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Union Pacific watching train lengths

One of the ways that Union Pacific (UP) has been able to reach productivity savings has been to lengthen trains. UP has also been focusing on freight car velocity and reducing terminal dwell.

To achieve longer train lengths, UP has been constructing 15,000-foot sidings along some areas of its network and it intends to continue lengthening sidings in 2021, according to Jennifer Hamann, UP’s chief financial officer.

But while UP’s physical infrastructure is one factor toward lengthening trains, others factors include ensuring volume density along the lanes and providing good service to customers, according to Hamann.

“I don’t know that we know the limit of what that [train length] can be. It has to be kind of a composite look in terms of what are all the factors that are available to us. The footprint, the physical infrastructure: Is it going to limit us?” Hamann asked last Tuesday. “It’s really going to be dictated more by the volumes that are coming off where they’re coming on and how we’re able to design the transportation plan around that, to have that long train length as we meet our customers’ demands.”