Harris + David unpack the presentation Harris delivered at MARS + the research behind it. The headline finding: train speed + volume are negatively correlated, which means record service metrics may say more about a thin network than a well-run one.

From there, the conversation turns to the constraints on growth. Is freight rail demand constrained, or is it really that supply is constrained? What happened to service between 2014 + 2024 as the industry chased operating ratio? Why should rail be indexed to industrial production rather than GDP? And what does it mean that, over the past twenty years, every dollar of capital expenditure has been matched by roughly a dollar fifty returned to shareholders?

Slides available on our website www.telegraph.io + on the Telegraph LinkedIn page.

Talk Track, hosted by Harris Ligon + David Correll of Telegraph™, is a spin-off series dedicated to timely rail industry news. From service shakeups to technology breakthroughs, each episode delivers a behind-the-scenes perspective on all the happenings shaping the future of freight rail.

Harris + David will bring their decades of rail experience to help them parse through the latest industry headlines, evolving regulations, + the long-term forecasts for how railroads move freight across North America. Find us at telegraph.io/insights, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

About Our Hosts

Harris Ligon is the co-founder + CEO of Telegraph. Prior to launching Telegraph, he spent nearly 15 years in surface transportation at Uber Freight, Norfolk Southern, + BNSF Railway. During this time, he led teams in operations, strategy, business development, + product development.

David Correll is the Director of Freight Market Intelligence at Telegraph. He has spent two decades in transportation and logistics with the US Department of Transportation, the US Department of Energy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Clark University.

About Telegraph

Telegraph is a leader in delivering digital solutions to railroads, shippers, logistics service providers, terminals, + railcar leasing companies. With an integrated platform that prov...

The headline agreements are largely done. Now it’s time for the fine print.

In our latest episode, David + Harris walk through the revised UP–NS filing + find the numbers moving in one direction: diverted intermodal units revised down, projected job creation revised down, + a plan for job cuts sitting right alongside an advertising campaign promising a “job for life”. As Harris points out, a guarantee that you will have a job is not exactly a guarantee on what or where that job will be.

The conversation also covers CPKC’s Q2 earnings call + their pointed response to the recent UN-CN concessions, as well as committed gateway pricing that comes with an expiration date attached. Plus: the prediction David keeps making that lands very differently inside the industry than outside it - whether or not we will see a US government equity stake in the first modern transcontinental railroad.

Talk Track, hosted by Harris Ligon + David Correll of Telegraph™, is a spin-off series dedicated to timely rail industry news. From service shakeups to technology breakthroughs, each episode delivers a behind-the-scenes perspective on all the happenings shaping the future of freight rail.

Harris + David will bring their decades of rail experience to help them parse through the latest industry headlines, evolving regulations, + the long-term forecasts for how railroads move freight across North America. Find us at telegraph.io/insights, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

About Our Hosts

Harris Ligon is the co-founder + CEO of Telegraph. Prior to launching Telegraph, he spent nearly 15 years in surface transportation at Uber Freight, Norfolk Southern, + BNSF Railway. During this time, he led teams in operations, strategy, business development, + product development.

David Correll is the Director of Freight Market Intelligence at Telegraph. He has spent two decades in transportation and logistics with the US Department of Transportation, the US Department of Energy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Clark University.

About Telegraph

Telegraph is a leader in delivering digital solutions to railroads, shippers, logistics service providers, terminals, + railcar leasing companies. With an integrated platform that prov...

Chicago has always been the bottleneck. CN’s decision to no longer oppose the UP-NS merger comes with better Mexico access for CN, terminal ownership, + a few other perks…but UP gains running rights over the all-important former EJ&E, which is conveniently the fastest way around Chicago. Harris + David unpack what that concession reveals: if the merger needed a bypass bolted onto it, perhaps the merger was never actually going to fix the problems in Chicago in the first place.

Also on the table: Q2 earnings, where volumes are up across the board (though Harris argues the story is being written on the truck side, not the rail side, as capacity exits + rates climb), as well as data centers, the building boom they have unleashed, + how that looks with crews at a seasonal low.

Sinclair called Chicago the Jungle. The stockyards may be long gone, but the congestion remains the same.

Talk Track, hosted by Harris Ligon + David Correll of Telegraph™, is a spin-off series dedicated to timely rail industry news. From service shakeups to technology breakthroughs, each episode delivers a behind-the-scenes perspective on all the happenings shaping the future of freight rail.

Harris + David will bring their decades of rail experience to help them parse through the latest industry headlines, evolving regulations, + the long-term forecasts for how railroads move freight across North America. Find us at telegraph.io/insights, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

About Our Hosts

Harris Ligon is the co-founder + CEO of Telegraph. Prior to launching Telegraph, he spent nearly 15 years in surface transportation at Uber Freight, Norfolk Southern, + BNSF Railway. During this time, he led teams in operations, strategy, business development, + product development.

David Correll is the Director of Freight Market Intelligence at Telegraph. He has spent two decades in transportation and logistics with the US Department of Transportation, the US Department of Energy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Clark University.

About Telegraph

Telegraph is a leader in delivering digital solutions to railroads, shippers, logistics service providers, terminals, + railcar leasing companies. With an integrated platform that prov...