It’s back to work for train crews and rolling stock
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief
At the depth of the recession, railroads had miles of freight cars and locomotives in storage and thousands of train crew members on furlough. With recovery now well on the way, that picture is fast changing, as figures released this week by CSX Corp. demonstrate.
* Reduced its number of furloughed rail and engine crews from a peak of 2,533 to 1,093.
* Cut the number of locomotives in storage from 707 to 272.
* Reduced the fleet of stored freight cars from 30,533 to 12,321.
CSX noted that locomotives and freight cars can be returned to service within a week, demonstrating a railroad’s ability to quickly size its operations to either rising or falling demand.
