PSR works, for the railroads. The rest still can't get no respect.

It has been about a month since I began my rant about the railroads' disregard for other interested parties in their quest to implement the uber-trendy Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). It is as if E. Hunter Harrison is haunting railroad execs by giving them all the OCDs. (My apologies to BNSF Railway, which hasn't jumped on this bandwagon. It is not my intention that any of this blog post refers to BNSF.)

The haunting metaphor isn't exactly right, either. It's the investment groups that own railroad stock that are OCD. They've always been a bit both OCD and ADHD about their big investments, requiring that their investments not only pay off as quickly as possible but also accomplish the payoff in the way the groups dictate. Because PSR has become trendy, that's what they all want.

Well, my railroad-oriented friends, it's working! Since my blog last month, the railroads have closed the requisite number of facilities, layoffs are up, those key employees not laid off have been duly inconvenienced or demoralized, shippers and receivers have been appropriately confused and irritated, and the key metric of Operating Ratio improved. (Historic Proviso Yard, picture above during WWII, on UP's former C&NW will be downgraded.) As a consequence, stock prices will rise, investors will make money, and when they tire of following the PSR laser light flash across the boardroom whiteboard, they will stop pawing at it and move on to another investment--maybe in cat food--while purring happily all the way to the yacht dealer.

What's left just might be a big enough hot mess to force railroad execs to see the writing on the wall: Like so many other enterprises in this century, railroading has stopped being an "industry" and started being a "service." Contemporary customers will pay for a service, if delivered as if the customer is the only one who counts. Hell, they will even subscribe to this kind of service. Railroads could sell subscriptions for "x" carloads a year and get customers to pay in advance; as long as they deliver service!

But, until PSR flops, and I still predict it will, everyone but the investors will continue to get no respect.