Railroads to begin filing service reports

The STB will require all Class I carriers to file weekly updates starting Oct. 22.    Today marks the day all Class I railroads must start submitting weekly service updates to the Surface Transportation Board’s new data-collection decision, which was passed Oct. 8.
   As of 10:30 a.m., no filings had been uploaded to the STB website.
   Each carrier will file system-average train speed by train type, average terminal dwell time, total cars on the line by type, and other metrics.
   Carriers operating out of Chicago, which the board has highlighted as a major area of congestion, will file a weekly joint report on condition.
   BNSF and CP have been sending the board status updates on fertilizer shipments since April.
   In the order, the board said the decision was a reaction to the public hearing on service issues it held Sept. 4 in Fargo, N.D.
   “During and after the hearings,” the board wrote in the decision, “shippers expressed concerns about the lack of publicly available rail service metrics and requested access to certain performance data from the railroads to help them better understand the scope, magnitude, and impact of the current service issues.”
   By talking to shippers, the board found most of them are confronting a lack of transparency in the rail industry. These shippers are experiencing service issues, but have no idea how these issues are being resolved.
   “Shippers assert that performance metrics are important for rail users to plan logistics, minimize economic harm to operations and revenues, assist with business planning, and to better serve their own customers during the service-recovery period,” the board wrote. “Shippers have also stated that information would bring transparency regarding the extent to which the railroads are improving and resolving the ongoing service issues.”