I mostly deal with sawmills out west or in Canada.
That means the origin railroad is BNSF, UP, CN or CPRS.
CSXT, KCS, NS are all railroads east of the Mississippi.
We deal with them, but the lumber/OSB typically does not originate from there.
The problems we experienced were primarily with the origin rail carriers not supplying empty rail cars to the sawmills.
The excuse was they had mothballed many of the flatcars at the beginning of covid and took them out of service. Then they did not have enough crews(people) to run the trains.
So, they always give priority to commodities like coal, crude oil, grains, necessities, etc.
Lumber is not that important to the railroads. They make more money running at train from the coal mine in WY to the port of Tacoma nonstop made up of all coal hopper cars.
With lumber they pick up five cars from one mill, two from another and one from a third. It like making the milk run.
Hunter Harrison destroyed one of, if not both, of the Canadian railroads doing exactly what you’re talking about. Mothballing or selling cars or other equipment. If you don’t own it, you don’t have to fix it.
And firing as many as possible til the place is barely functioning.
And then reverting back to the tried and true Wall St mantra….you do t like the work/hours/schedule, we’ll find someone that does. Problem is, there running out of people to find.
And what’s was always odd about the Canadian companies, especially out west, they ran through the forest, as fast as they could. Only slowing down hm they hit a populated area. Not like the east coast companies here that operate in population centers.
Either way, the industry is screwed and union contracts aren’t fixing it.