The Eastern railroads have had an eventful hurricane season, including landfalls from hurricanes Debby on Aug. 5 (Cat 1), Helene on Sept.26 (Cat 4), and Milton on Oct. 9 (Cat 3). Helene, in particular, was the most significant stress test on Norfolk Southern’s and CSX’s networks since the 2022 Service Crisis.
In our industry, banks are subject to stress tests on the back of the 2009 Financial Crisis, but those are done on a computer model. Not so in the rail space, where they’re routinely stress tested during every natural disaster, which of course demands network resiliency and recoverability.
In prior years, Norfolk Southern failed these tests more than any other Class I, with meltdowns in 2014 (polar vortex), 2018 (crew crunch around Birmingham), and of course 2022. During the April 2022 STB Service Hearing, the regulator asked Norfolk Southern and its U.S. peers to build more resiliency into their networks, and NS came out with a plan during its December 2022 Investor Day to do exactly that as it relates to crew availability. At the time we applauded the effort, stating, “For the first time we have a management team that correctly identifies, publicly acknowledges and launches a strategy that takes direct aim at the industry’s Achilles Heel.”
The East Palestine derailment two months later and subsequent five-month bottleneck interrupted the implementation of that strategy, but fast-forward to Hurricane Helene on 9/26/24 and we have our first true test.
How did NS fare? Better than expected.
We now have three weeks of data post-Helene—enough time for any unwanted domino effects to show up—and our first chart below shows system velocity back to the start of 2023 (higher is better) and trains holding for crews and power (lower is better).
You can see the big Helene impact in the week ending Oct. 4, with average train speed plummeting 11.5% below its weekly average over the prior month. However, the bounce back was strong and immediate, up 11.1% the next week, ending Oct. 11. Even more significantly, crew availability (blue columns) remained stable and modest at just three per day. Even trains holding for all reasons other than power and crews (not shown) only drifted from four to seven then back to four.
Let’s switch focus to some dwell metrics, and it’s the same good story:
- Terminal dwell from 21.9 hours (week prior) to 24.4 (Helene) to 22.2 (week after).
- Narrowing the focus to NS’s six hump yards we get 27.6, 30.3, and then immediately back to 28.0. Also note the earlier YTD low during the week ending 9/13.
- We can also look at the percentage of cars-on-line that sit immobile for 48-hours or more and it’s exactly the same pattern: 2.0% -> 3.1% -> 2.0%.
Everywhere you look there’s corroboration of an immediate snapback, including total cars-online, manifest on-time performance, and first-mile/last-mile performance. In the “old days” none of this would have occurred, and at best we’d have an elongated trough and slow recovery over weeks or months. Now it’s seven days and done.
In wrapping up, this is just one event with no doubt more to come, but Norfolk Southern has come through with flying colors.
Invited by Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer John Orr, Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono spent three days aboard Norfolk Southern’s Business Train on a Chicago-New Jersey inspection tour, with stops in Elkhart, Ind.; Toledo, Ohio; Conway Yard (Pittsburgh, Pa.); Juniata Locomotive Shops, Altoona, Pa.; Rutherford Intermodal Terminals (near Harrisburg, Pa.); concluding at Croxton Yard, Conrail Shared Assets Northern New Jersey operations. Watch the video:
