Is that what they have in mind? Or is Harrison convinced they can do most--enough--of the major classification and blocking at other hump yards upstream and downstream from this spot? If that can be done, then the maintenance of this now-'extra' hump becomes an unnecessary expense. Sounds like more of the usual corporate 'lay a third of them off and work the rest 50% harder' strategy. Though flat switching is enough more labor intensive that maybe this time it's a third of the machinery, and not the people so much, getting the axe.
^ This is what I am asking. Are they merely shifting work burden from A, to B, C, D, etc? Is there capacity to add in the cars no longer humped at A, to other places, without needing to bring in more people, upgrade, or add tracks? Will they be able to accomplish the work efficiently enough that trains can move this same quantity of cargo, at the same pace, from shipper to customer? Or will things bog down...?
I don't have any experience in railroading, but if you build and block your trains at the origin terminal to reduce the amount of restructuring during the middle of the run, you have a faster, more efficient delivery. This is what I sense Harrison's goal to be.....? If he can achieve this, then he can get by with replacing humps with flat yards that are doing less work, because more trains are going straight through without reblocking..
Well, it seems they think they can. That's all The Little Engine needed, according to the story. I find it hard to believe there would still be a lot of redundancies. No doubt there were when the hump yards were built by over a dozen major railroads sixty years ago. But we got reduced to five major railroads, what, twenty years ago? Have they been living with redundant humps for a couple if decades, afraid to close valuable assets? Or have ever-longer runs and ever-less online car spotting made further reductions possible? Guess we'll get our clue when we hear if Harrison got millions in the form of a fat bonus, or a severance package!
I want to avoid a political debate, but my own opinion on the radical operational changes is that they are borne of cost reductions made necessary by the loss of coal revenue as made law by U.S. Federal government emissions regulations. Railroading is a high fixed cost business; costs remain regardless of tonnage moved. Utility coal revenue served to predictably underwrite a portion of cost in good times and bad, but with so much of it gone, the railroads have to react. Per our discussions here, I'm dubious that closing humping operations to going to significantly contribute in the long term, but executives are clearly in the hot seat to make big changes within their enterprises. As an aside, think of the conclusions that will surface as hump yard closure data analysis is worked by computer tools. Within the next few years, details in traffic data might well support further line consolidations, line sales, abandonments, locomotive rationalization and trackage rights agreements. I think the Federal regulations regarding coal emissions will continue to result in heavy changes to railroading far beyond what anyone in Congress cared to think about, assuming that they thought about it at all. Just my $0.02; peace.
I believe it will only get worse for the rail industry, until our elected officials, both legislative and executive, regardless of political parties, realize and accept that railroads are a public service just like highways. They all love their cars and fund highways to extremes, but expect railroads to be privately funded. Sooner or later these folks are going to put railroads out of business. Then they will curse the ridiculous number of trucks on the highways, and wonder why their beloved highways and bridges are crumbling under the increased traffic. Soapbox Off, Mouth Disengaged....
I visited Rice Yard in Waycross in '83 as part of my work and took this Kodachrome from the hump tower. Looking at the two tracks, I think Rice is/was a twin hump yard. It's an enormous place. Thankfully, its humping operations have remained untouched by CSX, but who knows what the future might find.
The hump yard at Cumberland, MD has now been closed. They are also laying off 50 employees at the locomotive shop there. The only regular freights (Q316/37; Russell, KY - Cumberland, MD) over the famed Mountain Subdivision between Grafton, WV & Cumberland have been rerouted west of Grafton up the Mon Line and terminate at Connellsville, PA. It is expected the end goal is to close the Mountain Sub if coal shipments decrease long-term and send everything eastbound up the Mon over NS to Connellsville. The one jam to Hunter's plans are the extra sand trains (W263) and the extra sections of Q316/317 some days (S314/S315) that can sometimes cause 3 or 4 freights a day over the Mountain Sub, originally. The Fairmont Sub/NS Mon Line/CSX Mon Line has a restriction of 7,300 feet from what I've been told and nearly devoid of passing sidings. Pumping 3-4 freights on top of 2-3 coal trains a day on a single track line with few places to pass causes some headaches.
