Service Update from Kenny Rocker, EVP, Marketing & Sales
Announcement Number: CN2019-8
Categories: General Announcements
Posted Date: February 25, 2019
To Our Customers,
In the first four months of Unified Plan 2020 implementation, we saw improvements across all of our service metrics. Unfortunately, this month our network has experienced some setbacks. We want to be transparent about our service challenges and where we stand so you, our customers, are fully aware of network conditions.
The Situation
First and foremost, I want to make it clear that the setbacks we’ve experienced are not due to the implementation of Unified Plan 2020. Rather, our service challenges have stemmed from several inclement winter weather incidents, which began to impact operations in late January. The effects of the severe winter weather were also compounded by derailments in the Northern Region.
From February 7-9, nine incidents occurred across the network, with six occurring in the Northern Region. Specifically, recent inclement weather incidents include:
- Midwest snow on January 28, followed by the Polar Vortex January 29-February 1
- Midwest snow and ice February 5-6
- Midwest snow and ice February 12-13
- A washout along the Sunset Route 65 miles east of West Colton, California, on February 14
- Midwest snow and ice February 20
- A major winter storm with record snowfall through Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois February 23-24
These incidents have required us to hold trains until crews restore safe travel through these areas. The impact of doing so is a drop in velocity and a slowdown of our network overall.
The Metrics
The impacts of winter weather are reflected in the key metrics we review to determine the health of our network. Unfortunately, we have seen declines in some of these key performance measures. Despite these setbacks, our key metrics are still better than February of last year. Our car velocity is up 6 percent and terminal dwell is down 17 percent, while our on-time delivery improved by 3 points.
The Plan
We take a two-pronged approach to winter weather incidents. First, we are proactive in putting a winter preparedness plan in place in anticipation of severe winter weather events. However, the unpredictability and magnitude of these storms make challenges to our service unavoidable. For that reason, we enact our second approach, which is to deploy additional resources to affected areas to mitigate the impacts of heavy snow and extreme cold temperatures.
Specific examples of these actions include the following:
- Since February 7, we deployed 107 surge locomotives and added 300 crews from our furlough and Alternative Work Training Status (AWTS) program.
- We rerouted trains away from our congested gateways and terminals, like Chicago (Proviso), and bypassed intermediate terminals where possible to decrease car cycle time for our customers.
- We added resources to alleviate congestion in such locations as Chicago and Salt Lake City, where operations were impacted by the severe weather and related incidents.
We continue to focus on minimizing terminal dwell, reducing freight car operating inventory along with hold cars, and improving our local service (first mile/last mile performance).
Thank You
Thank you for your patience and cooperation. We will provide additional updates as we work to restore service and return to the positive progress we’ve seen in months past from Unified Plan 2020 implementation.
Kenny Rocker
Executive Vice President, Marketing & Sales