We were thrilled to be mentioned in Railroad Weekly’s most recent newsletter, “Shrilling and Grilling”! The newsletter, which provides “an in-depth look at the North American railroad industry,” nicely summarizes our April 26th webinar, “On Track: Hot Topics in Rail.” FTR’s VP of Intermodal, Todd Tranausky, joined RailState Co-Founder and CCO, John Schmitter, in a discussion on rail’s most pressing topics. Here are some highlights from Railroad Weekly’s write-up:

  • “The simple fact is that railroads are only equipped to handle a certain amount of traffic, and every time volume exceeds that threshold, service starts to suffer. ‘Even a small increase in volume causes the system to come crashing down.’ Indeed, as Tranausky said, the issue probably won’t get resolved until volumes come down, regardless of any hearings the STB might be holding.”

  • “Schmitter called attention to Union Pacific’s recent declaration to customers that it needed them to cut back on railcar inventory to ease congestion. This, he says, seems contrary to the industry’s common carrier obligation, which legally requires them to ‘provide transportation or service on reasonable request.’”

  • “The two experts talked about reciprocal switching…Should Union Pacific, say, be forced by law to move a company’s rail cars from its factory to a nearby point where BSNF has tracks? It would mean the shipper could now get price quotes from either UP or BNSF. But Schmitter and Tranausky are skeptical that this would do much. It’s not a ‘silver bullet.’”

Read the full newsletter here, and be sure to subscribe!

Click here to read more about our webinar, and here to watch the full recording. 

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