Martin’s Depart’n

Railroad Weekly November 20, 2023

Photography by Frederick Manfred Simon © www.steelwheels.photography

Inside This Issue  

·   Martin’s Depart’n: STB Chief Oberman Calls It Quits

·   On the Road Again: With Strike Finished, Auto Growth Back on Track

·   Both Gain and Pain for Grain: Fall Harvest Better for Some RRs than Others

·   Grand Slam for Uncle Sam? There’s a Lot Going Right for the U.S. Economy

·   Indecent Exposure: RRs Tied to Weaker Parts of Econ (But Still See Volumes Growing)  

·   Hunt Stunt: J.B. Hunt Has New Plan for Mexico Box Freight   

·   What the Tech? CSX Says Stay Tuned for Technology Upgrades

·   Livin’ La Vida Locomotive: Buy New or Modernize Old?  

Track Talk

“People want to ship via rail. It’s less costly. It’s safer. It offers more capacity. It’s more sustainable… The reason rail has ceded share to truck over the last 25 years is because of service, one reason and one reason only.”

-Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw, addressing a Stephens investor event in Nashville       

 The Latest

·   The end of an era is near. Marty Oberman, chair of the Surface Transportation Board, will step aside in early 2024, shortly after his first term ends next month. He announced his decision at the RailTrends 2023 conference in New York on Thursday. Upon becoming the new STB chair in 2021 (he joined as a member in 2019), Oberman was unaware of the drama to come—the Covid pandemic, the CPKC merger, a severe labor shortage, a national labor dispute, rail shippers in an uproar, the East Palestine derailment, and so on. Not all of that was under the STB’s purview (it doesn’t oversee safety or labor relations, for example). But all of it colored Oberman’s five-year tenure, a hyperactive one by STB standards. Most recently, he presided over a board proposal to mandate reciprocal switching in situations where railroads don’t meet certain service levels. It’s in fact a plan that rather pleases most railroads, who feared something more onerous. Most were generally pleased too, about the Oberman Board’s handling of the CPKC merger. But make no mistake, pleasing railroads is the last thing Oberman will be remembered for. More memorable will be his readiness to publicly chastise railroads he thought were sacrificing service or jobs for an extra few points of profit margin. True to form, according to Progressive Railroading, Oberman featured another verbal attack on Union Pacific during his RailTrends speech, questioning the wisdom of Jim Vena’s latest layoffs.

·   At three separate investor events last week (see below), UP, NS, CSX, CN, and CPKC spoke of improving volume trends, with October a notably strong month. That said, the gains this fall have been modest, with intermodal, housing, and chemical markets still sluggish. Some report areas of weakness in coal markets too. Yet all