Most cynical term in the history of corporate America (which is saying a lot). Slash employment, disregard safety, and generally run everything into the ground all while insisting on running nothing but slow 120-car trains guaranteed to turn off shippers. Best of all, its a win-win for the railroads: the cost-cutting either raises share prices or it creates a new crisis for them to "fix."
120 car trains aren’t the issue; they’ve been running 100+ car trains for a while. It’s the footage that is of concern. You get over 7000 feet and you can start having serious issues in the winter. Our operating restrictions state that in a certain temperature range, trains can only be so long. I believe between -10 and 0F our trains can be 7000’ with a DP or 5500’ without DP because we start having issues moving air through the train. Obviously as the temps drop, the length restriction increases.
Outside of the restrictions, Ive seen trains with 120 cars get held over because they “didn’t have enough traffic to justify a crew start”. Blows my mind that some of these people are in charge. An efficient organization is one that delivers when it says it’s going to deliver, not “oh we’ll get around to it when our units per train justify it”. Airlines will fly a flight that’s 25% full yet the railroads won’t run a train that’s 25% of the “maximum plan length” (even though no one pays attention to that anyway).
