It's sad to hear/read a piece of American transport history gets demolished. I mean, it's inevitable for them to deteriorate as time goes by. It is up to the management and the people to preserve them. I've been to a lot of train travels in the USA, sad I missed this.
I was by what used to be Tilford yard Saturday morning. First time I had been down there since the dismantling began. It was sad to see even though I know what to expect. Basically, only the main line, a few buildings and a bunch of light and power poles are left now. Maybe on my next trip that way, I will get some good shots to share. We will not discuss why there are no pics this time of the empty ground or all the cool stuff I saw next door at NS's Inman yard.
Looks like NS reported good numbers this morning with quarterly profits rising from $506 Million a year ago to $702 Million. EPS was $2.52, above estimates of $2.44. Revenue was up as well by 10.4%. I'm not sure if UP has reported yet, but I read that their numbers should be good. Sadly, UP is cutting 475 jobs in Q4 with more to come. Earlier in the year UP reported that system congestion was taking a toll on profitability; I have a hard time understanding how layoffs are going to help their network become more fluid, but I guess UP leadership is under pressure to look reactive.
Is it just me, or is an extensive downsizing program that causes your main competitor's profits to rise by 40% a failed program?
Trying to do more, with less is a recipe for big troubles. "Streamlining" to seem more profitable is a facade. Or perhaps better to call it pure deception, aimed at the public/investors. Either way, not good. Even if stocks rise, still just building upon wet sand for a foundation and hoping by some miracle it holds up.
We may not be able to assign this all to CSX actions, but likely NS has received good benefits from unhappy shippers coming aboard. In a time when coal hauling revenues seem to generally be falling, something has definitely happened for such monumental growth in twelve months.
WOW. That such a facility could suddenly be deemed as essentially (for a lack of better words) worthless to their operations, is simply stunning.
Atlanta was a major classification hub for over 150 years. I guess customers and traffic patterns have changed so now Atlanta is irrelevant as a hub. Interestingly, I've noticed that the Crescent's schedule keeping has improved recently, not perfect, but better. I wonder if CSX's modified traffic patterns have had anything to do with that? Be great if Crescent's time-keeping returned to its precision when I was commuting Slidell-Washington 20-30 years ago arriving within 10 minutes of the advertised.
Shocking photos BNSF FAN. Thanks for posting. I don't know a thing about Atlanta real estate, but I suppose that more than a few developers and city planners would love to call Tilford's land their own.
Absolutely. Those photos remind me of the loss of Pot Yard's miles long double hump in Alexandria, VA in the 70's. Now, 40 years later, you see only two tracks running through high-rises with virtually no land on either side or sunlight. Change is inevitable, interesting when read in history books, but shocking when observed in real time.
Yes, change is inevitable. However, sometimes it happens so fast that one can only wonder about the lack of long term vision. If CSX sells off that land, they will get a very temporary bump in how finances appear. Then it is gone. Meanwhile, if they ever need capacity there again, it could take years of costly struggles, and how much more than the sale price to replace it all?
