Pan Am Worcester Main Line

FRA inspection standards have changed and the railroads no longer want to maintain to the next track class for low mileage and tonnage.

Yes the Worcester Main was a mix of 30 and possibly 35 (need to check ST TT #2 or prior as it dropped to 25 with TT #3 as I recall).

Ah, that makes sense
In the 1970s, the B&M ran at pretty high speeds over crap track, occasionally with disastrous results
Growing up in Lancaster I recall often seeing a house by the bridge over main st on the Clinton line that had evident repairs from a prior B&M derailment at that spot

426 and 427 appear to have very robust traffic based on recent videos of long trains

The M426 that arrived Ayer today had 94 cars when it passed through Springfield MA and I read a FB post that it picked up a block of cars off Clinton siding. Consists look healthy.

If csx is dropping cars in Clinton, they must be concerned about abiding by the 9000 foot train length restriction through hill yard

The pickup M426 made today was according to District 1 at 15:30 hrs. "Ayer's that you will probably drop off at Westford."
At about 19:00 B+E Dispatch told M426 "Track 11 through the yard no work, mainline meet with M427."
At about 20:15 District 2 told M426 "set off Ayer's at Westford, recrew there and cab back to Lawrence."
At about 19:15 District 1 instructing M427 to "hold on to your head 11 cars and pickup everything at Clinton."

I think they still are trying to figure out this B+E/CSX interchange thing, being shorthanded I'm sure doesn't help.

Unless 426 brought some cars east by mistake, I cannot think of any reason why 427 would be picking up in Clinton
As far as I know, b&e cannot run to Clinton to drop interchange cars??????

Beginning this summer, through August 426/427 train pair average car count (excluding rail, stone & ties) is generally up ~33% with ~2/3 account growth in new and existing traffic moving via the ex-Barbers gateway. The other ~1/3 came from fewer trainstarts within the restructuring of B&A train service that added overall trainstarts with an additional train pair, 438/439, while eliminating non-ex-PAR-territory traffic on 426/427 as a response to growth not only via Barbers, but also via Westboro, Worcester-P&W, Palmer-NECR and in general elsewhere.

Close to half of the 426/427 trains had 90 or more cars and well below 10% fewer than 60. Eastbound 426 trainstarts were balanced by westbound 439 trainstarts generally handling P&W and Westboro traffic, and, westbound 427 trainstarts were balanced by eastbound 438 trainstarts carrying Palmer-NECR and Worcester-PW traffic.

To put things in a bigger context, what we're witnessing in action on the WML and throughout New England on CSX (and CP, too) is Hunter Harrison's applied PSR playbook continue to unfold, as it has at CN and CP, with operational "worst-to-first" transformation leading to a strategic pivot toward growth including through acquisitions, like PAR, and investments, like on PAR and elsewhere in New England. Strategically for CSX, especially here in New England, it's a 180-degree turnaround from previous management and for their new CEO continued pursuit, though tailored in response to the major impact of Covid and reminiscent of the Conrail Quality growth strategy pursued also at the conclusion of preceding transformational difficult times.

No one wants to hear about or believes any of that PSR garbage.

There is a new Sheriff in town who actually cares about customers (not just on paper) and Boychuk is gone. Talk to some of the different departments at CSX and you'll hear about how they were being hamstrung. We're witnessing common sense returning.

Agreed, no way that this can be spun as a PSR benefit, the new CEO understands that we are a service industry. I can tell you as a 20-year T&E employee, they are listening to us again.

Some will notice that some of the things I have brought up in my posts have been enacted. It really is just common sense railroading. There was a reason why some things were done the way they were.

PSR tried to change that, and it will go down in history as a failure for US railroads.

It worked on the Canadian railroads because they had not made changes that the US railroads made years before. For example, CP and CN still had clerks into around 2010. CSX had long downgraded them to basically jitney drivers when I hired out, conductors were doing the paperwork that the clerks used to do. PSR has definitely crippled NS making a real move into New England.

I can go on and on with these examples.

Just to explain the clerks, that was an actual craft with full union benefits. They were fully qualified in the yards they worked and did most of the grunt work required for a train to depart. Tally cars on a track, gather all of your paperwork ready for review when you got to the yard etc. All work that is still done today but put on the road conductor, who then still has to travel over the road for 12 hours. Yes even in 2023 you still have to go out and put eyeballs on cars. The technology won't save you.

By the time I hired out they still did some of that but were mostly jitney drivers. Now they are totally gone, the yard jitneys are just random crew vans like you would find on the road. They are not qualified in the yards, so we have to tell them were to go. They don't know how to talk on the radio, always stepping on people making a hook or shoving to a stop signal. Their radios are more powerful than the conductors radio.

But its ok right? They cut costs right so that is good right?

Do I understand you to say that downgrading the clerks by the US railroads was beneficial- to a point- but now they’ve been downgraded too much?

No I'm saying the clerks were a needed resource. They were one of the first cut, back in the late '90's at CSX and their loss has made operations less efficient. It was thought that technology would replace them, but it has not.

Harrison used these kinds of cuts to make it seem like PSR was a good thing. But US railroads had already made those kinds of cuts years before.

And to keep things on track (har har) the ST still had clerks (Union craft positions) when I was there in the mid-2000s. Some of the other folks could comment on if they kept them still.

They were in essence Yardmasters with no authority. They kept track of what trains were coming and going into the major class yards. They kept track of what cars were on what tracks. They helped you coordinate moves in the yard because there were no Yardmasters. If there were Trainmasters or Area Managers around they were not on the radio directing moves like a Yardmaster.

To make things even weirder, on the locals you got your work orders from an Agent who was sitting in Billerica, not someone in one of the terminals.

It was a very strange way of operating to say the least.

Getting back to the Worcester Main Line with its new owner, expensive upgrades and increasing traffic common sense tells us something has changed. Now, what could it be?

Is it because of the wave of a magic wand, that someone "cares", or with the arrival of a "new sheriff" in town only a year ago?

Or, could it be a CSX now earning doubled returns and above its cost of capital where it did not in 2016? Could it be a more efficient CSX with a 14% lower operating ratio in 2022 v. 2016 allowing them to better compete for traffic, build on their network instead of spin off segments to lower-cost operators or allow others to make acquisitions, and grow justification to spend capital? Could it be the doubling of 2016's free cash resources generated from operations and available to make acquisitions?

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to make the connection between what's happening with the WML and the transformation at CSX with the arrival of Hunter Harrison. Even early on things began to change here in New England with traffic lost under previous management to other Class 1's returning and the momentum continues to build including within investments approaching $1B contrasting with previous strategic ambivalence about the region. And, just by looking around the same playbook used to similarly transform CN and CP can be seen with all 3 railroads top industry performers.

Bringing in Joe Hinrichs to execute for growth off that transformation and in light of the major impact of Covid and scapegoating of PSR for every industry ill turned political by self-interests came from the previous CEO. PSR hasn't disappeared with this strategy, it's just been rebranded "Scheduled Railroading" for PR purposes.

Furthermore, "talking with those different departments hamstrung by Boychuk" is simply the PR of CSX's CFO pumping up the new CEO's tires at an investor conference to an important group skeptical of the "new sheriff's" performance and COO's departure.

While it's important for folks to feel heard, the recent "common sense" changes on the WML and B&A occurred primarily because of traffic growth demands and CSX's ability to finally execute PAS' separation.

PSR didn't cripple NS' advance in New England, it's their inability to justify spending $500M to $1.5-2B in an attempt to compete against a much better CSX network, only made more muscular with PSR. That can't be confused with their $150M PAS investment that was as much about defending a presence in New England, made in the context of a CSX willing to shed New England traffic, and providing a half-ownership strategic stake in the property including bisecting PAR's route via the WML to the competing gateway.

Sure, fan and buff history will spin PSR a failure, but in the real world of the railroad business, certainly at CSX, CN and CP, where operating genius Hunter Harrison was involved it's been transformative and here in New England a watershed on par with the creation of Conrail, deregulation and labor reforms. In both cases nothing was perfect, but as always in the business of railroading, it's the most important things that count including what became of the WML back then and what will come again. Now we have Mr. Hinrichs' "One CSX", back then Mr. Hagen's "Conrail Quality" to provide the calm after the storms.