SPRING 2013
Shortline Message • with Dick Ebel
Much to accomplish in little time
Future Tracks
The Transportation Technology Center , Inc ., in Pueblo , Colo ., makes it a priority to research and test railroad equipment . Whether Class Is or shortlines , railroads ultimately benefit from the trial-and-error processes that are part of the daily lives of some 270 employees who work at the 52-squaremile site . Please see our story beginning on Page 4 .
Welcome to our quarterly newsletter . Time has been marching on and it is shocking to me that we will soon be entering the “ dog days of summer .” I have to share a comment a friend made to me at my daughter ’ s wedding recently . “ Dick ,” he said , “ just think , in less than 45 days the days are going to begin getting shorter !” What a humbling statement . While true , I know that we are all thinking about the track work we have to accomplish during the short summer season .
We continue to experience very strong demand in several segments of our business ; that is no surprise to many of you who are engaged in shale play operations . We are also seeing a nice upward trend in orders for lumber and housing-related commodities . That will certainly help a number of our shortline connections , which had been working through vol-
In this issue
ume declines driven by the plunging housing markets .
Ag commodities have been adversely impacted by reduced crop yields resulting from last year ’ s drought conditions . We are all hopeful that we will see a much better year . In the short term , the impact of the drought has sent ag commodity movements in directions that are not the norm . Much of the flow has turned to support domestic consumption markets , creating shorter hauls and engaging shortline connections in high volumes of grain activity compared to previous years .
Our BNSF equipment team is sensing a tightening of car supply on fleets that support sand and lumber moves . It is in all of our best interests to ensure that we are managing dwell and moving these cars as expeditiously as possible so that collectively , we do not miss loading opportunities .
I am excited to report BNSF presented the next version of its Webbased tools to explore velocity-related measurements online . We demonstrat-
See Message Page 2
BNSF Customer Service stays one step ahead 3
TTCI has eye on future 4-5
Illinois Railway manages increased sand growth 6-7
Shortline Shorts 8 bnsf . com