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Grain piling up as trains fail to deliver

By JOHN SEEWER The Associated Press 11/04/99 11:01 PM Eastern

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- Crops harvested this fall in the Midwest are piling up outside overstuffed grain elevators because of railroad delays and a shortage of trains in northern Ohio.

Grain elevator operators in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan have been complaining in recent weeks about late arriving trains and loaded rail cars that sit for 10 days without moving, said John Batson, a transportation specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"It's very serious," he said Thursday.

The delays primarily are a result of the split of Conrail, elevator operators say.

CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern began taking over Conrail's lines this summer. Computer and staffing problems along with having too many trains and not enough tracks have bogged down the railroads.

"We're doing everything we can to improve that," said Rudy Husband, a Norfolk Southern spokesman. But he added that "we've been telling our shippers they shouldn't expect any dramatic improvements through the rest of the year."

It's the busiest time of year for the railroads, with new cars going to dealerships and holiday merchandise heading to retail stores.

Automakers and other large shippers turned to the trucking industry a few months ago when rail traffic clogged deliveries.

Some grain elevators have started using trucks, but it's more expensive and not as efficient.

The rail backups are centered in the Toledo area where some trains have been stuck in rail yards for several days. CSX has a team in Toledo this week working on the problem, said spokesman Gary Wollenhaupt.

"It's a problem all up and down the eastern edge of the Corn Belt," Brian Peach, a director with the Ohio Agribusiness Association, said Thursday.

The elevators at the Edon Farmers Co-op are so full that more than 350,000 bushels of corn are being stored outside. Eventually, rain and snow will take its toll on the crops.

"I've got $600,000 sitting on the ground with the quality deteriorating," said Randy Broady, general manager of five grain elevators in Ohio's Williams County. "It costs me $5,000 a month to have it sit out there before I can get it shipped."

Another factor in the delays are the huge amounts of corn, soybeans and wheat coming into elevators at one time.

"Grain comes in so fast now that there's not enough cars to handle it all," Broady said, adding that some storage centers have lost confidence in the railroads.

"Our infrastructure isn't designed to handle all of the nation's crops in two months," he said.

Farmers in the South, meanwhile, are waiting for grain shipments that they use as feed.

"A lot of the corn goes to big poultry and hog operations," Peach said. "A lot goes to the Carolinas and Georgia."

James Byrum, president of the Michigan Agri-Business Association, estimated farmers were short about 500 rail cars needed to haul grains to the southern states.

U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., on Wednesday announced that an emergency task force was being formed to address a "transportation crisis" facing Michigan agriculture.

) The Associated Press, 1999

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), November 05, 1999

Answers

Something about JIT? Being an achilles' heel?

Naw. One system failing can't possibly affect and entire industry.

That's something a doomer would proffer.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), November 05, 1999.

Thank you, Homer, for posting the reality grits.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), November 05, 1999.

...And I thought that the 30' high by 100 yard long unprotected piles of corn at a nearby elevator(central Illinois) was due to a "bumper" crop! I'm waiting to see what happens to that grain when our late fall rains come.

-- TM (mercier7@pdnt.com), November 05, 1999.

It's beginning to melt and no one can see it.

-- mar (derigueur2@aol.com), November 05, 1999.

Powerplants and coal? THEY don' need no STEEEENKEN' coal!

56 days remain.

Got power?

-- Dennis (djolson@cherco.com), November 05, 1999.

Ooops.

Just a minor problem folks, just a three-day interruption in a few minor services......

(I know, I know) THIS ISN'T y2k-related. IT DOESN'T MATTER - it is an excellent example in how simple problems in one company (railcar assignments caused by a merger 4 months ago!) affect an entire industry (railroads) because one area (Toledo) get screwed up that affect a national distribution system (railroads) affecting many the output (corn, cars, coal....) from many other industries that have nothing to do with the orignal problem.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 05, 1999.

Precisely, Dennis. As I recall, the story a couple months back was that coal shipments were being tied up along the east coast. I envisioned these being the coal shipments which the coal utility plants were relying on to stockpile for Y2K.

Also thought I remembered that coal and grain were single-commodity loads and therefore the easiest to transport by rail if there were computer problems, because they would not require rearranging the cars at the distribution yards.

Time for more flour?

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.

"..And I thought that the 30' high by 100 yard long unprotected piles of corn at a nearby elevator(central Illinois) was due to a "bumper" crop! I'm waiting to see what happens to that grain when our late fall rains come.

-- TM (mercier7@pdnt.com), November 05, 1999. "

If my experiences in Iowa are any guide, the rotten grain will be written off and paid for by government subsidies and insurance- in short, by the taxpayer.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), November 05, 1999.

Robert - I see this very much as being Y2K-related if it prevents companies and agencies from implementing their Y2K contingency plans.

Once again, how many will not be ready after all because the [hardware, software update, whatever] did not arrive in time.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.

I'm three houses down from a CCX line, and have lived there for the past four years. I can tell you from personal experience that the number of trains running this year is way down. Last year one train following another was not unusual - this year there have been none. Most nights it is very quiet, which is great for me, but not good news for shipping.

The CCX line I'm speaking of runs north from Columbus thru my town and up into Michigan...

-- Deb M. (vmcclelld@columbus.rr.com), November 05, 1999.

What's all the fuss? Don't you people have any faith in our engineers and good old american ingenuity?

Tell those farmers not to panic. We of course will have developed some type of work around in.....oh I don't know....three days at most I guess

-- thomas thatcher (jabawaki@erols.com), November 05, 1999.

Remember the part in "Atlas Shrugged" where the wheat couldn't get moved by trains, rotted, and famine followed? Ayn Rand's book looks increasingly prescient...

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.

Simple math, we'll just come up with a manual work-around.

Lessee.... how many shovels and pickup trucks would it take to move three million bushels to GA if George can shovel 3 scoops a minute with a one peck shovel and Harry can shovel 4 scoops a minute with a 3/4 peck shovel, but needs a 15 minute rest break every 90 minutes......and it takes the pickup 8 hours to make a one-way trip and ten minutes to unload .....

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 05, 1999.

"problems include computers that think loaded cars are empty"

http://www.post-gazette.com/businessnews/19991105conrail1.asp

Norfolk Southern and CSX struggling to make Conrail breakup pay off

Friday, November 05, 1999

By Len Boselovic and Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writers

Norfolk Southern Chairman David R. Goode hailed the June 1 breakup of Conrail as "the beginning of a new age in transportation."

Some of Goode's customers are thinking more in terms of a new rage.

Despite promises that the problems created by dividing Conrail between Norfolk Southern and CSX would dissipate by the peak fall freight season, customers of both railroads say delays in some cases are just as bad as they were this summer.

Problems include computers that think loaded cars are empty, lost cars and snarled trains at major yards like Norfolk Southern's Conway Yard in Beaver County. Amtrak passengers have been delayed by the congestion. In Ohio, lawmakers are considering stiffer sanctions for blocking railroad crossings, saying the breakup of Conrail has exacerbated a public safety problem.

"Service levels continue to be unacceptable. We really have seen very little improvement, if any," says Donna Magill, director of logistics for PPG Industries. "The big frustration is that they can't tell us when this is going to improve."

Transport Workers Union Local 2035 secretary-treasurer Tom Holsinger compares it to "a Triple-A team playing in the majors."

"They're having problems with the computers, paperwork [and] finding out where the cars should go," says Holsinger, whose local represents about 135 former Conrail employees who now work at the Conway Yard.

Personnel decisions are another factor.

"The Conrail success was directly attributed to its great employees, and I think this merger has yet to fully utilize the employees as an asset," says Don Tredent, vice chairman of the Brotherhood of the Maintenance of Way Employees, another railworkers union. "I really don't want to slug these people too hard, because, quite frankly, they've been fair -- different but fair."

Norfolk Southern spokesman Rudy Husband insists "major integration problems that we suffered from early on ... have really been corrected." But, he says, the railroad has been telling customers for some time not to expect much improvement during the fall freight crunch, when congestion and equipment shortages are common.

"They generally understand that," says Husband. "They don't like it, of course, but they understand why it's happening."

Hurricane Floyd, which damaged major sections of track, didn't make matters any easier, says CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan.

"We're well aware that our service in many cases is not up to levels that customers require," he says. It may be mid-December "before you see real significant relief," Sullivan adds.

The impact of the chaos is apparent in Norfolk Southern's financial statements. The Norfolk, Va.-based railroad spent $116 million in the third quarter trying to untangle its rail lines, including $49 million in incentives for unionized employees. In addition to paying more overtime, Norfolk Southern and CSX are rehiring Conrail crews, leasing additional locomotives and asking short-line railroads, whose limited track networks connect to Norfolk Southern's and CSX's main lines, to help them sort trains and handle some traffic.

"Both of [the railroads] have been very creative at using short lines to get traffic off the system," says Jim Johnson, traffic manager for Empire Wholesale Lumber in Akron.

Norfolk Southern and CSX are filing weekly reports with the U.S. Department of Transportation that detail on-time performance and other measures. While the reports are supposed to shed some light on progress, Johnson finds them of little use.

"I've got cars stuck in places where they shouldn't be stuck according to those reports," he says.

In Northwestern Ohio, blocked rail crossings were a major safety concern before the $10.3 billion breakup of Conrail. Now in some towns such as Fostoria, southwest of Toledo, rail traffic has more than tripled, causing even more blocked crossings. State Rep. Rex Damschroder says the roadblocks have forced firefighters to crawl under a train to get to a fire. Kids have done the same thing to get to school on time, he says.

Damschroder is formulating a bill that would prohibit trains from blocking critical crossings. Another proposal would increase fines railroads are charged for blocking crossings for more than five minutes.

Husband says Norfolk Southern has stopped trains outside terminals because of congestion inside the yards, blocking crossings "in some cases for hours at a time." But the situation has improved significantly over the last few months, he says.

The logjam is the East Coast version of what happened in the West in 1996, when the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific, two large western railroads, merged. Norfolk Southern and CSX control virtually all rail traffic east of the Mississippi River. CSX has a 22,700-mile network in 23 states, the District of Columbia and parts of Canada. Norfolk Southern has about 21,600 miles of track in 22 states, the District of Columbia and Ontario.

"It hasn't been anything close to what we had with the UP," says Johnson. "People quickly forget how bad it was with the UP."

PPG's Magill isn't so sure. Just when she thinks things are starting to get better, "we go right back into fighting the next crisis."

"The longer it's gone on, it's hard for us to say which is worse. This continues to be a major problem for us," Magill says.

Most customers give CSX and Norfolk Southern credit for trying hard.

"We've had some problems, but I think we can get them worked out," says J&L Specialty Steel spokesman James Leonard.

Ed Vigneaux, traffic manager for Reagent Chemicals in Houston, Texas, says that unlike Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern and CSX have been "willing to take lumps on the financial side to make this thing work." Still, service "has not improved any since June 1," Vigneaux says. "Some areas have gotten better and others have gotten worse."

Not everybody is complaining. Short lines are seeing more business since June 1.

"They've generated a lot of traffic," says Dale Berkley, president and co-owner of ISS Rail in New Castle. "What we've found on both inbound and outbound traffic ... is that Norfolk Southern is competing with CSX as far as rates are concerned, which Conrail was unwilling or unable to do."

Norfolk Southern's Husband says initially, "there was a lot of new business that wanted to come to the railroads." However, delays have made many of them change their minds.

"Right now, there is traffic looking for other modes because neither railroad can handle it," Husband says.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), November 05, 1999.

http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story81312.html

Link

Thursday, October 28, 1999 Norfolk Southern's report reflects the first full quarter it has operated Conrail lines Conrail slows NS' earnings

The company's railway operating expenses were up 71 percent from the third quarter last year.

By LOIS CALIRI THE ROANOKE TIMES

Norfolk Southern's third-quarter profits plunged 87 percent as it incurred costs related to congestion, train delays, lost cars and late shipments -- problems that began when it took over parts of Conrail on June 1. (snip)

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), November 05, 1999.

We've got SNAFUs and Y2K isn't even here yet!

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), November 05, 1999.

AAAWWWWWW...come on you guys!!! The fact that these "glitches" are occuring NOW means that they won't happen later. I thought you all knew that by now!!!

This is yet another example of a smashing success!!!!!!!

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAhahahahaha

-- Don Wegner (donfmwyo@earthlink.net), November 05, 1999.

bold off.

-- Dan G (thepcguru@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.