And here’s one thing that I haven’t seen mentioned.
1. Mantle Ridge, a hedge fund owned by Paul Hilal, purchased controlling shares of CSX in 2017. He brought in a scumbag, Hunter Harrison and his crew, to begin taking the company apart. Firing thousands, lengthening trains and wreaking havoc on the company. Skeleton crews. Cutting pay. Not enough crews to operate. All in an effort to boost stock prices, where they’d run the company into the ground and then sell all their stocks.
They did the same things to two Canadian railroads, both of which are still recovering.
What they didn’t count on, because people like them never do, is that others would retire or resign. And, most importantly, the numbers of young men willing to go into railroading declines very year. The talent pool is getting real shallow.
2. Pretty soon the other Class 1 railroads started to mimic CSX, who is now ran by Harrison’s right hand man.
They all are dealing with the same issues.
So……where were the unions when all of this was happening? Where were the unions when 6-7000 people lost their jobs with CSX? NOWHERE.
Hunter Harrison did pass away suddenly after screwing up CSX/CPRail. NS bought lines but now CSX is undercutting them and the whole thing is a huge mess.