Freight railroads generally have operated the same way for more than a century: They wait for cargo and leave when customers are ready. Now railroads want to run more like commercial airlines, where departure times are set. Factories, farms, mines or mills need to be ready or miss their trips.
Called "precision-scheduled railroading," or PSR, this new concept is cascading through the industry. Under pressure from Wall Street to improve performance, Norfolk Southern and other large U.S. freight carriers, including Union Pacific Corp. and Kansas City Southern, are trying to revamp their networks to use fewer trains and hold them to tighter schedules. The moves have sparked a stock rally that has added tens of billions of dollars to railroad values in the past six months as investors anticipate lower costs and higher profits.
Calling all Railroad Tycoons...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 05 2019, @06:10PM (1 child)
The horns mostly blow on rural crossings without even automatic gates or lights - far too expensive to put in popup ramps at the thousands of uncontrolled crossings just to cut down on noise pollution.
As with all things US rail oriented: it might work in the NE Corridor, but not so much anywhere else.
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(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 05 2019, @10:03PM
Good points and perspective. Can you imagine a country whose government actually served the people and did what we want? (within reason of course)