Ancora placed a few of its people on the Norfolk Southern board in May, and that likely led to CEO Shaw’s ouster.
A law firm specializing in stockholder rights wants Norfolk Southern investors to join a class-action lawsuit over precision scheduled railroading. The firm says certain PSR practices compromised safety and depressed NS stock prices.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s report on precision scheduled railroading serves as a broad overview of how the freight rail industry has changed over the past decade.
President Joe Biden’s order last week calls upon the Surface Transportation Board to examine hot topics among rail shippers, including reciprocal switching. The challenge will be balancing the wants and needs of shippers and the freight railroads.
Democratic leaders with the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure want the General Accountability Office to examine the effects that precision scheduled railroading has had on freight and passenger rail operations, rail safety and the labor workforce.
Rail shippers discuss what issues they would like to see addressed in 2021. Among them: further action by the Surface Transportation Board and Congress on ensuring rail competition and adequate rail service.
The railroad’s deployment of precision scheduled railroading resulted in faster and longer trains and reduced car sorting, according to the company’s recent sustainability report.
A report from Boston Consulting Group suggests that the Class I railroads must look beyond precision scheduled railroading and operating ratios if the industry wants to be a competitive transportation mode.
Improving rail volumes and service are among the crucial issues to look out for as the railroads reveal their 2020 guidance in the coming days.
Precision Scheduled Railroading, or PSR, is the operational method of running a railroad for maximum asset utilization by which freight movements are scheduled and managed on the individual carload (rather than entire train level). That contributes to efficiency improvements by, for instance, using more direct point-to-point routing, bypassing classification terminals, and having the flexibility to use long mixed-commodity trains.
Ben Thrower writes about the positive and negative aspects of precision scheduled railroading in this commentary article.
A wide-ranging roundtable discussion on the implementation of precision railroading will highlight FreightWaves Radio on SiriusXM Road Dog Trucking the weekend of Oct. 19-20. The show will bring together two independent observers of the rail industry: John Schmitter, with the firm of KEP LLC, will be joined by longtime rail economist and writer Jim Blaze […]
Jim Blaze writes about the decisions that will go into determining 2020 capital expenditures by the freight railroads.
This week we step inside the world of an industry that’s been rolling for nearly 200 years. Ian Jefferies of the Association of American Railroads talks about rails role in the economy, an industry in transition, Precision Railroading, Positive Train Control, drones, data, and automation.
Jim Blaze writes about earnings season for the railroads, and what investors, customers and employees should be looking and asking for in the railroads’ quarterly earnings reports.
The implementation of precision scheduled railroading has contributed to dwindling morale and could result in creating unsafe working conditions should the federal government withhold intervention, according to union witnesses at a June 20th Congressional hearing on rail safety.
Executives with eastern railroads CSX and Norfolk Southern expressed confidence this week that they can compete alongside trucks for e-commerce business.
A number of rail equipment lessors and manufacturers have been merging and consolidating in recent months as a way to leverage themselves against marketplace changes brought about by precision scheduled railroading. Meanwhile, industry observers are watching whether railcar utilization grow in 2019.
Berkshire Hathway (NYSE: BRK) chairman and CEO Warren Buffett said he would be willing to consider some form of precision scheduled railroading (PSR) for western U.S. railroad BNSF, although he didn’t say when or even if BNSF would eventually adopt the operating model. ”We are not above copying anything that is successful, and I think […]
Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) expects to have the next stage of its new operating plan in place by the end of July. In this next stage, which Norfolk Southern dubs “TOP 21,” the railroad will seek to run heavier trains and have them run faster along some routes.
