This has been my experience with the major railroads(CN, CPRS, CSXT, NS, BNSF, UP) for the last year. They cut their employees during covid to a minimum. Eventually they did not have enough bodies to run the trains. They were constantly behind moving empty rail cars to sawmills on the CN, UP and BNSF. This made carloads of lumber multiple weeks behind on contract orders. All the mills could claim was FORCE MAJURE.
(out of our control, act of God). Some of the smaller/lower volume mills could not get rail cars at all to ship their product. Therefore, they had to adjust their marketing strategy to selling by truckload only.
This exacerbated the price increases in lumber over the last two years because it added to the lack of supply with the increase in transit times. It also held prices up longer than they would have during the decrease in prices because extended shipment times.
Covid made it worse but it started right after Harrison took over and started cutting jobs.
Talking to a government committee, after the committee received staggering complaints from the ports and businesses, it went something like: my obligation is to my shareholders, not my customers.
The trains were derailing. Breaking down. No crews. Friends that weren’t fired said that CSX had trains sitting on tracks, blocking crossings for days.
(And Harrison’s protégés are still running things.