(The following story by Dan Gearino appeared on the Columbus Dispatch website on October 11, 2009.)
COLUMBUS, Ohio — In good times, Buckeye Yard on the Far West Side is alive with the screech of metal on metal.
Now, it is a kind of parking lot. Hundreds of idled locomotives and rail cars are spread across acres of track, just west of I-270 and south of Roberts Road.
When the economy slows, fewer goods are shipped. And when fewer goods are shipped, the unused vehicles and containers sit and wait.
Before the recession, the transportation and warehousing industry had been on a prolonged upswing and represented one of the fastest-growing job generators in central Ohio. Local business leaders are confident that the growth will return, but it will be a different kind in different parts of the region, with many of the new jobs in cubicles in front of computers instead of at the controls of locomotives.
“There’s a stability and sustainability in the logistics industry because things will always be moving, regardless of the fluctuations of what product it is,” said Dan
Ricciardi, executive director of the Columbus Region Logistics Council, part of the Columbus Chamber.
Transportation and warehousing jobs in central Ohio have nearly tripled during the past two decades, from 17,100 in 1990 to 46,100 last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This year, the numbers have dropped to 44,700 as of August, which was a smaller decline than just about any other industry experienced locally.
Some of the greatest potential for growth is in “intermodal” shipping, which involves using combinations of rail, air and roadway transportation to move goods. Norfolk Southern Railroad operates an intermodal hub at Rickenbacker Airport in southern Franklin County, an area that has also seen some of the most rapid job growth.
Norfolk Southern is also responsible for Buckeye Yard. In May, the company said it was idling the yard and the 70 workers there.
It was supposed to be a temporary move, but people familiar with the situation wonder whether the yard will ever be active again.
“Buckeye is just kind of a fifth wheel,” said Phil Young, a retired locomotive engineer who once worked at Buckeye Yard, which opened in the late 1960s. “Once they decide that they can do without that yard, they’ll never open it again.”
Rail past and future
Young’s view is based on a lifetime of experience watching the rail companies find ways to do the same work with fewer people. Other observers, including a spokesman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union, are more optimistic that the yard will reopen.
Nationwide, railroad jobs are projected to grow only 0.4 percent between 2006 and 2016, according to the National Employment Matrix from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The transportation sector as a whole is projected to grow 11 percent, topped by motor-vehicle transportation at 13 percent, air transportation at 14 percent, and sea transportation at 19 percent.
Right now, the only activity at Buckeye Yard is in the far northeast corner, where CSX Corp., another major rail company, operates an intermodal terminal.
Most of the site once served as a so-called “hump yard,” a place where hundreds of cars were connected and disconnected so that departing trains had the proper cargo for their destinations.
The yard served as a magnet for warehouses and distribution centers, which set up shop on nearby streets. Companies had easy access to rail and to I-270.
In the first nine months of this year, the volume on U.S. railroads was down 18 percent, or 10.1 million carloads, according to the American Association of Railroads.
“Last I knew, we had about 33,000 rail cars in storage, which is an unprecedented number,” said Rudy Husband, spokesman for Norfolk Southern, based in Norfolk, Va.
But Ohio leaders are optimistic that upcoming rail initiatives will be good for the region.
Last year, CSX announced its National Gateway project, a $700 million plan to increase the capacity of three rail corridors, including one that runs along I-70 and I-76 in Ohio.
The project would include a $50 million upgrade of the CSX terminal at Groveport Road and Parsons Avenue on the South Side.
“This is a major competitive advantage that can greatly benefit the citizens of Ohio,” Gov. Ted Strickland said in May at the CSX announcement in Dublin.
Norfolk Southern plans its own expansion, called the Heartland Corridor. This would increase the capacity of trains between the Midwest and the East Coast. Traffic would go through the Norfolk Southern intermodal terminal at Rickenbacker Airport.
The logistics of logistics
The growth of intermodal shipping has coincided with the growth of logistics companies, or firms that are hired to manage the transfer of goods among various modes of transportation. This includes Pacer International Inc., with a regional office in Dublin, and Exel, a division of Deutsche Post DHL of Germany, with North American headquarters in Westerville.
“Transportation and the flow of materials is the core of what we do as a business,” said Gary R. Allen, an Exel vice president.
Many, if not a majority, of jobs at Exel involve the physical handling of goods, such as drivers and warehouse workers. But the company also needs information-technology professionals, logistics consultants and other white-collar workers that represent a growing share within the transportation industry.
Colleges and universities have started logistics programs to fill this need. Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University began offering a master’s degree program in 2005 that focuses on logistics engineering. The university has offered a general logistics degree for 35 years.
And yet, Exel’s Allen thinks it is an oversimplification to suggest that white-collar logistics jobs are growing and blue-collar jobs are holding steady or shrinking.
“The logistics industry is about moving stuff and handling stuff,” he said. “Any time you’re moving stuff, the physical movement of goods, somebody is involved. It’s not always going to be people in an office on a computer.”
For a railroad veteran such as Young, the transportation industry is barely recognizable. Only a few products, such as coal and grain, are mainly shipped by rail now.
Young drives by Buckeye Yard every once in a while, though he doesn’t stop to look around. Sometime soon, the hundreds of parked train cars will be returned to service, but he doubts the yard will ever regain its prominence.
“A pretty good barometer of when the economy picks up is when that place begins emptying out,” he said.