Mary Pileggi, National Industrial Transportation League (NITL) chair, recently submitted comments to the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) criticizing CSX Railway service for failing to notify its customers of upcoming operational changes and subsequently coordinating those changes with its customers.
Pileggi, along with Executive Director Jennifer Hedrick and General Counsel Karyn Booth, attended the STB hearing on Oct. 11, where shippers provided multiple examples of CSX service problems causing plant shutdowns and raising shipping costs. Pileggi, through her comments on behalf of League members, noted that CSX will probably not face severe action for its behavior because it “operates in an oligopoly with many captive customers rather than a market that is robustly competitive.”
CSX CEO Hunter Harrison apologized for frustrations presented by the shippers, but strongly defended the company’s “precision schedule railroading” strategy and attributed the service delays in question to derailments and employees failing to implement that strategy properly.
“We’ve made some mistakes. This is not a failure of precision scheduled railroading,” Harrison said.
Through his hour-long remarks, however, Harrison was asked by STB’s two commissioners, Acting Chair Ann Begeman and Vice Chair Deb Miller, about his failure to participate in an industry work group that is looking into ways to address issues with Chicago rail traffic.