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Great background on the situation here:
https://www.wired.com/story/a-us-fre...y-chain-chaos/US freight railroads cut staff in recent years as part of a shift toward a leaner and more profitable operating model dubbed Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). It was invented by a Canadian railroad executive and later replicated in the US, with the intention of simplifying a complex rail network by running fewer, longer trains, replacing single-commodity trains with mixed freight, and slashing labor. US freight trains grew 25 percent in length between 2008 and 2017 and now sometimes reach 3 miles long. And while the profits materialized, the promised service improvements have not always followed.
Rail customers, labor unions, and the STB all say that the bare-bones operating model stripped the US freight rail system of its resiliency to disruptions, be it something quotidian like weather or more catastrophic, like a pandemic. “Covid was an extreme case, but it was entirely predictable that there was going to be, at some point, an increase in demand, and that they didn't have the capacity to handle it,” says Jeff Sloan, senior director of transportation and infrastructure at the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents some of the railroads’ biggest customers.
All the while, rail companies have raked in much larger profits. A recent Bloomberg analysis found that the five largest US-owned freight railroads—BNSF, CSX, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific—saw operating margins, a measure of profit, increase by a third over the past decade. They soared to 41 percent in 2021, a level described as “off the charts” relative to other transportation companies. Last year, 170-year-old BNSF, owned by Warren Buffett, and 160-year-old Union Pacific both reported record profits.
