We have an administration (Obama's) that is very pleased with this destruction. Even though coal can be burned more cleanly, CO2, which feeds plants, has been deemed a pollutant. Many coal plants have been shut down years before their time.
Her Thighness has promised to continue His Oneness’ policies!
A lot of those locomotives in storage are old units that we keep around in case they’re needed, or have been replaced by new tier 4 locomotives.
That being said, the article is right about volume. Thanks to nobama, we are getting killed with the loss of coal traffic, especially out of Colorado. Add in the resistance to built transship terminals for coal export on the west coast, and our coal traffic is only going to go down.
This affects all of the major railroads. CSX, NS, and BNSF are hurting also.
I see a lot of buildings under construction.
The economy is doing fairly well.
However, the oil production part of the economy is under stress and in decline.
The locomotives that serve the oil patch areas are surplus to current demand.
U.S. Rail Traffic Declines in 2016 First Quarter
April 8th, 2016
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) has reported that U.S. rail traffic for the first quarter of 2016 declined 6.5 percent, or 451,658 carloads and intermodal units, from the first quarter of 2015.
I have a nephew who several years ago moved to Longview, Texas to work at Trinity Rail Car company. This is his last week. He got his layoff notice a while back.