Rail problems lead to temporary layoffs at Pasha

About 60 people have been temporarily laid off from Pasha Automotive Services, General Manager Matt Raasch said.

“They’re all temporary layoffs,” Raasch said. “It was a snowballing effect from the harsh weather back east, along with a rail car shortage and probably a locomotive shortage as well.”

The harsh winter in the Midwest and Northeast meant that it took longer for things to thaw out and get the rail lines running again.

“There’s over 200,000 cars that were basically stuck back east, after the winter, once everything started getting ready to ship,” Raasch said.

In a letter to the federal Surface Transportation Board last month, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said the issue was bigger than bad weather.

“Were this the only source of delay — and this more extreme winter the exception in terms of disruptions — automakers would understand,” wrote President and CEO Mitch Bainwol. “But, extreme weather is not entirely to blame. The railroads have been slow to react to this problem.”

Some cars remained in storage despite the annual problem of winter restrictions, and other have been moved down to Mexico where other plants have ramped up production.

“A systematic problem inherent in the rail system appears to be the limited competitive pressure within the rail industry to improve service,” Bainwol continued. “… The carriers’ poor service has deteriorated even more over the past two months. While the supply of railcars has improved slightly, auto manufacturers are still short approximately 1,000 railcars every day. Unfortunately, the carriers have not been able to provide any meaningful assurances of when auto manufacturers should expect to see any improvement in service. Vague promises that service will improve soon have translated into insignificant, slow and irregular progress.”

Right now, many manufacturers are coping by shipping vehicles out of Virginia, Raasch said.

“It takes an extra half a month for that car to get to China,” he said.

Chrysler is taking matters into its own hands, and will begin sending dedicated unit trains to the Aberdeen facility.

“They’ll come all the way here full, we’ll turn them back empty,” Raasch said.

He got word Tuesday the first train was being loaded. It usually takes between eight and 11 days for the trains to arrive. If they brought everyone back to work, they could unload it in two days, Raasch explained, but how they handle it will depend on what Chrysler’s schedule is.

“That all depends on ship schedules,” he said. “It’s hard to say whether we’ll bring everybody in to do a full-force production or we’ll bring half the people in and spread it out.”

That doesn’t solve the larger problem sparked by the rail car shortage, but Raasch said he’s been told shipping should pick up again by June 9.

“If it’s not fully back by then, we should be pretty close to basically back at full capacity by that point,” he said.