Economy

UP sent an email to customers on Saturday morning outlining the railroad’s goal of removing 15,000 private cars from current inventory. UP is pulling nearly 3% of railroad-owned cars from the system.

The number of cars on the railroad has grown over the past 60 days and in the week ending April 8 topped 300,000 for the first time since 2018, when UP was in the midst of an operational funk that lasted more than a year. The railroad is short of crew and power, and says it’s hiring aggressively while pulling locomotives out of storage.

When a railroad’s average train speed drops and terminal dwell rises, transit times increase and service becomes more erratic. Shippers typically add cars to their fleets as rail service slows, which tends to exacerbate congestion and delays.

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The big four U.S. railroads – BNSF Railway, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, and UP – are experiencing service problems to various degrees, most of which are the result of shortages of crews and locomotives.