Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Weisenthal and I'm Tracy Halloway. So, Tracy, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's actually been a little while, I guess
Speaker 1: since we've done one of our pure logistics episodes. Earlier
Speaker 1: in the summer, we were doing a lot. We We've
Speaker 1: done a lot all year. I just feel like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we've probably gone at least three or four
Speaker 1: without coming back to what is, without a doubt the story.
Speaker 1: When you say more than a little bit or it's
Speaker 1: been a while, I mean, we did do the semiconductor
Speaker 1: episode like the other week, which I kind of file
Speaker 1: under the shortages and bottlenecks. Um, yeah, Brella, But I
Speaker 1: guess it's true. It is true. We haven't done a
Speaker 1: transport episode in a while, and there are some big
Speaker 1: ones that we haven't addressed just yet. And I'm thinking
Speaker 1: specifically of palettes and barges, but of course the biggest
Speaker 1: transport mode that we have yet to talk about and
Speaker 1: the issues taking place there, it has to be rail
Speaker 1: and it's come up quite a bit. When we were
Speaker 1: talking to um Jeans Siroca that the head of the
Speaker 1: part of Los Angeles, for instance, Whenever we've been talking
Speaker 1: about gridlock in transport, generally we do tend to touch
Speaker 1: on rail and some of the issues there, but we
Speaker 1: haven't talked about it in depth yet, right, so we
Speaker 1: kind of have taken this, you know, end to end approach.
Speaker 1: We talked about factory issues that originate in Asia. We
Speaker 1: talked about the ship you know, there's the bottomnecks at
Speaker 1: the ports. I think latest I saw there's like seventy
Speaker 1: two ships just waiting to be undocked right now at
Speaker 1: the Port of Los Angeles. Then the trucks. Talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about barges. Although we need to talk a
Speaker 1: lot about talk a lot about more, but we have
Speaker 1: not talked about rail. And so if we're going to
Speaker 1: be leadist in our discussion of of you as logistics,
Speaker 1: we have to talk about the rail part of the equation. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to this one. I am too. I'm
Speaker 1: very excited, and we have the perfect guest for it.
Speaker 1: We're going to be speaking with Ian Jefferies, President and
Speaker 1: CEO of the Association of American Railroads. Ian, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on odd lots. So look, anyone
Speaker 1: who's picked up the newspaper or you know, read the
Speaker 1: news knows about all the disruptions, particularly around ship, particularly
Speaker 1: around sports, particularly around trucking, particularly about the lack of
Speaker 1: containers specifically, what do you just start by giving us
Speaker 1: the very big picture overview and then we'll drill deeper,
Speaker 1: but the very big picture overview in how pandemic related
Speaker 1: disruptions have affected h the flow of rail. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, thank you Joe and Tracy so much for
Speaker 1: having me on this morning. And you've hit on based
Speaker 1: on on what you listed, you've hit on a lot
Speaker 1: of key, key issues and key sectors of the supply chain.
Speaker 1: So I'm thrilled to be able to add to that conversation.
Speaker 1: I think when you look at what we're seeing in
Speaker 1: the supply chain right now, which as you know, is
Speaker 1: an incredibly sophisticated, integrated complex process getting goods from Asia
Speaker 1: into the US, into the heartland of the the US
Speaker 1: UM and then throughout, what we really are looking at
Speaker 1: now is something that really began about this time last year,
Speaker 1: even you know a little earlier in the summer midsummer,
Speaker 1: where once the economies of China and the US started
Speaker 1: to for lack of a better term turned back on.
Speaker 1: You saw a pretty dramatic influx of goods, and I
Speaker 1: think it's a combination of a variety of things. Um,
Speaker 1: if your houses or anything like mine, you've got to
Speaker 1: know the the Amazon delivery person really well. We saw
Speaker 1: such a massive surge of e commerce as a portion
Speaker 1: of our economy, and not only that, given the the
Speaker 1: rush to acquire goods, um consumer goods from from the stores,
Speaker 1: the physical stores across the countries as well, combined with
Speaker 1: the shutdowns we saw in factories throughout throughout the US,
Speaker 1: throughout Asia, you saw really strong snap back in in
Speaker 1: production and demand on the international side. And so really
Speaker 1: about last summer, i'd call it last July last August,
Speaker 1: we saw pretty dramatic uptick in international intermodal traffic and
Speaker 1: that has really sustained itself and continued through this year
Speaker 1: to present day. And I think we're expecting to see
Speaker 1: it into at least Q one, if not Q two
Speaker 1: of next year, based on comments that are our CEOs
Speaker 1: of meeting the public space and so what we're seeing
Speaker 1: is there are certain parts of the supply chain where
Speaker 1: where there are some choke points and where there's there's
Speaker 1: there's one choke point. The supply chain is only as
Speaker 1: strong as as its weakest link, or it's as it's
Speaker 1: uh as its most inefficient point, and that that tends
Speaker 1: to tends to come up the whole situation, and so
Speaker 1: Rail is navigating that. UM. I can tell you in
Speaker 1: the first six months, we moved more intermodal products, which
Speaker 1: is that container traffic, which consumer goods, either e commerce
Speaker 1: or brick and mortar store. We move more traffic in
Speaker 1: the first six months of than we ever had in
Speaker 1: our history during that same time period. So we are
Speaker 1: moving a colossal amount of traffic, and we're really the
Speaker 1: middle piece of the supply chain, the middle miles we
Speaker 1: are navigating. I would call um some challenges on on
Speaker 1: both the port side and and then the offloading side.
Speaker 1: UM with our our partners, but taking steps as others
Speaker 1: are to to continue to work through this, to to
Speaker 1: get back and get right sized and get equilibrium and
Speaker 1: get this thing running as efficiently as possible. That was
Speaker 1: a great overview, and I want to dig in a
Speaker 1: little bit more into what role Rail actually plays in
Speaker 1: the sort of transport and logistics network overall. But before
Speaker 1: we do, can you maybe give us a little bit
Speaker 1: more color on the contestion issues that you're facing right now.
Speaker 1: Are there some numbers that you could throw out? So,
Speaker 1: for instance, Joe and the intro mentioned more than seventy
Speaker 1: ships waiting off the you know, off l a port.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if there are similar statistics for rail and
Speaker 1: how those might differ from normal times. Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1: So our our primary role when it comes to the
Speaker 1: West coast ports is is, you know, containers are loaded
Speaker 1: onto to our trains and brought into the middle of
Speaker 1: the country, much of them. So think about the key
Speaker 1: gateways up and down the Mississippi River, up and down
Speaker 1: the center of our country. Primary be in Chicago. Approximately
Speaker 1: of rail freight move through Chicago, but also Memphis, New Orleans, St. Louis,
Speaker 1: Kansas City, So those are primary gateways. But let's take
Speaker 1: Chicago for example, and what we are seeing is in
Speaker 1: a lot of the international intermodal guards. So those are
Speaker 1: those are the locations that that freight is offloaded from
Speaker 1: the train, put into a parking slot, and picked up
Speaker 1: by a truck for that last mile delivery to a
Speaker 1: warehouse or to a or to another location. So when
Speaker 1: the train brings into containers, that's referred to as in gating,
Speaker 1: and when the containers are picked up, it's referred to
Speaker 1: as outgating. And I can tell you that the in
Speaker 1: gates in certain locations are dramatically exceeding the outgates. In
Speaker 1: other words, we have many more containers coming in that
Speaker 1: are getting picked up and taken out, and so you
Speaker 1: can understand how that begins to back things up. And
Speaker 1: so one of our railroads had over twenty intermodal trains.
Speaker 1: So think about that. That's twenty trains with approximately we'll
Speaker 1: call it or take two containers on it. So what
Speaker 1: is that for thousand containers sitting outside the Chicago terminal
Speaker 1: waiting to get into the yard to unload, but can't
Speaker 1: do so because the outdates aren't aren't being picked up,
Speaker 1: so local trucking isn't able to um able to get
Speaker 1: that out. That just goes to show you how quickly
Speaker 1: things can start backing up. I know they've made significant
Speaker 1: progress and driving the number of trains waiting down, but
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of akin to the boat's waiting. The
Speaker 1: ship's waiting off the coast of the ports of l
Speaker 1: A and Long Beach, and that causes conververberating effects because
Speaker 1: when you have trains sitting waiting to get into the yard,
Speaker 1: those are trains that should be unloading and should be
Speaker 1: on their way back to the West coast ports, but
Speaker 1: can't because our our partners in the supply chain are
Speaker 1: shipping partners don't have the capacity or ability to to
Speaker 1: pick up the containers and get them out of the
Speaker 1: yard to create the space needed to unload. And so
Speaker 1: it's kind of a it's seven operation for the railroads,
Speaker 1: and any part of that that that gums up that
Speaker 1: seven operations starts to have reverberate and consequences back to
Speaker 1: the network. Just that stat is extremely useful in striking
Speaker 1: how much of that capacity constraint is it? Okay, with
Speaker 1: with I don't know what the term is. I mean
Speaker 1: with ships they talk about, Okay, how many births there
Speaker 1: are at the port at any given time. How much
Speaker 1: is it the sort of like physical space to unload
Speaker 1: or load a given uh, twenty cars uh? And how
Speaker 1: much versus how much is it uh the labor And
Speaker 1: how much is a labor itself contributing to some of
Speaker 1: the constraints and the slowness of these turnaround time? So
Speaker 1: I would I would say it's a combination depending on
Speaker 1: where you are. There are certain situations where railroads are
Speaker 1: highering additional employees, going through the process of highering additional employees,
Speaker 1: but there are variety of other situations where where manpower
Speaker 1: employee numbers are are not the issue in the least.
Speaker 1: And what we're seeing again is so so if it's
Speaker 1: a labor issue, it might be a shorthaul trucker shortage issue,
Speaker 1: or it might be a warehouse worker issue. Um again,
Speaker 1: because if there are breakdowns and those pieces of supply
Speaker 1: chain that directly impacts the ability of a shipp or
Speaker 1: to to get their goods, get their boxes out of
Speaker 1: the yard, to create space for additional boxes, and so
Speaker 1: I can tell you railroads have taken a number of
Speaker 1: steps that are far out of the norm than they
Speaker 1: normally would, which is literally creating additional capacity within their yards,
Speaker 1: paving over tracks in certain areas to allow for additional
Speaker 1: storage for containers, opening up long dormant intermodal facilities that
Speaker 1: haven't been used for quite some time to allow for
Speaker 1: additional capacity. And so we feel like we're we're taking
Speaker 1: numerous steps, and really we just need the system to
Speaker 1: flow um. Again, we're bringing in trains of inter total
Speaker 1: equipment seven so seven days a week that x time
Speaker 1: throughout each day they're intermodal trains arriving that need to
Speaker 1: be unloaded. And some of our our partners don't work
Speaker 1: in seven operation the last mile service. I think when
Speaker 1: you look at the data when our yards, our railroads
Speaker 1: look at the data in their yards, the volume of
Speaker 1: pickups aka the outgate and I was talking about drops
Speaker 1: pretty dramatically later in the day, and drops pretty dramatically
Speaker 1: over the weekend, and then starts to pick back up
Speaker 1: in the beginning of the week. And of course the
Speaker 1: challenges that the trains keep coming in during all of
Speaker 1: that time, and so railroads are taking a number of
Speaker 1: operational steps as well to try to alleviate that. Are
Speaker 1: offering incentives to our shipping partners to to come get
Speaker 1: their goods on the weekend as well, just to keep
Speaker 1: that throughput going and just to keep the spick it on,
Speaker 1: so to speak, so that we can keep bringing things
Speaker 1: in pushing them out into the communities where there where
Speaker 1: the demand is so strong right now, So it's a combination.
Speaker 1: So do you maybe go back to the that point
Speaker 1: that you briefly raised earlier about where rail actually sits
Speaker 1: in the wider supply or transport chain. So my understanding is,
Speaker 1: you know, stuff comes in through the ports, then it
Speaker 1: gets loaded onto rails, and basically if it's heading to
Speaker 1: you know, the other side of the country or the interior,
Speaker 1: it's going to have to travel through rail, and it's
Speaker 1: probably going to have to travel through a limited number
Speaker 1: of hubs like Chicago and you know, maybe Kansas or
Speaker 1: Memphis or something like that. So I guess my question is,
Speaker 1: you know, where does rail sit in the broader supply chain?
Speaker 1: But also are there always going to be choke points
Speaker 1: of some sort given that goods have to travel through
Speaker 1: a limited number of hubs. So let's talk about So
Speaker 1: right now we're just talking about this, this intermodal traffic,
Speaker 1: this container traffic, and I think we need to take
Speaker 1: a step back and look at rail's role in the
Speaker 1: kind of the overarching economy. And it's important to remember
Speaker 1: that that rail is moving the goods economy, the tangible economy.
Speaker 1: So whether it's industrial products, whether it's agriculture products of
Speaker 1: all kinds, whether it's chemicals, whether it's automotive automobiles, rail
Speaker 1: news about finished automobiles, not to mention very high percentage
Speaker 1: of a lot of the components to go into automotives
Speaker 1: during the during the manufacturing process. Of course, going back
Speaker 1: to the challenges we're seen in the semi conductor area,
Speaker 1: they're impacting that and then intermodal covers. At this point,
Speaker 1: probably about half of rail traffic UM. That has changed
Speaker 1: over the years. Coal used to amount for approximately of
Speaker 1: all rail traffic. I would say, you know, societal shifts,
Speaker 1: market shifts have dramatically reduced that. But what we've what
Speaker 1: we've grown in place of that is this explosive growth
Speaker 1: in in consumer goods and container traffic. So railroads are
Speaker 1: are managing all of those different types of UH of
Speaker 1: products that they're moving through their pipelines at any given time,
Speaker 1: and those different types of products need to be moved
Speaker 1: at different levels of pace based on customer demands. So
Speaker 1: there are certain commodities that that can move at a
Speaker 1: more measured pace, but your your premium products, or your
Speaker 1: innomodal traffic, your your UPS traffic. UPS is the largest
Speaker 1: customer for the rail industry at large UM. That stuff
Speaker 1: needs to move very quickly, and so railroads have designed
Speaker 1: their networks to to allow for the staggering of different,
Speaker 1: different speed of traffic that's required to meet customers needs.
Speaker 1: And so you hit on, you know, the relatively limited
Speaker 1: number of major gateways that that rail traffic needs to
Speaker 1: flow to, and I would say that's what we're primary
Speaker 1: talking about, that traffic that again comes from the West
Speaker 1: coast and needs to disperse in the middle of the country.
Speaker 1: And so you mentioned Chicago, we talked about Kansas City, Memphis,
Speaker 1: New Orleans, St. Louis. Those are the main ones that
Speaker 1: come to mind. I can tell you that that our
Speaker 1: railroads have built out over the years very efficient systems
Speaker 1: that allow for a very speedy movement of goods from
Speaker 1: the West coast into these gateways. And they're designed as
Speaker 1: such because those gateways are the ones that have the
Speaker 1: terminal capacity to to sort, shift and rebuild trains as
Speaker 1: needed to hand off to the eastern partners or you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're not even talking about the East coast, but
Speaker 1: we have a similar situation, uh inverse situation coming from
Speaker 1: the East coast going going western into the heartland as well.
Speaker 1: But I can tell you that these networks have been
Speaker 1: designed in a very methodical and very intentional way to
Speaker 1: allow for a very efficient movement of interline traffic into
Speaker 1: the middle of the country where it can then get
Speaker 1: dispersed as needed um to its final destination. So obviously
Speaker 1: we are in the middle of some sort of negotiations
Speaker 1: going on in Washington, d C. Although they seem to
Speaker 1: be very muddled right now about that's a kind way
Speaker 1: of putting it, to put it, to put it mildly
Speaker 1: about infrastructure and rail and theory. And I'm sure is
Speaker 1: you're hoping for is a part of that. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting timing because we're talking about constraints on
Speaker 1: the economy due to supply side disruption, and every form
Speaker 1: of transportation of goods is experiencing bottlenecks and so forth.
Speaker 1: What more could be done? You know, obviously, I'm sure
Speaker 1: your industry would like a plenty of money to build
Speaker 1: out rail systems, but from a realistic, uh standpoint, what
Speaker 1: more could be done in a more functional political system
Speaker 1: to build out rail side capacity in a way that
Speaker 1: would be productive for the nation. So, Joe, I'm really
Speaker 1: glad you you brought up the investment side of things,
Speaker 1: in the infrastructure side of things, because one one fact
Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't necessarily realize is that
Speaker 1: our freight rail system is almost entirely privately owned and
Speaker 1: financed in the US. So what does that mean. That
Speaker 1: means our railroads are investing about twenty five billion dollars
Speaker 1: of their own cash back into their networks every year,
Speaker 1: which has resulted in and this isn't me talking, this
Speaker 1: is this is others. This is straight up fact. We
Speaker 1: have the freight rail system that's the en via the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. It's the most efficient, safest, most
Speaker 1: advanced rail system, freight rail system in the in the
Speaker 1: entire world. And so you juxtapose that against um the
Speaker 1: other types of infrastructure, other types of surface transportation infrastructure
Speaker 1: we have in this country, you know, the the interstate
Speaker 1: highway system, which is at this point at least fift
Speaker 1: subsidized by by general taxpayer funds. I think we've hit
Speaker 1: about a hundred forty billion dollars in general fund transfers
Speaker 1: to support that, a system that was historically supported by
Speaker 1: by user fees, a lot of gas tax and other fees.
Speaker 1: We've gotten away from that. We need to get back
Speaker 1: to that. Users of infrastructure need to pay for that.
Speaker 1: You look at our ports again, largely publicly funded, I
Speaker 1: would argue, I would bet that the folks you've talked
Speaker 1: to in the port industry would say dramatically underfunded. Their
Speaker 1: significant investment needed there to increase efficiency, make use of
Speaker 1: technology to allow for a more efficient throughput of goods,
Speaker 1: and so Rail. When we look at infrastructure legislation, we
Speaker 1: take a little bit of a different point of view. Yes,
Speaker 1: agree that we need robust public investment into the nation's
Speaker 1: public infrastructure because if rail is gonna function, we're seeing
Speaker 1: this right now, If rail is gonna function at its
Speaker 1: highest level, we need a healthy integrated supply chain, a
Speaker 1: healthy integrated transportation network. So that includes sports, that includes
Speaker 1: translate facilities, that includes are high ways. Again, we'd love
Speaker 1: for our chucking partners to have to pay for the
Speaker 1: infrastructure they operate over. But you know that that's probably
Speaker 1: a debate for another day. But Rail is looking at
Speaker 1: infrastructure legislation more as a vehicle to take advantage of
Speaker 1: our environmental performance, take advantage of our safety performance, take
Speaker 1: advantage of our inherently efficient operations, and really making sure
Speaker 1: that we create a framework, whether it's a legislative framework,
Speaker 1: or a regulatory framework that allows rail to one earn
Speaker 1: the revenues necessary to invest back into the system to
Speaker 1: meet current demand and future demand, because freight demand is
Speaker 1: only going to grow in this country. But two also
Speaker 1: allows us to innovate our operating models, to deploy new
Speaker 1: technologies to create an even more efficient system with the
Speaker 1: infrastructure we have, while also maximizing safety. And so to
Speaker 1: your to your second the second part of your question,
Speaker 1: what can rail do in a We have a hundred
Speaker 1: and forty seven thousand miles of rail infrastructure in the country.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's any secret that standing up a
Speaker 1: massive new freight railroad is probably uh not something you
Speaker 1: should expect anytime soon, given the challenges and getting right
Speaker 1: of way, etcetera. But railroads can make the investment within
Speaker 1: the right of way to maximize throughputs. So what does
Speaker 1: that mean? That that means adding second, third, in some
Speaker 1: instances even fourth lines of of rail on the rights
Speaker 1: of way. It means extending sidings to allow for temporary
Speaker 1: parking of trains to allow those premium trains that need
Speaker 1: to get through the space they need to get through.
Speaker 1: It means investing in our intermodal yards to to deploy
Speaker 1: new technologies increase automation that allows for a safer, more
Speaker 1: efficient throughput of goods. So between technologies, between maximizing the
Speaker 1: infrastructure we have and expanding within our our rights of way,
Speaker 1: you know, we have the ability to move the amount
Speaker 1: of traffic that's demanded. And quite frankly, all of our
Speaker 1: railroads are looking to grow the volumes that we're moving
Speaker 1: because it's good for good for the highways, it's good
Speaker 1: for the public, it's good for the environment, and it's
Speaker 1: good for business. So you know, that's the focus right now.
Speaker 1: So in the interim when um, you know it is
Speaker 1: very crowded on the railways, there's all this congestion. People
Speaker 1: are trying to manage it as best as they can. Um,
Speaker 1: how do the rail companies actually a portion capacity? So
Speaker 1: one thing we learned from our shipping episodes is that like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily come down to whoever is willing to
Speaker 1: pay the highest rate. It might come down to connections
Speaker 1: or whether or not you're a big customer like a
Speaker 1: Walmart or an Ikea or something like that of a
Speaker 1: shipping company. And I'm wondering if it's a similar deal
Speaker 1: when it comes to rail So you know, I can't
Speaker 1: speak for each individual railroads marketing or decision making for
Speaker 1: how it determines which traffic is going to move, but
Speaker 1: I think overall the system is designed to to move
Speaker 1: the most traffic in the least amount of time, with
Speaker 1: an emphasis put on that track fix that is paying
Speaker 1: for this premium more just in time type service. Again,
Speaker 1: you know, there are their industrial products. You know, gravel
Speaker 1: for example, does not normally need to move at the
Speaker 1: same pace as a train full of ups packages, and
Speaker 1: so the system needs to be designed to meet those
Speaker 1: customers needs or they're going to look elsewhere to move
Speaker 1: their goods and that's the last thing we want as
Speaker 1: our industry. And so again I would just I would
Speaker 1: have to point to each individual railroad and how they
Speaker 1: manage that process. But at a at a macro level,
Speaker 1: that's that's how things get from point at point B.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned the possibility of customers moving elsewhere. Is
Speaker 1: that something that you've seen over the past year or two. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, given the situation, are there some people who
Speaker 1: just don't want to wait for railway capacity to get
Speaker 1: freed up and maybe they switched to something like trucking well,
Speaker 1: so I think the intermodal freight market by its very nature,
Speaker 1: by its very name, it is hyper hyper competitive. You know.
Speaker 1: That is that that traffic that can flow on either
Speaker 1: trucks or can flow on trains, and whether it's coming
Speaker 1: out of the ports or domestically between points in the US,
Speaker 1: you know, the customer is very real options and it
Speaker 1: could be you know, it could be rail to rail competition,
Speaker 1: it could be rail to truck competition, it could be
Speaker 1: choosing the you know, potentially the port you want to
Speaker 1: go into to to use a different type of a
Speaker 1: different form of transportation as well. And so absolutely, if
Speaker 1: if a railroad isn't providing good service, you know that
Speaker 1: business is going to go elsewhere. And when you look
Speaker 1: at the fact that rail has grown its intermodal offerings
Speaker 1: to again about fift of overall rail traffic in today's mix,
Speaker 1: that shows you that rail is doing a continuously better
Speaker 1: job at providing a product that is appealing to to
Speaker 1: that customer that that has a wide variety of options again,
Speaker 1: whether it's another railroad, whether it's any number of trucking
Speaker 1: companies out there, and so railroads have done a good
Speaker 1: job in getting much more predictable in their deliveries, decreasing
Speaker 1: the time it takes to make a delivery, and really
Speaker 1: shrinking the distance where rail can be viable. I think
Speaker 1: the general cut off used to be a goods movement
Speaker 1: had to be at a minimum five hundred miles in
Speaker 1: order for for rail to to ever be competitive. And
Speaker 1: I can tell you there are many instances around the
Speaker 1: country where due to operational changes, due to increased efficiency,
Speaker 1: rail can compete down south of that fund five mile
Speaker 1: number UM, sometimes significantly down south. And again that's just
Speaker 1: that's just the class one railroads. We have several hundred
Speaker 1: regional and what are known as short line railroads around
Speaker 1: the country as well, and on any given they they are,
Speaker 1: they're out there working to to win traffic over as well.
Speaker 1: So the freight mar market is UH is vibrant and hot,
Speaker 1: and freight's gonna go where the price is right and
Speaker 1: where the services. I wanna pivot just a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know. And Tracy and I started UM this series.
Speaker 1: Obviously the context was pandemic related disruptions, and of course
Speaker 1: that is still the overarching context, and basically everyone has
Speaker 1: been affected. Another phenomenon this year that certainly hasn't helped
Speaker 1: has been the rise of extreme weather, and whether it's
Speaker 1: associated with specific climate change or not doesn't change the
Speaker 1: fact that, you know, numerous stories have been written about
Speaker 1: rail lines being affected by whether it's flooding, the fires
Speaker 1: in California and so forth, fires in Canada, lingering effects
Speaker 1: from the hurricanes Hurricane Ida. I'm curious, like how much
Speaker 1: you think, how much of you're thinking about the future
Speaker 1: of the industry is based on anticipation of more extreme
Speaker 1: weather events, and how you're thinking about mitigating against some
Speaker 1: of those effects. Oh. Absolutely, I mean, you're you're spot
Speaker 1: on with with everything you just hit on in the
Speaker 1: impacts it's had on rail operations, whether the Western fires
Speaker 1: specifically in certain parts of California, the Gulf Coast again,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's almost predictable that they're going to
Speaker 1: be extreme weather events every year at this point, and
Speaker 1: in rail you know, we we've got to adjust for that.
Speaker 1: So you can do that a variety of different ways.
Speaker 1: You can do that by making your infrastructure more resilient.
Speaker 1: And so what does that mean. It means in low
Speaker 1: lying areas and the Gulf you're probably increasing the height
Speaker 1: of the rail, increasing the ballast so that you can
Speaker 1: withstand a decent amount of standing water. You know, out
Speaker 1: west with the fires, it's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: trickier situation, but a lot of it is having alternative
Speaker 1: routing plans in place. It's having partnerships in place that
Speaker 1: allow you if you're if your line is damaged via
Speaker 1: via fire, you have interline agreements or interchange agreements with
Speaker 1: other railroads that allow you to temper rarely move your
Speaker 1: goods over their tracks and vice versa. I know, one
Speaker 1: of our biggest railroads out west had a bridge burned
Speaker 1: down on it's one of its main lines. And while
Speaker 1: they were able to miraculously rebuild the bridge and I
Speaker 1: believe three weeks and have it back up and running,
Speaker 1: which is a stunning feed of engineering in and of itself,
Speaker 1: goods had to keep moving during that time. So alternate
Speaker 1: arrangements have to be made. And so I can tell
Speaker 1: you that it is absolutely called it climate change, called
Speaker 1: you know, anticipated increased number of extreme weather events, absolutely
Speaker 1: being built into strategic planning, absolutely being built into how
Speaker 1: we're maintaining our infrastructure, how we're planning our our networks.
Speaker 1: And it's just a reality that we're all going to
Speaker 1: have to contend with. Now, I suppose on the positive side,
Speaker 1: if we're looking to address climate change, rails environmental performance
Speaker 1: far exceeds any other form of service insptation when it
Speaker 1: comes to admissions, uh, when it comes to fuel use,
Speaker 1: it um when it comes to overall environmental impact. And
Speaker 1: so you know, our customers are cognizant of that Rail
Speaker 1: can play a role in helping customers meet their overall
Speaker 1: environmental targets or emissions targets. But Rail, all the Class
Speaker 1: one railroads have all committed to significantly reducing their emissions
Speaker 1: as well over the next several years and are using
Speaker 1: a variety of technologies to decrease fuel use. It's decrease emissions.
Speaker 1: We're exploring the use of battery electric locomotives, use of
Speaker 1: hydrogen locomotives, biofuels, renewable fuels, um all. You know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of an all hands on deck because we're going
Speaker 1: to play a role in helping reduce the countries or
Speaker 1: those globes emissions and helping our customers reduce emissions, which
Speaker 1: you know, to come full circle hopefully, if if society
Speaker 1: can can achieve the overall goals. Maybe we can make
Speaker 1: a make an impact in on the extreme weather side
Speaker 1: as well, but in the meantime, resiliency is absolutely key.
Speaker 1: I have a slightly weird question, but is there any
Speaker 1: way that extreme weather and specifically drought might actually UM
Speaker 1: benefit rail. And the reason I'm asking is because I
Speaker 1: remember reading one story UM that said Valet was transporting
Speaker 1: more iron ore by rail because of lower river levels.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if if there are situations where it
Speaker 1: could be a good thing for for the rail business.
Speaker 1: So I will say that rail is generally the most
Speaker 1: resilient form of transportation when it comes to extreme weather events.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know the infrastructure burning down notwithstanding, but you know,
Speaker 1: after a hurricane, for example, rail is usually the first
Speaker 1: form of of infrastructure backup in operation. UM after Hurricane Katrina,
Speaker 1: and a rail for quite some time was the only
Speaker 1: way to get goods into the New Orleans region. And
Speaker 1: so I would say that is all very temporary. Now
Speaker 1: when you're talking about you know, moving more iron because
Speaker 1: water levels have gotten low, we have the ability to
Speaker 1: to get up and running more quickly than most and
Speaker 1: we'll take advantage of that. But you know, in the example,
Speaker 1: you brought up. I could see a situation where we're
Speaker 1: providing better service, maybe we're providing a better rate, and um,
Speaker 1: you end up winning business out of that shirt. A
Speaker 1: lot of people maybe they don't pay attention to how
Speaker 1: the business of rail has done, but it's actually done
Speaker 1: like phenomenally well. And if you already just go on
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg terminal right now and you were to pull
Speaker 1: up a chart of you say Union Pacific and zoom
Speaker 1: it out, it looks like an Internet stock. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just over the last years or whatever. It's incredible.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the case with a number of
Speaker 1: these for people who don't know what the story is.
Speaker 1: And I would admit when I say people who don't know,
Speaker 1: I include that myself. But I pretend that I don't
Speaker 1: what is this story? Like? Why is it? You know,
Speaker 1: twenty years ago rail is not thought to be like
Speaker 1: this particularly exciting booming business and years later they just
Speaker 1: haded just these like massive, massive industry success stories that
Speaker 1: have made investors a ton of money. So I'll do
Speaker 1: you one better. I want to only go twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: I'll go back forty years even even one. So in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty what's known as the Staggers Rail Act took
Speaker 1: what was a highly regulated, highly heavy handed government federal
Speaker 1: government interventionist regulatory regime and partially deregulated the rail industry.
Speaker 1: And at the time, at that time, approximately twenty five
Speaker 1: of railroads were interfacing bankruptcy. The infrastructure was in decrepit shape.
Speaker 1: The industry quite frankly, was on the verge of collapse overall, literally.
Speaker 1: And so what what the Staggers Act did. It freed
Speaker 1: up railroads to to operate in markets, to charge market rates,
Speaker 1: to rationalize their networks. In other words, that the government
Speaker 1: used to force railroads to operate networks, whether the partner lines,
Speaker 1: whether there was traffic moving on it or not, whether
Speaker 1: there was any ability to ever earn any sort of
Speaker 1: return on your investment or profit based on that particular line.
Speaker 1: And the Staggers Act bit freed railroads to act as
Speaker 1: as normal companies in markets. And what that did is
Speaker 1: a few different things. One, it allowed them that efficiency
Speaker 1: increased dramatically. Prices actually dropped dramatically. Today when adjusted for inflation,
Speaker 1: rail rates writ large or about forty less than they
Speaker 1: were in nineteen eighty, and revenues increased and so it
Speaker 1: took about twenty years for rail to really hit its stride.
Speaker 1: So when you're when you're using that twenty number, I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, it took about twenty years for
Speaker 1: for rail to to really start to realize the benefits
Speaker 1: of staggers. And in the past twenty years Rail has
Speaker 1: been able to to really spring forward in a very
Speaker 1: positive way. So you know, we're moving colossal amounts of goods,
Speaker 1: we're doing it in a very efficient manner, we're maintaining
Speaker 1: our own infrastructure, and we're charging rates that are dramatically
Speaker 1: less than they were before the regulation. So on rates,
Speaker 1: and this is something that I find to be an
Speaker 1: important thing to learn about with every one of these discussions,
Speaker 1: which is market power. And you know, we talked about trucking,
Speaker 1: and I think I forget the stat exactly, but something
Speaker 1: like you know, in the trucking world, by the time
Speaker 1: you start a podcast and finish the recording, like ten
Speaker 1: tho new trucking companies have been formed in that hour
Speaker 1: or that. That's only a slight exaggeration. And so there
Speaker 1: is not a lot of especially during the busts, there
Speaker 1: is not a lot of pricing power. Then you get
Speaker 1: the massive bankruptcy ways. You know, I'm looking at this
Speaker 1: chart here someone sent to me a company like Norfolk Southern.
Speaker 1: Is the consolidation seven companies event over time became what
Speaker 1: is currently known as Norfolk Southern Union Pacific. It looks
Speaker 1: like it's like thirteen different companies. Over time, various mergers
Speaker 1: became what is now known as Union Pacific. Why has
Speaker 1: it been the case such that over the last forty
Speaker 1: or fifty years, despite this massive consolidation we've you would
Speaker 1: not expect to see more competitive pricing. You would expect
Speaker 1: the handful of big rail players Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union
Speaker 1: Pacific and bing An SF to enjoy incredible pricing power
Speaker 1: because competition is very alive, real and well, um, you
Speaker 1: know you mentioned some of the mergers that created some
Speaker 1: of the bigger railroads today. Well, a lot of that
Speaker 1: is there were too many railroads back you know, several
Speaker 1: decades ago. There were too many for for the economy
Speaker 1: to to support. And so by by the mergers and
Speaker 1: acquisitions that have historically occurred, you've you've allowed rail too.
Speaker 1: You have your you know, your your primary rail lines
Speaker 1: throughout the country again that have been made much more
Speaker 1: efficient infrastructures dramatically improved over the years. But then you
Speaker 1: have this entire economy of regional and short line railroads
Speaker 1: that are called, for lack of a better term, the
Speaker 1: feeder railroads to to the bigger guys. And so you've
Speaker 1: the the economy and the regulatory structure has allowed for
Speaker 1: rail to to rationalize itself, which is inherently you have
Speaker 1: a smaller number of very large carriers, a significantly higher
Speaker 1: number of regional and smaller carriers that all can that
Speaker 1: can all excel at what they do. And so rail
Speaker 1: rail competition is very real, very live and well. Intermodal competition,
Speaker 1: as we've discussed, is even more alive and well. But
Speaker 1: there are other types of competition, whether it's a geocratic
Speaker 1: geographic competition, a company choosing to to cite a facility
Speaker 1: one place over the other, product competition. No better example
Speaker 1: of product competition than natural gas almost entirely replacing coal
Speaker 1: as a fuel source or not that's an overstatement, but
Speaker 1: dramatically eating into two coal share being a fuel source.
Speaker 1: And so all of those issues have allowed for the
Speaker 1: market to maintain itself in a very healthy way, and
Speaker 1: on top of that, as a backstop we have we
Speaker 1: have an economic regulator, the Surface Transportation Board, which is
Speaker 1: a backstop for shippers who feel that they may not
Speaker 1: be being charged reasonable rates and they can appeal to
Speaker 1: the Surface Transportation Board, who's an adjudicator there. So you
Speaker 1: do have that regulatory backstop that is a an outlet
Speaker 1: for for shippers that do have concerns about about the
Speaker 1: rates are being charged. So overall, that's created a very
Speaker 1: healthy ecosystem. And i'll just point out your your your
Speaker 1: comment about you know, the number of trucking companies going
Speaker 1: in and out of business at any other any time.
Speaker 1: You know, one thing I'm really proud of over the
Speaker 1: pandemic is that because of the healthy capitalization of our companies,
Speaker 1: we were fortunate that we did not have to go
Speaker 1: to Capitol Hill to ask for any sort of bailout.
Speaker 1: Are our members wrote it out on their own. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, our traffic, we didn't have the drop in
Speaker 1: traffic that our our airline friends did, for example, but
Speaker 1: we still about a thirty percent drop in traffic at
Speaker 1: the at the trough um during the pandemic. And it
Speaker 1: is that that history and that that ecosystem that we've
Speaker 1: discussed that allowed rail to to ride it out with
Speaker 1: without getting that that financial aid from the government. So
Speaker 1: I want to go back to where we started the
Speaker 1: conversation with the congestion issues. What's your sense of how
Speaker 1: long this might actually go on for and what's it
Speaker 1: going to take to get an improvement. Based on comments
Speaker 1: that some of our executives have made, and certainly folks
Speaker 1: in other parts of the supply chain, I think most
Speaker 1: folks think that these volumes or some of these constraints
Speaker 1: will last into the new year, potentially through Q one,
Speaker 1: if not into Q two. And that's again just based
Speaker 1: on public comments i've seen. How are we going to
Speaker 1: get out of this. We're going to get out of
Speaker 1: it by every part of the supply chain operating at
Speaker 1: a high level of efficiency and a high level of optimization.
Speaker 1: And so again I talked about Rails seven way of
Speaker 1: doing business. Um, the ports don't operate like that now.
Speaker 1: I did see news recently that some of the West
Speaker 1: Coast ports are going to be expanding hours m for
Speaker 1: for longshoreman shifts, are gonna be expanding hours for truck pickup,
Speaker 1: which is a good sign. It's a good step forward,
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll see what sort of impact that has
Speaker 1: on the on the other side of the supply chain.
Speaker 1: This this last mile delivery. As we talked about the
Speaker 1: shippers getting their goods out of the intermodal yards to
Speaker 1: allow for for throughput to continue, you know that that
Speaker 1: might be a much trickier issue because as it's a
Speaker 1: very localized challenge as far as drage trucker availability, as
Speaker 1: far as warehouse capacity warehouse worker. You go out to
Speaker 1: Chicago Land right now, the millions of square feet of warehouses,
Speaker 1: practically every one of them has a four higher sign.
Speaker 1: You go to some of those warehouses which are completely
Speaker 1: full and they're storing containers on chassiss in their parking lots.
Speaker 1: So what what's the problem with that, Well, that's taking
Speaker 1: up a chassis that could be brought back to the
Speaker 1: innermodal yard, picking up another container and getting it out
Speaker 1: of the yard. So until we can work through some
Speaker 1: of these issues and smaller parts of the supply chain,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's going to be a challenge
Speaker 1: for us to hit max capacity and max efficiency, and
Speaker 1: it's something we need to do because you know, on
Speaker 1: the bright side, the economy, the consumer continues to seem
Speaker 1: to have cash to spend, and you know, hopefully we
Speaker 1: can keep this strong demand going for a while. We
Speaker 1: just need to be able to support it as a
Speaker 1: as an overall supply chain and as an economy. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about hiring right now at
Speaker 1: at the rail companies? I mean, every industry seems to
Speaker 1: be having trouble hiring. Rail jobs I think are considered
Speaker 1: to be pretty good jobs. Union jobs. They seem to
Speaker 1: be less physically taxing, less stressful on families than say,
Speaker 1: truck truck driving jobs, which sounds extremely difficult from a
Speaker 1: lifestyle perspective. Can you talk about a bit about where
Speaker 1: the industry is in terms of its staff and goals? Sure? So,
Speaker 1: one you you hit on a few key points. We
Speaker 1: are almost an entirely collectively bargained industry and have very
Speaker 1: productive work in relationships with our unions. Average wages and
Speaker 1: compensation for a rail worker or roughly one dollars, So
Speaker 1: these are these are very good paying jobs in the
Speaker 1: in the manufacturing slash industrial sector specifically. Um that's why
Speaker 1: you have more multi generations working in rail. There are
Speaker 1: areas where railroads are looking to hire, and there are
Speaker 1: areas where you know where staffing levels are or where
Speaker 1: we want them to be. And yeah, I mean you
Speaker 1: hit the nail on the head that I think every
Speaker 1: industry is trying to bring people on board right now,
Speaker 1: and and railroading, Look, it's a challenging job. It's a
Speaker 1: seven operation, it's a hundred forty forty seven thousand mile
Speaker 1: outdoor factory floor. Um, so it takes a certain type
Speaker 1: of person who has that interest. But I think on
Speaker 1: the bright side, we've seen once people get into the industry,
Speaker 1: they stay in the industry because it is it's a
Speaker 1: it's a highly compensating industry. You see what you're doing,
Speaker 1: it's very tangible. You're literally moving the economy. And so
Speaker 1: while there may be some temporary challenges and pockets around
Speaker 1: the country, you know we'll work through that. And railroads
Speaker 1: and railroading always has been and always will be a
Speaker 1: really good place to work in a place where somebody
Speaker 1: can earn a living and support their family. And so
Speaker 1: that attraction at the end of the day is going
Speaker 1: to be what keeps us having the high quality people
Speaker 1: we have out on the railroad. You know, you're thinking
Speaker 1: about disruption, and there are people who fantasize and more
Speaker 1: than just fantasized are actively working on the idea of
Speaker 1: one day fleets of self driving trucks, and of course
Speaker 1: self driving trucks would be more efficient than normal trucks
Speaker 1: and presumably could have a lot of competitiveness with rail itself.
Speaker 1: What's your thoughts sort of like out there technologies twenty
Speaker 1: that I don't know, maybe ten twenty years from now? Uh,
Speaker 1: do you keep tabs on these? Do you worry about them?
Speaker 1: Could that be something that in the medium to long
Speaker 1: term of the industry is a becomes a meaningful threat. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely competitive issue. I think you know, they're almost
Speaker 1: as many autonomous trucking companies that start up every every
Speaker 1: day as other trucking companies. But look that that is
Speaker 1: a huge focus. Um, you're seeing progress in the trucking industry.
Speaker 1: It's not going to happen tomorrow, but it is. It
Speaker 1: is something that's mid term, I would say, and railroad's
Speaker 1: got to compete with that. Now, when you think about
Speaker 1: autonomous technology, railroads operate on a fixed guideway and a
Speaker 1: largely closed network. You know, a truck on the highways
Speaker 1: interacting with motorists at every direction. A railroad other than
Speaker 1: you know, going across UH at Great Crossings is really
Speaker 1: not interacting with the public, and so to US, rail
Speaker 1: is a very natural place for automated technologies, and we
Speaker 1: just at the end of last year recently completed a
Speaker 1: nationwide build out of a technology called positive train Control,
Speaker 1: which really is an automated system that that will override
Speaker 1: the the engineer um if he or she breaks work rules,
Speaker 1: that will automatically stop the train for for overspeed or
Speaker 1: incursion into to work areas. Things along those lines. We've
Speaker 1: also been deploying technology that acts as almost a cruise
Speaker 1: control or fuel management system on the locomotive as well,
Speaker 1: so it's maximizing the fuel efficiency throughout the trip. And
Speaker 1: so you pair that with the number of other either
Speaker 1: on train or on track technologies that Rail has deployed
Speaker 1: or is deploying, and we're at a position where you know,
Speaker 1: the train is moving in a highly automated state already,
Speaker 1: and so we're fully prepared to engage in that battle.
Speaker 1: The important thing for US is that we need the
Speaker 1: federal government, whether it's the legislature or whether it's the
Speaker 1: Department of Transportation, to allow trucking and rail to operate
Speaker 1: on equal footing. When it comes to technology deployment, automated technologies, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And you can imagine, you know, we have some folks
Speaker 1: who have a vested interest in making sure that the
Speaker 1: number of employees on a on a train is held
Speaker 1: constant regardless of the technological advancements. And we think there
Speaker 1: needs to be some flexibility there because technology is only
Speaker 1: moving forward, not only in the rail and trucking industry,
Speaker 1: in every industry around the economy, and we need regulations
Speaker 1: and rule is that allow for that to happen, because
Speaker 1: not only are their business benefits there dramatic safety benefits
Speaker 1: as well, and that should be the focus of everybody.
Speaker 1: Ian Jefferies, thank you so much for coming on. I
Speaker 1: learned a ton about the real industry from you and
Speaker 1: really appreciate you coming on outline. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. Thanks you sure, Yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 1: Thanks you so. Tracy, you asked, well, you know what
Speaker 1: was probably like the most important question, which is like, okay,
Speaker 1: when is this all going to ease? And you know
Speaker 1: we've been asking, we've been asking some version of that
Speaker 1: question out for like six months. I would say, if
Speaker 1: not longer, Yeah, I feel like everyone is sort of
Speaker 1: settling on this after the lunar New Year kind of idea,
Speaker 1: like that seems to be the consensus, like after early
Speaker 1: next year, hopefully things will start to ease. So I
Speaker 1: guess we should like mark that in our diaries that
Speaker 1: if if things don't seem to be improving shortly after
Speaker 1: early February, then uh, we may have these problems for
Speaker 1: a long while. Yeah, let's mark that down as as
Speaker 1: a point where we could hope. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: like by and large, and every once in a while,
Speaker 1: I was like, there have been these tentative signs of easing,
Speaker 1: like there will be like a week where like the
Speaker 1: prices of shipping rates go down or the number of
Speaker 1: ships waiting in the l A Harbor go down, But
Speaker 1: by and large, things keep getting worse. And it's just
Speaker 1: so clear that like all of these different industries which
Speaker 1: intersect are compounding and lineately. Ian talked about sort of
Speaker 1: like the wait times that exist for the Royal Yards
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and that sounded so much like some of
Speaker 1: the things that Jeans Tarrocco was saying about some of
Speaker 1: their issues with getting the actual car containers back to
Speaker 1: ships in l A I just don't feel like I
Speaker 1: do think things will ease at some point, but I've
Speaker 1: like becoming more pessimistic. I guess I would say that
Speaker 1: there's like any sort of like natural mechanism for it
Speaker 1: to ease, because it's also like inter interlocked. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: well Ian touched on this as well. You get this
Speaker 1: sort of cascade effect, so you know, even talking about
Speaker 1: like one problem in one rail system is going to
Speaker 1: end up or in one part of the railway system
Speaker 1: is going to end up affecting all of it, but
Speaker 1: then a problem on the rail system itself is going
Speaker 1: to end up affecting what's going on at the ports
Speaker 1: or the barges um like Jeans spoke about earlier this summer,
Speaker 1: there's something also interesting about rails, and of course in
Speaker 1: is biased, but there's something interesting about rail as an
Speaker 1: industry that sort of seems to work very well from
Speaker 1: a sort of like public goods perspective, Like, okay, rail
Speaker 1: shareholders have done very well. We know that you look
Speaker 1: at the stocks. Rail employees seem to be doing well.
Speaker 1: It's a heavily unionized industry with a high level of pay.
Speaker 1: Rail customers seem to be doing well because despite the
Speaker 1: consolidation in the industry from dozens of different rail lines
Speaker 1: to really just four big national rail lines. According to Ian,
Speaker 1: you know, pricing power remains competitive. I feel like there're
Speaker 1: like must be some some lesson in there from like
Speaker 1: a regulatory perspective about how you can have an industry
Speaker 1: that I don't know, like it kind of seems like
Speaker 1: the various stakeholders of this customers, employees, and shareholders all
Speaker 1: seem to be doing well, and I'm trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what the catches. I'm sure there is one. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to compare and contrast the U S rail system
Speaker 1: with like the rail system in the UK, which maybe
Speaker 1: we should do a UK rail system episode at some point.
Speaker 1: Do you know I used to cover rail for Bloomberg
Speaker 1: in uh in London? I probably I think no, I
Speaker 1: thought I only knew you covered airlines. Yeah, I covered
Speaker 1: all transport. I did airlines, airports, cars and rail. But anyway, um,
Speaker 1: maybe we should do maybe we should branch out from
Speaker 1: our transport series and start doing transport around the world,
Speaker 1: not just different modes of transport, but you know rail
Speaker 1: in the US versus rail in the UK. Actually, you know,
Speaker 1: we really need to do soon is a European power episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. That's a good one. It's serious because
Speaker 1: it's like I keep reading about all this, like if
Speaker 1: the wind isn't blowing a natural gas prices, so let's
Speaker 1: get that on the agenda too. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there? All right?
Speaker 1: This has been another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway. And I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at the Stalwart. Follow our producer on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Laura Carlson. She's at Laura M. Carlson. Followed the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: head of podcast, Francesca Levi at Francesca Today, and check
Speaker 1: out all of our podcast at Bloomberg under the handle
Speaker 1: at podcasts. Thanks for listening.