenue increased to $714 million from $682.4 million. [End]

    KSU shares are up 3.5% this morning.
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2019
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