The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to affect the nation’s railroad systems, but the degree of that remains unknown.
Progressive Railroading reported this week that industry observers are struggling to get a handle on it because there are so many unknowns at this point.
“A better way to look at this is 10 simultaneous hurricanes in the United States and the destruction that follows,” said FTR Intel Chief Strategy Officer Clay Slaughter during a COVID-19 webinar FTR conducted on March 26. “How many businesses won’t reopen? How much permanent or semi-permanent disruptions will there be?”
Slaughter said that during a hurricane there is a concrete beginning and ending, a process that lasts for 60 to 90 days.
However, the pandemic is not necessarily a onetime event but a series of events with not-so-concrete endings, Slaughter said.
In part that is because of the wide variance in how states have reacted to the pandemic.
Slaughter predicted there will be large regional differences in how the pandemic affects railroad operations.
Another observer predicts that not only will the endings vary but they won’t come soon.
Tony Hatch, who owns his own transportation analysis firm, wrote in a message to his clients the recovery from the fallout of the pandemic might not come until 2021.
He said that will apply to everything from railroads to the economy to sports teams.
In the meantime, a number of railroad conferences have been delayed or canceled.
The Secure Rail Conference that was to have been held in Chicago April 21-22 has been moved to Aug. 25-26.
That conference seeks to address the future of rail technology and rail security.
The North American Rail Shippers Association has canceled its 2020 annual meeting that was to have been held May 12-14 in Kansas City, Missouri.
The group’s next meeting will be Mauy 12-14, 2021, in Chicago.
Tags: Clay Slaughter, coronarivus, COVID-19, North American Rail Shippers Association, pandemic, Railroads, Secure Rail Conference, Tony Hatch
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