STB and FRA echo rail worker concerns about U.S. rail service

On August 24th, the heads of the Surface Transportation Board (STB) and the Federal Railway Administration (FRA) sent identical letters to the heads of the leading U.S. railroads, including the Union Pacific (UP) and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) expressing concerns about the quality of the U.S. railroad infrastructure and disruptions in rail service.

The letter, signed by FRA Ron Batory and STB Board Chair Ann Begeman read in part “Recently, however, we have been made aware of service issues, including missed industrial switches and excessively late or annulled trains due to crew availability issues. As you know, with both increasing intermodal and carload volumes and a projected robust harvest fast approaching, railroad employee availability, together with sufficient equipment resourcing, is essential for safe, fluid rail service in support of the nation’s economic recovery. Given the challenges related to changing demand patterns and operating conditions, increased communication and transparency with rail shippers is especially important to ensure they have the information needed to plan their businesses and meet their own customers’ needs.”

The letter’s concerns about “sufficient equipment resourcing” and the need for “safe, fluid rail service in support of the nation’s economic recovery” echo complaints by a railway union leader, who represents railroad workers doing maintenance on U.S. railroads, including the UP and the BNSF. 

Concerns about the quality of rail service come at a time when U.S. West Coast ports are losing market share to East and Gulf Coast ports.  Shippers exporting and importing through the West Coast ports depend on fast, reliable and cost competitive service from the ports’ two railroad partners:  Union Pacific (UP) and BNSF.  The two railroads deliver freight to and from Chicago and other Midwest destinations.

Jed Dodd, National Vice President for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division -International Brotherhood of Teamsters (BMWED) told AJOT that de-regulation of the railroads, downsizing and the added impact of Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) have undermined the infrastructure of the Class I railroads at a time when railroads are also not doing enough about testing and protection of employees from the Covid virus. “The railroads are doing very little to safeguard the health of their employees. We have had two deaths at the Union Pacific and this is related to a lack of tracing which the railroads say they are doing.”

Four other worker deaths occurred on passenger railroads, he said.

“Even worse,” Dodd said, “these workers can be spreading the virus from state to state as their work area might take them from Chicago to Northern California. They might infect people at motels, gas stations and restaurants ... All of this because the railroads don’t want to invest in testing and tracing of their employees.”

BNSF & UP Respond

In response, Ben Wilemon, Burlington Northern Santa Fe external corporate communications manager, told AJOT “From the outset of the pandemic, we’ve had two main objectives: Protect the health of our employees and keep trains running. As the situation and environment around us has evolved, we have continued to evolve with it. We've grounded all of our decisions in CDC guidance and made adjustments to our policies and protocols to protect the health of our employees and the integrity of our operations…”

Kristen South, senior director corporate communications, Union Pacific said in response “Union Pacific has a robust COVID-19 response plan that focuses on employee safety and maintaining safe operations. We've increased cleanings and access to hand sanitizer, antimicrobial wipes and facial coverings; locomotives are sprayed with disinfecting solution during mechanical service stops; and we're encouraging social distancing by implementing alternative work locations. Union Pacific also has a safety hotline that allows employees to raise specific COVID-related concerns. These policies and procedures are consistent with CDC and OSHA guidelines; however, due to the fluid nature of the pandemic and frequent issuance of new guidance, our Pandemic Response team is constantly reviewing and revising these policies.”

Union Cites Cutbacks Related to PSR

Dodd said that de-regulation of the railroads and the added impact of Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) have undermined the infrastructure of the Class I railroads:

“There is no doubt that the investments made by the Class I railroads including the BNSF and the UP have contributed to improved efficiencies and productivity on the U.S. railroads. However, since de-regulation was enacted under the Staggers Act and following Presidential Emergency Board findings in the early 1990s, we have seen maintenance workers go from track jurisdiction of 150 miles from their homes to workers living in Chicago travelling to Northern California to do track maintenance work. This places a tremendous burden on the employee, reduces per employee costs but does not improve track maintenance. It makes it worse.

Dodd explained “Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) was developed by a man named Hunter Harrison who brought these practices to the Canadian National Railway, which suffered service declines under his administration and the CN only recovered after he left. 

Today, the Union Pacific is a major practitioner of PSR with the result that costs have gone down but so has manning and maintenance. Over at BNSF, Warren Buffett’s management is not emphatic in the use of PSR but they still practice a form of what we call PSR Lite.”

Dodd says that in the cases of both railroads the practice of PSR “is to target so-called wasteful spending in areas such as maintenance and repair and cutback in the employment of workers...”

BNSF’s Wilemon told AJOT: “I wanted to clear up that BNSF does not operate under the Precision Scheduled Railroading strategy.”

He went on to say “We’ve had strong service levels for our customers through the course of the pandemic.  BNSF operating teams increased velocity and reduced dwell year-over-year through the first half of the year and are well positioned to continue these positive results for the remainders of the year.  We have always believed that investment in our infrastructure is key to keeping our network healthy. Every year the largest component of our capital investment program is devoted to maintaining our railroad. 

In fact, since 2011 the industry rail equipment incident rate has decreased by 8%, while BNSF’s rail equipment incident rate has reduced 29%.”

Union Pacific’s Kristen South says Union Pacific has also improved its safety record “For the first half of 2020, Union Pacific's employee safety results improved 5% versus 2019. Although our quarterly Rail Equipment Reportable Rate is up nearly 6% compared to last year, the year-to-date rate is improved versus this same time last summer. Some of these incidents are attributable to human factors. We are targeting additional training and resources in the affected areas of our network to provide employees the necessary tools to complete their tasks. We also continue to monitor and revise train make-up and handling rules, as appropriate. Additionally, Union Pacific annually invests millions into its capital program. Last year, we spent $3.2 billion dollars, and of that, 60% went to infrastructure replacement.”

South added: “… keep in mind that the National Railway Labor Conference and its members, which include Union Pacific, are in the midst of a new bargaining round with 13 labor unions, including BMWED…”

Union Workers Disagree

A Union Pacific worker, who asked not to be identified, said that PSR is having a negative impact on service and safety: “For us at the UP, the use of precision usually meant cutbacks. The use of precision concluded that locomotives cost money to operate and so you mothball as many as possible. You also cut back on the number of locomotives that you used to pull a train to the bare minimum, sacrificing speed and safety for cost savings. You slowed down the trains to reduce fuel.”

A BNSF railroad worker, who asked not to be identified, told AJOT that BNSF’s cutbacks have undermined locomotive operations and delivery times to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma:

 “Container delivery times between Chicago and the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma have gotten progressively worse because BNSF is cutting back on its investments in a quality railroad operation and causing poor service for container shippers to increase profit margins.”

Soy Grain Alliance On PSR

An August 2019 Soy Grain Alliance report written by Bruce Abbe stated that PSR was getting mixed reviews from shippers:

“Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). Some feel it will be a boon for the railroads by improving efficiencies and lowering costs. Yet, it’s been a boondoggle for many rail shippers so far over the last three years that it’s been implemented in one form or another by more class one railroads.”

Derailments

 Dodd said, “PSR has had a negative impact on safety. “ 

“Today, up to 25% of the work that many members are doing is repairing derailments.” Adding, “One of the areas that you can see this is deterioration is in the cutbacks in maintenance gangs. Under PSR some gangs have gone from 110 people per gang down to 80. Those job cutbacks show up as higher profits for the BNSF and UP stockholders but they hide the higher costs of maintenance, increased delays and higher rates of accidents.”

On July 29th, a Union Pacific freight train derailed while crossing a bridge at Tempe, Arizona, resulting in a partial collapse of the bridge and railcars falling off the bridge. According to Arizona-based CBS-5 television, UP said this was the second derailment by a UP train at the Tempe bridge within a month.

“Tim McMahan, a spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad, said as many as 10 train cars derailed at about 6:15 a.m. The south side of the bridge then collapsed and caught fire. A spokesman said the train crew was not hurt but one person at the park was treated for smoke inhalation...

Wednesday's incident was the second time a Union Pacific train had derailed on the that bridge in a little less than a month.

According to McMahan, 12 cars derailed on the afternoon of Friday, June 26. He said that derailment sparked a small fire and damaged rail and bridge ties. The line was back open and running less than 48 hours later (sic) after repairs made by Union Pacific. He did not provide any information about what might have caused that wreck ... “