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by brnaftr361 1499 days ago
They have and it is slowing them down, but they're using different metrics to define and track productivity. If you're interested in hearing about it this guy has a pretty good perspective on the overall issues:

https://youtu.be/Q0rk5tnrFqA?t=9300

1 comments

Can you perhaps summarize?
I gave it a shot (watched the testimony at the linked timestamp, which was just a few minutes). Here's what I got from it, but I didn't fully understand everything:

This guy is a "yard master" - the air traffic controller of the rail industry.

1. Railroads are focused on "units per train" - increasing the length of the trains.

- They're running long trains that are 10k+ feet long, but we have many old RR yards from WWII era that only fit 3k ft long trains. Takes 3 hours to put these trains together exiting the yard and no other trains can use the yard during that time.

- Something I didn't understand that causes train cars to derail on bridges

- Some trains are longer than the range of the 2 way radios that conductors typically use. There's a procedure that involves a conductor inspecting the train as it goes by, and apparently they can't always contact the train.

2. Consolidation of terminals.

- Some regional stations for inspecting coal trains closed down. I didn't understand this explanation either.

- Moving yard masters to a central location and having them run the yard with cameras. Has resulted in peoples' deaths

3. Workload on people. Yard masters work 16h/day 365 days/year.

4. Management metrics reducing headcount + extra engines / equipment leads to lack of redundancy

Two things he'd ask for:

- Max 8k ft length of a train

- Disincentivize any reason to store a locomotive