Union Pacific officials are asking a few customers to use truck shipments, limit new railroad business and examine ways to reduce the number of train crews needed for loading and unloading, the Journal cited a company spokesman as saying.
Problems with its service have plagued the company since late last year, the Journal said.
Union Pacific's biggest headaches are in the Los Angeles area and along its active freight route running from California to Texas, the story said.
The Journal said the Omaha, Nebraska-based company underestimated how many crew members would leave after changes in the federal retirement law for railroad workers, leaving the company with too few locomotive engineers and conductors.
At the same time, the railroad has seen a jump in demand for rail service recently in line with the recovery in the U.S. industrial economy coupled with a strong grain harvest.
A company representative was not immediately available to comment.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Union Pacific Corp., the nation's largest railroad, is declining some business as it struggles with a train crew shortage that has its system near capacity.
For one month beginning Monday, United Parcel Service will put packages on trucks that normally would run express rail routes once a week each way from Los Angeles to New York, Dallas and Memphis.
"They explained they had been having some congestion problems," said Norman Black, a spokesman for UPS. "They need to get a handle on them quickly."
Union Pacific will pay the added costs of drivers, gasoline and other expenses of putting those items on trucks, Black said.
The express routes are a minor part of UPS business with Union Pacific, and it is important that the railroad get any problem corrected before it deepens across the railroad's system, Black said.
"The vast majority of our volume is running on their regular trains," Black said.
Union Pacific is the nation's largest railroad, stretching across 23 states in the western two-thirds of the country.
Its traffic snarled in 1997 and 1998 as it adjusted to its merger with Southern Pacific Railroad. Train speeds then dropped as low as an average of 12 mph.
Today's problem is not as significant, with train speeds averaging about 21.5 mph, down from about 25 mph for first quarter 2003, railroad spokesman Gene Hinkle said.
Still, the railroad has heard complaints from some customers about slower service, and it began hiring train crews at an accelerated rate late last summer to get the railroad back up to speed, said Kathryn Blackwell, general director of corporate communications.
Service problems began as business surged and trains slowed along the Sunset Corridor, which runs from Los Angeles to El Paso, Texas, Blackwell said. West Coast ports have been busy with imports from Asia that Union Pacific ships across the country, Blackwell said.
The nation's economy has rebounded more quickly and with more strength than Union Pacific and its customers had anticipated, Blackwell said.
In addition, more engineers and conductors have retired than had been expected under new federal rules that allow them to leave at age 60 with 30 years of service, Blackwell said.
The railroad expects to hire 4,000 train crew workers through this year, with about half in new positions and half covering normal attrition, Blackwell said. The railroad employs about 20,000 engineers and conductors.
Shipments of coal, industrial products and consumer goods all are growing, Blackwell said. "There is more business than we can handle, really," Blackwell said. "We don't have the crew base to deal with it."
Blackwell declined to discuss the slowdown's effect on specific customers. The railroad may have turned down some business when it could not meet time or other specifications for deliveries, but it has not been a widespread occurrence, she said.
Earlier this month, Union Pacific said it would not meet its earnings forecast for its first quarter ended March 31 in part because of its crew shortage. It also blamed an adverse $30 million court judgment, severe winter weather and high fuel costs.
