CSX has acknowledged that it plans to close its hump operations at Selkirk, New York, and that it also plans to close its hump in Birmingham, Alabama
Both yards will continue in operation as flat-switching facilities. Five other hump yards, including Stanley Yard in Toledo, have already been converted to flat switching.
CSX will still have five active humps, including Queensgate Yard in Cincinnati and Willard Yard. In 2016, Selkirk was the second-busiest hump yard in the CSX system.
Speaking to the Wolfe Research conference this week, CSX Chief Operating Officer Cindy Sanborn said the hump closings are not being implemented just to change switching operations.
“It is part of the larger plan of making transit across the network faster,” she said.
CSX is seeking to bypass intermediate terminals because it believes that doing so will enable it to move freight more efficiently, quickly and reliably.
An analysis by Trains magazine noted that CSX CEO E. Hunter Harrison has said hump yards are only viable when they classify more than 1,400 to 1,500 cars per day.
Of the 12 hump yards in existence when Harrison was hired at CSX last March, only Waycross, Georgia, meets that threshold.
Three yards, Selkirk; Nashville, Tennessee; and Willard handled more than 1,400 cars per day in 2016.
The Trains analysis said those humps were likely to handle less traffic under Harrison’s precision scheduled railroading operating philosophy.
“If there’s not enough cars that want to go there to support the infrastructure needed to maintain and utilize the hump, then we simply don’t need it,” Sanborn said at the investor’s conference. “We can move over into flat-switching operations.”
Sanborn reiterated at the conference that CSX expects to only have two to three humps left by late this year.
Another driving force behind closing the humps is that carload traffic at CSX is in a long-term decline.
CSX handled 2.32 million merchandise carloads in 2016, a figure that excludes automotive traffic.
Trains reported that is a decline of 605,000 carloads since 2000 or 22 fewer 75-car trains per day.
Yet merchandise traffic made up two-thirds of CSX freight business in 2016 and Sanborn said the railroad’s new operating plan provided an opportunity to grow that business by providing faster and more reliable service.
“Concurrent with making the changes in the hump network, we also are doing a very detailed deep dive into the overall operation in general,” Sanborn says.
To improve traffic balance and density, some unit train shipments are being carried by merchandise trains that operate daily. In some regions, local service is now operating daily.
