Railroads: STB orders all Class Is to provide weekly service performance reports

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) yesterday announced it now will require all Class Is to publicly file weekly reports regarding service performance data to promote industry-wide transparency, accountability and improved service.

Beginning Oct. 22, each Class I must provide the following information on a weekly basis:
• system average train speed for eight train types;
• average terminal dwell time;
• total cars on line;
• average dwell time at origin for unit-train shipments;
• the total number of trains held short of destination or a scheduled interchange for longer than six hours per train type;
• the total number of loaded and empty cars in revenue service that weren't moved in more than 120 hours, or more than 48 hours but less than or equal to 120 hours;
• the total number of grain cars loaded and billed, reported by state;
• plan versus performance for grain shuttles; and
• average daily coal unit train loadings versus plan.

The order follows two recent public hearings conducted by the STB on rail service issues, during which many rail shippers expressed concerns about the lack of publicly available rail service metrics and requested access to certain performance data from railroads to better understand the scope, magnitude and impact of service problems.

EME Rail Solutions
This was the STB's way of keeping track of what the Class I"s are really doing concerning the movement of grain. Do the railroads have the empties that are needed to move the grain products and are they (the railroads) just aren't moving them to the customers or is there a bottleneck somewhere else that is affecting the entire system. The STB tried to disguise the primary purpose of this reporting by including all the other traffic types, but the insufficient service to move the record grain crops has spurred this decision. This type of reporting should benefit both the customers and the railroads because now they will have data to actually support the issues that are occurring and now they can take steps to implement plans to address these issues and improve the service to the customers, which ultimately should increase revenue. The transparency will force some railroads to deal with issues concerning their operations that has been swept under rug because "nobody was watching."