A retired SP/UP manager reveals the hypocracy and ineptitude of of the current UP management team. We can all probably add our own stories to this indictment bonus driven management by the "data." Thanks RRESQ, for passing this on.
Mr. Hensel:
A little over four years ago, I retired from Union Pacific, completing 35 years of railroad service with the bulk of that service, 24.5 years, being an employee of Southern Pacific. Southern Pacific was purchased by Union Pacific on Sept. 11, 1996, and perhaps you will remember the consequences of Union Pacific planning for that acquisition that brought railroad gridlock to the Texas Gulf Coast in mid- to late-1997.
In so many words, I think you have an opportunity for a very significant expansion of your story to the extent that the "surprise" of Union Pacific's management at the loss of so many employees as a consequence of a major revision to the Railroad Retirement Act is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, in the disconnect of UP's management with the real world and its employees.
Specifically addressing the loss of so many experienced employees, Union Pacific senior management has maintained a very hostile working environment with the bulk of its employees, including mid-level operating officers such as myself. The net reality of that hostile environment is that as soon as any UP employee reaches age 60 and has 30 or more years of Railroad Retirement-credited service, they retire immediately.
The consequences of losing so many employees has significant economic impact on Union Pacific's ability to provide transportation to its customers. There is a very major point of relevance here in that the employees retiring are those with three or more decades of experience and a very intimate knowledge of what is required to make the railroad work. Union Pacific is replacing these employees with new hires who have no comprehension or understanding of the minute details of what is required to operate a major system 24 hours daily, seven days per week.
To that end, those employees who know how to make things work smoothly are gone, replaced by those who do not know how to make the railroad work smoothly. Union Pacific has spent an exceptional amount of money on very sophisticated computer systems to model, guide, and document railroad operations in an effort to maintain some degree of technologically-based "knowledge"
The most telling point is that Union Pacific senior management is very proud of its credo of "managing by data". As an aside, data on operating performance as generated by a vast quantity of field operating managers is considered in the annual performance evaluation of each manager as well as determining the annual bonus and pay raise for each manager. In my first year as an operating officer of Union Pacific, it was made graphically evident that data that does not meet the expectations of local and system management results in negative feedback as well as minimal bonus and annual salary increase.
Given the concepts set forth in the above paragraph, the ultimate point to be made is that field managers have both a professional as well as a financial incentive to assure that operating data entered into the computer system is therefore "positive". Examples of such "positive" data entries include showing the arrival of piggyback and container trains at yards, such as Englewood here in Houston, before the train actually arrives and, in the same vein, showing the departure of such trains before they truly, physically depart.
Other examples of such reporting include showing quantities of locomotives available for service, cars switch! ed (in a yard) per 24-hour reporting period, cars humped (such as at Englewood) per 24-hour reporting period, and trains made up and ready for departure as based upon computer-generated operating schedules. I will tell you here and now that should you see fit to contact the Union Pacific public relations director in Omaha, John Bromley, he will steadfastly deny that such practices exist and that Union Pacific senior management would terminate any operating officer conducting himself/herself in such a manner. You will also receive the same response from Houston-based senior Union Pacific operating management.
In making the above statements, I do so on the basis of personal experience. At the time that Union Pacific consumed Southern Pacific, I was assistant manager of operating practices for the entire Southern Pacific system. I created operating publications and documents, I interacted with state and Federal regulatory agencies, I conducted training classes for new, off-the-street employees, I oversaw a variety of major track and signal construction projects across the Southern Pacific system, and I also performed litigation research for the Southern Pacific Law Department and, when necessary, testified as an expert witness for the Company. And I also worked very frequently as a train dispatcher on any territory across the Southern Pacific system.
After becoming a Union Pacific employee, I was more or less demoted because I did not have a college degree and became one of many operating rules instructors in Union Pacific's Harriman Dispatching Center in Omaha. Keep in mind, if you will, that in June, 1997, a collision between two trains at Devine, Texas, that resulted in four deaths began a string of operating catastrophes that would plague Union Pacific for at least two additional years.
Given my previous position with Southern Pacific, I had a much broader view of the railroad than did my Union Pacific counterparts and, without really giving any consideration to what I saw or thought, I would tell my Union Pacific supervisors of possible violations of state or Federal regulations, violations of Company policies and practices, or of managers giving incorrect (read illegal) instructions to the employees they supervised. In so many words, my reports were met with one of two, or at times both of the following statements: "you are not a team player" and/or "you are a troublemaker".
Fast forward to January, 1998, when the railroad operations in the Houston area had basically ceased to function. This occurred as a consequence of the closing of Strang Yard, south of Houston, which handled approximately 400 cars per 24-hour day that entered the yard from the many refineries serving Texas City, Pasadena, Deer Park, South Houston, and other locations. Strang, under Southern Pacific operating plans, generated six chemical unit trains daily that went to St. Louis for further movement via Conrail and other carriers.
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The motive in closing Strang was to cut off the yard engines and crews working there and Union Pacific computer modeling showed that those 400 cars per-24 day could be force-fed, as it were, to Englewood Yard. To be sort of cynical, that's tantamount to parking five cars in a two-car garage. Suffice it to say that Englewood Yard, having its own allotment of trains, cars, and traffic to deal with, did not fare well and productivity made like the Titanic. All of this rearrangement of operations was done by Union Pacific managers Charles Malone and Greg "Bubba" Garrison.
Five months after the closure of Strang Yard, trains were backed up between New Orleans and El Paso and the resulting loss of sidings as well as of motive power had a rather prompt cascade effect across a significant amount of the Union Pacific system. Interestingly, when Union Pacific acquired the Chicago & Northwestern Railway in 1995, the very same problems surfaced within four months and during the Fall, 1995, grain rush, with financially catastrophic effects to farmers, grain elevators, commodity brokers, and even manufacturers of agricultural machinery.
At that five-month milepost, Union Pacific did a most unusual thing in that it selected about 15 ex-Southern Pacific operating officers to go to Houston and unravel the Gordian knot created by Union Pacific senior managers and a computer model that showed that there would be no problem. For reasons I will never know, I was one of those 15 and that was fine with me because Houston was more or less home, my wife being a Houston native. My contribution to relief of the congestion was to create a traffic control center in one location that would oversee the movement of all rail traffic in the Houston terminals.
With further tweaking and interaction with senior BNSF operating officers who were, at one time not so long ago, senior Southern Pacific operating officers, it was decided to bring BNSF train dispatchers from Fort Worth to Spring so that they could work face-to-face with their Union Pacific counterparts. This office began operation in mid-March, 1998, and, happily, I was able to make myself indispensable to the continued successful functioning of the office and became permanent party in May, 1998.
Please recall, now, that I had earlier described reporting arrivals and departures of trains in a less than ethical manner. There exists a Federal law, enforced by the Federal Railroad Administration, that mandates that reports of train arrivals, departures, or passing a station constitute a documentation of the history of a train's operation under what is known as the Hours of Service Act. While the Hours of Service Act is, by itself, not relevant to what I am going to focus on here, please understand that it is somewhat detailed and state and Federal inspectors focus on inspecting such records.
Very quickly, I learned that terminal operating officers at Englewood and Settegast Yards were reporting train arrivals and departures that were not consistent with those reported by train dispatching computer systems and by reports of time on duty by trainmen and enginemen. In very simple terms, whatever times that the train dispatching computer system had generated for certain trains were manually revised by terminal operating officers to reflect the computer-generated operating schedules of the trains.
This modification of reporting constituted a violation of the Hours of Service Act and (1) I reported same to the senior management of the Spring train dispatching office and (2) issued an instruction to Houston terminals operating officers and Spring train dispatchers that such computer-generated arrival or departure times were not to be altered, to avoid violation of the Hours of Service Act. In so many words, I had no hesitancy about issuing such instructions simply because on Southern Pacific, I dictated operating policies and practices on a system-wide basis and to senior operating management.
However, as a Union Pacific employee, I quickly learned that I had far exceeded the bounds of my authorities and responsibilities, that I was impeding the restoration of service "quality", that I was a trouble maker, and that I was not a team player. My instructions were cancelled by senior Union Pacific operating management in Houston, thereby allowing false reporting of train arrival or departure times so that service standards would be shown as being met.
I have many other stories to tell, including seemingly willful compromises of safety despite public professions by Union Pacific management of great enthusiasm for safety, and will not take up your time with those recitations. To summarize all that I've written above, Union Pacific maintains a very hostile environment for any employee who is resourceful, knowledgeable, motivated, experienced, and interested in performing the many tasks of railroad operation safely, efficiently, and economically. Which is why there is no reason that Union Pacific management should be surprised that employees are leaving as quickly as they can. Every one of the employees that I formerly worked with and who are still working can give me a precise quantity of days remaining in their employment before they can retire.
I hope you will find some interest in what I have offered you, above. I would be pleased to provide you with additional "stories" that reveals that mediocrity, stupidity, and mendacity are rewarded. You see, Charles Malone, the very individual who precipitated the late 1997 rail operations crisis along the Texas Gulf Coast has now been promoted to Southern Region Vice President, in Houston. How about that? Any employee with intelligence, motivation, and a sense of right and wrong learns that and, poof!, Union Pacific now has another disaffected employee.
William J. Neill
2411 Coachlight Lane
Conroe, TX 77384-3348
4:58:06 PM 
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