NS Peavine talk

[heypal6878]

Figured that would be the next move!

[Muleskinner]

Forget about the Peavine you could put a bid in for NS.

Heck no. I wouldn't buy any RR company. I would go broke in 5 years in this country. The way things are going, RR's will all be out-of-business in 20 years sorry to say.
No funding from the government like they do for highways/roadways, & railroad company's closing and pulling up track every year leave no room for expansion. Who wants to do business with that?!

They way things are going, I'm afraid to see what'll happen in my life time but, the railroads are still one of the more efficient long haul operations we have in our country, they'll always have a place.

It will be few and far between. With truck hauling and more highways now running everywhere you can imagine & railroad lines becoming less & less .... I'll say the railroad is choking them selves out of business. Who wants to wait for their shipment for 3 weeks while the railroad is clogged of trains on one line when they can get it by truck or plane within a week. That's going to be the future for the railroad, sorry to say.
I will not see it my life time thankfully.

I remember back in the day I&O wanted to reopen a rail line from Blue Ash Ohio to Mason Ohio. I think they had to re-aquire some land that was sold and even tear a few houses down to put the rail line back in. Well, people who lived around that old line put up signs stating "Save our children" with a train circled with a line through it. Of course the line never went through. That's another issue, a lot of people think for some reason trains are noisey killers. lol
So a line that has been closed and pulled up will never see rails on the ground again.

[bdconrail29]

You guys aren't in to facts and statistics are you?

Those of you predicting a grim end to railroad service, facts and statistics disagree with you. Car load volume has steadily increased and is still increasing, since 1990. There are multiple weekly, monthly, yearly sites you can use to track these and are public knowledge.

[heypal6878]

It is never good to see railroads pulling lines, closing down rails and selling them. NS is in the consolation mode maybe something they should have started to do a year or so ago when oil and coal shipments were starting to slow. Now with this CP bid want to take over but will never happen of NS all of the sudden there is a large scale cut back, layoffs, closing of rails that are not productive any longer. I see today that CSX is starting to cut back as well. Surely you have seen this article below it paints the new picture for NS going forward.

http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en ... uppor.html

[CSX_CO]

It is never good to see railroads pulling lines, closing down rails and selling them. NS is in the consolation mode maybe something they should have started to do a year or so ago when oil and coal shipments were starting to slow. Now with this CP bid want to take over but will never happen of NS all of the sudden there is a large scale cut back, layoffs, closing of rails that are not productive any longer. I see today that CSX is starting to cut back as well. Surely you have seen this article below it paints the new picture for NS going forward.

http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en ... uppor.html

NS didn't star cutting when they should have. They were busy playing foamers favorites with the tea kettles and pretty engines. Which is why they're in the boat They are. Rumot has it cut expenses by 60 to 65 million this quarter or find new jobs.

[heypal6878]

I really don't think NS is listening to us over here on this board or any board for that matter. What drives railroads is profit. Like any company. There bottom line is getting smaller and smaller. Sure I agree they need to cut. NS is one hell of a big company, there is plenty of expense but like most large companies they try to cut from under, lay off crews, employees, try to under cut the unions, sell off tracks. Cutting expenses to 65 million is a big number. I'm sure there is plenty of top brass that are getting paid plenty and most likely they to are not pulling the load. Might be a good idea to start at the top and work down. Many times companies start at the bottom and work up to a certain point.

Long term NS will be fine right now they just need to figure a way to get though this mess with coal and oil shipments down. I think by the summer things will get better.

[northstar16]

I see that from what I have read that the far east side of the Peavine is going to be put up for sale in the near future. If not sold it will be pulled up. Now that being said and with all the issues NS is having at the current time would you think NS may just leave the rails down for a few years look at it again and decide to pull them up or try to sell the line again? None of the railroads are in a very comfortable position at the present time with oil and coal shipments down and to pull unused rails up just doesn't make that much sense if they don't sell the property. It would surely cost more to pull them in labor up than they will be making on scrap.

[h2466]

[/quote]NS didn't star cutting when they should have.[/quote]

And when was that?

[/quote]They were busy playing foamers favorites with the tea kettles and pretty engines.[/quote]

I doubt the heritage fleet was the cause of there current issue. Ken

[midland sub]

Help CSX-CO and myself understand something. Why does the railfan community give NS a free pass on everything?

[northstar16]

A Fee Pass? What do you mean by that? Right now it appears the NS is not getting anything for free as they are making large cuts across the board. I don't think any railroad gets anything for free. Midland Sub how many I&O trains are running up and back to Loveland daily? There for a while my nephew said four two up two back during the week. Not sure about the weekends. How are they doing these days?

[CSX_CO]

NS didn't star cutting when they should have.[/quote]

And when was that?

[/quote]They were busy playing foamers favorites with the tea kettles and pretty engines.[/quote]

I doubt the heritage fleet was the cause of there current issue. Ken [/quote]

They lost focus. Spent too much energy focusing on the past with the Heritage units and steam program. Dollar wise, no I didn't cost that much. It was the effort spent arranging those events that were the true cost. I've been saying that of them for the last several years. Wick retired before he had to face the music. Current regime isn't so lucky.



Free pass indeed Midland.

[h2466]

They lost focus. Spent too much energy focusing on the past with the Heritage units and steam program. Dollar wise, no I didn't cost that much. It was the effort spent arranging those events that were the true cost. I've been saying that of them for the last several years. Wick retired before he had to face the music. Current regime isn't so lucky.

Interesting opinion, Ken

[midland sub]

I&O is running one train a day up and back from Oakley to Midland City Sun-Thursday nights. Crew is the R2 and they meet the WCH-C at Midland to swap trains. Depending on how screwed up things are they also work some Saturday nights. Stone finally stopped coming out of Melvin first week of January. Once they get back into the stone season in late March or so the stone train to Undercliff will start up again. This year train is supposed to be 60 cars up from the 8 to 15 it's been the past several year.

[midland sub]

Free pass is directed to the numerous fellow hobbyist that have placed NS on a pedestal due to the American Chopper paint schemes and the steam program. Several of us having been pointing out the numerous missteps of NS in the past 3 plus years and every time were shouted down as heretics. Wick cashed it in about 4 years ago and tried his best to make NS is 1:1 scale model train set. Squires and the rest of gang of idiots decided to allow consultants to make the decisions, i.e. the autorouter system and horrible, horrible decision with the Bellevue hub idea. Like CSX_CO stated neither the Heritage locos or the steam program are the cause of the quagmire NS put themselves in, but it's one of the blatant symptoms of the internal issues.

They've known for 30 plus years the coal market would eventually go away. Throw out the political gibberish of blaming someone, it started 40 years ago with lots and lots of oil and gas industry money helping the Clean Air Act cause. One of the tenets of Conrail split by both CSX and NS were the need to diversify the traffic base away from coal. Both did a spectacular job of forgetting about that....

[OSRR]

the autorouter system

That waste of money.

Trips to Bellevue went from 8-10 hours on average to 11+ and outlawing more than we should. The Sandusky district got turned into a parking lot. I've also seen it drop and change signals with us in the preceding block.

[brc0227]

Free pass is directed to the numerous fellow hobbyist that have placed NS on a pedestal due to the American Chopper paint schemes and the steam program. Several of us having been pointing out the numerous missteps of NS in the past 3 plus years and every time were shouted down as heretics. Wick cashed it in about 4 years ago and tried his best to make NS is 1:1 scale model train set. Squires and the rest of gang of idiots decided to allow consultants to make the decisions, i.e. the autorouter system and horrible, horrible decision with the Bellevue hub idea. Like CSX_CO stated neither the Heritage locos or the steam program are the cause of the quagmire NS put themselves in, but it's one of the blatant symptoms of the internal issues.

They've known for 30 plus years the coal market would eventually go away. Throw out the political gibberish of blaming someone, it started 40 years ago with lots and lots of oil and gas industry money helping the Clean Air Act cause. One of the tenets of Conrail split by both CSX and NS were the need to diversify the traffic base away from coal. Both did a spectacular job of forgetting about that....

I don't always agree with you on everything Midland. But I couldn't have said this better myself. Working for NS I've been privy to the diversifying traffic discussions. They make it sound like it's part of their plan. But then their actions speak louder than words when they've run so much of that diversified business off. Autorouter is a big issue that has slowed traffic down. Along with leader as well. The company invest in these programs and absolutely refuses to see the negative side of them. You talk to any of the dispatchers or engineers and they'll tell you how screwed up these programs truly are. And don't get me started on Bellevue. That's a whole other rant.

[heypal6878]

Belleview is a issue, yet not dishing NS from the dream they had about Belleview years ago when they decided to build the yard. Then the yard in concept was a great idea figuring they could handle the traffic. Yet as we know not that isn't the case. Wait times have exceed 11 hours just to get trains off the main track. NS has always strived to be about serving their customers. Service is very important yet when current management and past management service has not been the focus, where trains are sitting on tracks. Midland Sub has a very valid point. Then to top it all off they hired outside consultants to tell NS how to run the business more efficiently. Do these people even know about NS operations? This would have never happened twenty years ago as NS had a stronghold on their operations.

Instead of listening to their employees the ones that are working the lines running the trains the top management looks they other way and doesn't listen so thus now they have larger problems. I hear it all the time the engineers and yardmen as are telling their managers that there are issues yet it falls on deaf ears. Now NS is scrambling trying to fix the problems when it should have been done year ago. I'm just an outsider looking in but I do know friends that work for NS and this is what they have been saying for years.

[heypal6878]

Midland Sub do you think when the lease runs out on the CCET for the Peavine the I&O would have a better opportunity to develop that line as they have more capital than the CET? I mean it would make more sense to me as they are in better position to run the rail. What do you think?

[midland sub]

Depends on how the lease is set up with NS. Is it Interline where the the operator comes up with their own charge for their portion of the move or junction settlement/switching carrier agreement where NS sets the rates and gives the operator a flat fee? If it's the latter, which I'm fairly certain it is, it doesn't matter who is running the line as NS is going to do whatever they want with rates. In theory the G&W has better marketing resources than Frontier. Plus with the I&O you would open up more options for Winchester to sell grain. The I&O opens up grain to CGB on the Ohio River, wheat to the new mill on the Brookville line, corn to Valero and the Lima ethanol plants and soybeans to Bunge on the CFE. Of those I think the only real potential would be spot shipments to CBG or beans to the Bunge. As for generating more new sources of traffic I think the better question what is honestly out there to be developed? Realistically there's very few options of anything new starting up. Kibler Lumber outside of Mt Orab might generate a few inbound carloads from time to time potentially. Huhtamaki allegedly has kicked around getting some occasional inbound wax loads. There's a couple of customer spurs around Batavia, but I don't think there's any interest or more importantly the need to use rail at the moment. At best I think you're going to see something with Evans and that's about it for awhile. Everyone gets all excited about the Brown County potential super site, but again let's be honest about it's potential. The days of landing a huge super customer are virtually over in this part of the country. It's about as likely as winning the Powerball last week. Even then why are you foolish enough to put all your effort into one employer that can go under at any time? Five or six small customers are better than the one huge one.

G&W has no real interest in the line as it sits. The current traffic levels do nothing for them. Even the potential grain shipments out of Winchester are meaningless to them. NS would have to give up the Clare transload to peek their interest, but even then I doubt the current Ohio Valley Region management would want it. Let's not forget there's a looming issue ahead for the line. It's seen nothing but patch work repairs the past 13 years. Eventually someone is going to need to do some sort of catch up work on the line. G&W isn't interested in dealing with it. Frontier seems to be fine with the potential issues.

There's more going on with the line and it deals with the current bipolar nature of NS at the moment. Honestly I think there's going to be a lot of sad people very soon about the east end of the line. That's as much as I'm able to share at the moment.

[ohiopower]

There have been far worse situations (in my opinion), such as the old Pennsylvania west of Columbus OH, where a viable railroad was wiped off the map in short order. This line has been effectively rail banked by a corporation, for possible use, that didn't materialize, and they gave it 20 years. Whether or not the state will step in to keep the corridor intact, will play out after any official abandonment has been filed. There are going to be some more huge holes in the state of Ohio rail map if a good chunk of the Peavine and the WV secondary are gone.