Depot News "Waiting At The Station Award"     08/18/00

Performance standards being reported by the six major railroads can either make for some very interesting reading, or would at least make a statistician smile.  For some of the railroads, however, it may be a while before they smile?

One of the performance measures is Average Terminal Dwell Time.  Now for a rail fan (as I am) this would mean how long my wife allows me to pursue my rail fan interest.  However, I think for the meaning used here, it is best to get a quote direct from the Rail Performance Site.


" Average Terminal Dwell Time is the average time a car is at the specified terminal location expressed in hours. The measurement begins with a customer release, received interchange, or train arrival event and ends with a customer placement (actual or constructive), delivered interchange, or train departure event. Stored, heavy bad ordered, and maintenance of way cars are generally excluded from the calculation."

Ok, just to clarify  - this means how long rail cars 'hang' around the terminal until they are released, unloaded or have no other purpose. Take a guess at what the average 'hang' time is?

So - keep guessing. However, to help you in the guessing game,  here are some runner up's for the Waiting At The Station (wondering where our cars are) awards:  

Terminal - State Railroad Average # of hours
Baltimore,MD CSX 40.2
Colton, CA UP 40.8
Montgomery, AL CSX 43.6

Ok, so you are ready to guess?????

The Award goes to our friends to south in Houston Texas - Englewood Yards - on the Union Pacific Railroad - with an average hang time of 43.8 hours!!
Hey, maybe some of our shortline buddies shouldn't feel so bad after all? Well, then again - statistics also show that the larger the line - the larger the wait period.  BNSF didn't exactly fall into this 'rule of thumb' - but the rest of the reporting rail lines did.

DepotNews 08/16/00