How three letters reinvented the railroad business

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

After a series of train derailments, the railroad industry is under scrutiny from politicians, the public and rail workers themselves. Many workers blame a relatively new management philosophy called precision-scheduled railroading (PSR). What is PSR and how has it changed the industry?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:07.0	The head of Norfolk Southern Railway Company, Alan Shaw, appeared before the US Senate today.
0:17.4	I'm terribly sorry for the impact this derailment has had on the folks of that community.
0:24.0	And lawmakers called him there to answer questions about a toxic train crash that happened last
0:29.4	month in East Palestine, Ohio.
0:31.2	Could you repeat the question?
0:32.2	Well, we've got reports that East Liverpool in Ohio is receiving this waste from East
0:37.8	Palestine that has been, that has been disposed of.
0:42.6	Is that accurate?
0:44.2	Senator standing here today.
0:45.6	I don't know if that's accurate as of this time.
0:47.8	So do you know where the waste is going to then?
0:49.7	It is.
0:50.7	We're in the process of working with the EPA on a number of facilities.
0:55.5	But we have an identified worst moving to yet.
0:57.9	There is a lot of scrutiny on railroad companies at the moment.
1:01.1	Not just from politicians, not just from the public, but from railroad workers themselves
1:06.0	who claim that these sort of accidents have become more likely in recent years because
1:10.6	of the way that railroad companies are being operated now.
1:14.5	Now got us wondering, what do they mean by that?
1:17.2	Well, it turns out that they're talking about this thing called precision scheduled railroading
1:22.4	or PSR.
	...

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