CSX Anti Truck Commerical

Yep. And breaking the rules can get you "fired." Anywhere from three days, to permanent. Permanent is VERY unusual.

Then you are rehired. I don't know if you lose your seniority over these "firings" or not.

In most other industries, they call it "suspension."

w-h-a-t-e-v-e-r

Guess the railroads are making so much money now, they need to spend it on advertising, for tax write-offs...

 

Yes, but that train can bring between one and two hundred cars in 5 days. I used to switch 6 rail cars a day out of the BASF plant you're referring to in Livonia. Some empty and some full.

 

The guys we refer to as old heads can call it a suspension, they hired in before 1985 and are protected. They cut a deal to reduce train crews in exchange for some cash and a guaranteed job for life.
The guys that hired in after that can only get fired ( suspended ) a couple of times then they are fired for good. A safety violation for a new guy can be a career ender.

 

Oh really?? So you're one of the guys who decides to start banging railcars around 15 minutes after I've laid down for a nap. Thanks a bunch!!!

BTW, my dad was a railway engineer for CNR for over 40 years and taught me how to shunt when I was 10.

 

Then there is F.R.E.D.

 

You can hardly blame a train for hitting a school bus, look into how long it takes a fully loaded freight train to stop, sometimes MILES

 

Too bad the railroads have such crappy service times. Current intermodal times from Denver: L.A. 3 to 4 business days, Seattle/Tacoma 4 business days, Kansas City 2 business days (9 hrs drive), Chicago (non-Z-train) 2 to 3 business days, Houston 3 to 4 business days, Newark 6 business days minimum.

Back in the 90's I worked for a company that shipped returns to the main warehouse in Chambersberg, PA from Denver. We had to allow 21 business days for the box car to arrive.

The one that always gets me is this, how do you loose something that runs on rails, is not self propelled, and cannot run unless it's on rails? Ask the railroads, they do it all the time. When I worked in the warehouse, the UPRR parked what was supposed to be an empty boxcar for us to load at one of our docks. When I went to open it, I noticed it had seals on it, I broke one seal and opened it, it was loaded with rolls of newprint heading to the Miami Herald from a paper mill in Oregon. I called the railroad to report the screwup. 4 days later they brought us a new boxcar, and shoved the loaded one out of the way. 5 days later they came and picked up the one I had loaded and left the other one behind. 2 weeks went by, the load of newsprint was still parked there, we called newspaper to tell them about it, they said the railroad told them it had misplaced the boxcar and didn't know where it was. I gave them our info, 6 days later, it finally left. It was delivered in Miami 3 months after it left Oregon.

In the last 12 yrs of hauling intermodal, I've watched them misplace intermodal containers by forgetting to unload them from the train, or swappign cars around and putting the wrong car ont he wrong train. We've had intermodal loads the were supposed to go from L.A. to Dallas arrive in Denver only to have the railroad pay us to haul the container to Dallas, or 5 times now to Kansas City. Recently we dropped a loaded can at UPRR in Denver that was heading to Seattle, they put it on the wrong train and shipped it to Savannah, Ga. Final destination, Shanghai China. The railroad had to pay to have it loaded on a flatbed and truck across country as it would otherwise miss the ship.

 

So basicly untill the railroads get their logistics handling act together, they won't be a threat to trucking.

untill they get their payscale issues sorted (old guys are lifers, young guys are ambivalent with little job security) they aren't going to get their employees motivated.

And unless every factory in the country moves directly ajecent to a spur, you're still gonna need a driver to move something from the rail to the plant.

Will this affect "Cowboy OTR's?" someday I guess.

But really, with every third driver wanting more hometime, I'm sure some of us would much rather spend the day pulling cargo from railhead to end user, and sleeping at the house rather than sitting in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the company to underbid a load.

Supply-demand.

(Oh did anyone else notice the non-passing 4 wheelers in the commercial? Even with out the trucks, driving like that will not reduce traffic)

 

Trains are more efficient.Just not as timely.With consumers willing to wait,and shippers carrying inventories trains are by far cheaper on a per ton/mile rate than a truck as long as time is not a concern.


Lots of companies are looking at reducing shipping costs lately.Even the big boys understand this hence the boom in inter-modal in the last 10 years.Much cheaper to have a truck make a short run and leave the long haul to rail.

 

I have seen a lot of CSX trailers being trucked this week. Now we know haw they get it to the customer-