Anybody know why Norfolk Southern’s numbers are always so much worse than the other railroads?
10 replies (most recent on top)
Seriously, I wouldn't focus on what the competitors numbers are, and assume they're doing better. There "better" numbers came at the cost of jobs and shop closures. The competition isn't doing nearly as well as you think they are. The UP is running on the ragged edge right now. The have a manpower shortage, and can't seem to get anyone to come back to work.
This post of the year, so eloquently stated:
TOXIC corporate culture, right down to the terminal Trainmasters. It’s all about how you treat people, when you play 2 Unions off each other, highlight the fact that many workers make more than boot on the ground managers which encourages hate, blast lower managers in conference calls daily.
That’s issue #1
Number 2- the company has ZERO growth! They do not actively court new business, preferring to lean on bigger, established customers as a so-called “guaranteed” income source. Small businesses are discouraged from working with NS by excessive fees. NS has no qualms about kicking small frys to the sidelines, they only want the whales. Every metric and investor informative they release speaks only about cost cutting and mentions little to nothing about gaining customers or even what service they are giving to existing customers. This is a major factor in NS lagging behind other railroads perpetually.
If NS really wants to succeed they need to reinvent their entire corporate culture as well as how they handle customers. It won’t happen- there are too many cutthroats at the top who are vested in their personal gain and welfare to shake up those trees and take personal accountability......but it’s a nice wish!
TOXIC corporate culture, right down to the terminal Trainmasters. It’s all about how you treat people, when you play 2 Unions off each other, highlight the fact that many workers make more than boot on the ground managers which encourages hate, blast lower managers in conference calls daily.
That’s issue #1
Number 2- the company has ZERO growth! They do not actively court new business, preferring to lean on bigger, established customers as a so-called “guaranteed” income source. Small businesses are discouraged from working with NS by excessive fees. NS has no qualms about kicking small frys to the sidelines, they only want the whales. Every metric and investor informative they release speaks only about cost cutting and mentions little to nothing about gaining customers or even what service they are giving to existing customers. This is a major factor in NS lagging behind other railroads perpetually.
If NS really wants to succeed they need to reinvent their entire corporate culture as well as how they handle customers. It won’t happen- there are too many cutthroats at the top who are vested in their personal gain and welfare to shake up those trees and take personal accountability......but it’s a nice wish!
Norfolk southern simply DOES NOT HAVE THE VOLUME of its counterparts. On a district where we run just a few 10,000+ foot trains a day, the adjacent line owned by csx is running 50 of them a day.
It really never was a race to begin with yet we are trying to play catch up with the numbers game and it just isn’t possible to do without closing and consolidating everything on the network to the point of doing irreparable damage.
Maybe we should have tried to keep some of our smaller customers. A railroad isn’t allowed to just tell a company they’re not worth the trouble of servicing them anymore. So the shipping rates are raised sky high in order to force them to find another way.
because the people in charge couldn't run water down a hill without screwing it up
Outdated union fogeys? Not into modernization? What kind of selfish dumb–s thinking is that?
Most of any tooling that is on the railroad has been created by the working employee to efficiently move the railroad along for decade after decade! I will admit that the union has made some seriously harmful moves as time has past and at this point has left it's members floundering during this culture of, " they can do that "! Yet for some punk to declare that the workers are at fault for any of the c-ap that has gone down is ludicrous. I can only assume that you would be one of the recent batch of employees who got hired in believing they would start on top! We got to see this before they furloughed everyone of them. The local union is made up of the members that are present but over half of them would not stand together for nothing but worried about I! As well, most were too busy s—ing and trying to glorify what they could do if given a little head turn from the bosses to shortcut the work for numbers sake. Watched it all! They showed you though by not giving a darn about how much or how well the work, safety, etc., got done. SHAREHOLDERS and Hunter made sure of that!
Norfolk southern has always had a history of going to the extreme. Fra 14 foot from center line for clearance point.... Ns we'll do one better 225 feet! This type of always trying to one up and be pioneers, isnt cost effective the shoot them selves in the foot. Tripping over dollars to.pick up pennies. Also the excessive middle to upper management is well... Excessive.
Probably about 50-100 VP’s
Greater percentage of employees are entitled ancient union fogeys who haven't adapted to modernization that other railroads have.
I Do not Know; Maybe because we have 99 Bosses for 10 workers? Just a thought!!!!!