ATLANTA — Norfolk Southern service will improve this spring as crew shortages ease and the railroad rolls out a new operating plan, executives said on Wednesday.
“Our service quality was significantly below where we needed it to be” in the fourth quarter due to ongoing crew shortages on several portions of the NS system, Chief Operating Officer Cindy Sanborn says.
The railroad’s service woes — including a rising number of shipper complaints about missed switches and longer transit times — prompted Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin J. Oberman to seek an explanation from CEO Jim Squires in November.
The number of transportation employees fell 8% during the last three months of 2021, as attrition increased faster than NS could hire and train conductors in an extremely tight job market. NS became congested as train speed fell 17% in the fourth quarter compared to a year ago, while terminal dwell increased 24%. The number of trains held for crews also spiked.
Because of the network slowdown, NS boosted its active locomotive fleet by 5%, pulling all available units out of its surge fleet. The railroad also aimed to reduce the impact of crew shortages by moving tonnage on fewer but longer trains.
Train speed and dwell have improved so far this month, Sanborn says, but progress has been sporadic due to the more than doubling of COVID-19 infections and quarantines among train crews compared to December.
”Let me be clear. Our top priority is to drive the service improvements our customers expect and need — and we will get there,” Sanborn says.
NS has picked up the pace of conductor hiring, is offering retention and signing bonuses, and has boosted trainee pay. This month NS had three times as many conductors in training compared to any month of 2021. The railroad expects service to improve beginning this spring as conductors enter active service, Sanborn says.
NS executives also unveiled a new operating plan, TOP SPG. When NS adopted Precision Scheduled Railroading in 2019, it redesigned its merchandise operating plan, including terminals, local service, and road trains. But the pandemic hit before the intermodal network could receive a makeover under the TOP21 plan. So NS is developing the latest Thoroughbred Operating Plan from scratch to cover all types of trains and reflect traffic mix changes since the onset of the pandemic.
The “SPG” stands for Service, Productivity, and Growth — “three equally important facets of our new operating plan,” Sanborn says. “We are embarking on this next era because we have significant improvements that need to be made in each of these areas – service, productivity, and growth – to reach our full potential.”
NS President Alan Shaw, who will become CEO in May, says TOP SPG will rely on longer trains and a balanced train plan that will improve efficiency and service while providing room for growth.
NS will continue the DC-to-AC locomotive conversion and modernization program. The NS road fleet is now nearly 60% AC traction, Sanborn says, while two-thirds of the fleet is capable of being used as distributed power units that are among the keys to increasing train length.
The railroad completed one siding extension in the fourth quarter and has eight other long siding projects in the works to support the use of longer trains, particularly on the single-track network in the Southeast.
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