The system has seven key components, enabling a railroad to move more traffic with fewer assets. Railroads that implement scheduled service do so at some point along a spectrum that runs from perfectly precise scheduling at one end, and totally flexible scheduling at the other, says Tyler Dick, senior research engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.ĭick and his colleagues have written extensively in recent years about how scheduled railroading improves capacity on single-track lines – at least when trains meet predictably at locations where they can pass, or trade cars or crews.ĭavid Clarke, director of the transportation center at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, refers to totally flexible scheduling as a “hold-train-for-cars” operation, although shortline railroads have been known to run extra trains based on customer needs.Īt the top of most railroaders’ minds lately are the themes of so-called precision-scheduled railroading employed by new CSX Transportation CEO E.
As the process for scheduling freight trains becomes more sophisticated, railroads hope that this “back to the future” approach will help improve customer service and lower costs. What time will the train depart? When will it arrive? While most people associate schedules with passenger railroading, North American Class I railroads have returned to scheduling freight trains, though not exactly as they did in the days of printed timetables.
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