Union Pacific pulls back on Brazos Valley rail project
April 19th, 2019
April 19, 2019 - TRA Newswire -
Union Pacific is scaling back construction of its massive Brazos Valley rail yard in Robertson County, Northwest of Houston, a little more than a year after the project broke ground.
Union Pacific initiated Unified Plan 2020 last year which relies on Precision Scheduled Railroading to run fewer but longer trains with less dwell time at rail yards along a route. The $550 million rail yard represented the largest capital investment in a single facility in the company's 155-year history. Brazos Yard was to have the capacity to switch up to 1,300 rail cars per day, making it one of the highest capacity yards on Union Pacific's 23-state network.
While the Brazos Yard will not be decommissioned it will still serve its purpose for classifying trains by flat switching for some regions. The company had begun building a hump yard in early 2018. The hump yard was to break down trains into individual cars and then redirect them to different tracks, reassemble the trains and send them to their next destination.
“We didn’t need Brazos as soon as we originally thought we did,” Chief Executive Lance Fritz said in an interview.
Other humps yards are being decommissioned in Oregon and Arkansas, shifting that work to other sites. Flat switching will still occur at those sites.
Unified 2020 is based on an operating model implemented by late railroad executive Hunter Harrison who passed away while leading CSX Corp. Harrison thought that hump yards were costly and not very efficient as he favored flat switching.
Even with bad weather in the first quarter of 2019 Union Pacific's profits jumped 6% with the average train length up 7%.
Union Pacific's Jim Vena told analysts that productivity is up in the first three months thanks to their Unified 2020 plan. "We're moving more rail cars on the same number of trains."
Union Pacific is scaling back construction of its massive Brazos Valley rail yard in Robertson County, Northwest of Houston, a little more than a year after the project broke ground.
Union Pacific initiated Unified Plan 2020 last year which relies on Precision Scheduled Railroading to run fewer but longer trains with less dwell time at rail yards along a route. The $550 million rail yard represented the largest capital investment in a single facility in the company's 155-year history. Brazos Yard was to have the capacity to switch up to 1,300 rail cars per day, making it one of the highest capacity yards on Union Pacific's 23-state network.
While the Brazos Yard will not be decommissioned it will still serve its purpose for classifying trains by flat switching for some regions. The company had begun building a hump yard in early 2018. The hump yard was to break down trains into individual cars and then redirect them to different tracks, reassemble the trains and send them to their next destination.
“We didn’t need Brazos as soon as we originally thought we did,” Chief Executive Lance Fritz said in an interview.
Other humps yards are being decommissioned in Oregon and Arkansas, shifting that work to other sites. Flat switching will still occur at those sites.
Unified 2020 is based on an operating model implemented by late railroad executive Hunter Harrison who passed away while leading CSX Corp. Harrison thought that hump yards were costly and not very efficient as he favored flat switching.
Even with bad weather in the first quarter of 2019 Union Pacific's profits jumped 6% with the average train length up 7%.
Union Pacific's Jim Vena told analysts that productivity is up in the first three months thanks to their Unified 2020 plan. "We're moving more rail cars on the same number of trains."