What Happens When Bulk Rail Plans Actually Work

Such gains translate into tens of millions of additional tons moved every year, without laying a mile of new track, buying extra equipment, or adding locomotives. That’s harvest surges absorbed, coal flows stabilized, and export bottlenecks eased.  

I know because I’ve seen both sides of the industry. I spent 24 years working at Union Pacific, and years solving problems with tech.    

My current focus is to help bulk rail in North America achieve the same breakthroughs that have already transformed one of the world’s largest freight rail networks. In an industry where even a fraction of a percentage point can shift the playing field, the gains I’ve seen — gains of as much as 10 percent — are a competitive game changer.   

In North America, rail has always been the backbone of bulk commodity movement. Even today, more than half of U.S. rail carloads — 52 percent — consist of bulk shipments like coal, grain, chemicals, and fertilizers. These aren’t just commodities; they are the lifeblood of economies. In 2022, railroads moved 3.4 million carloads of coal, delivering about 70 percent of the nation’s coal supply to power plants, and 1.5 million carloads of grain, ensuring U.S. farmers could meet both domestic demand and export contracts.  

I’ve watched these flows up close. When they move smoothly, they anchor industries. When they falter, the ripple effects are immediate. Utilities idle generators. Elevators fill up. Exporters miss vessel slots and incur demurrage charges. Because of the quantities involved, these disruptions carry an outsized price.  

In agriculture, U.S. grain handlers lost over 100 million in a single quarter from rail service delays. Fertilizer Canada has warned that a national rail stoppage would cost the industry up to $45 million (C$63 million) per day.   

Every disruption erodes trust in rail as the default choice for bulk.  

Rail is the most efficient and sustainable way to move bulk freight. Rail accounts for only 2 percent of U.S. transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions while carrying about 40 percent of long-distance freight. It is also 18 times safer than large trucks in terms of injuries and fatalities.   

Despite these advantages, the industry has struggled to hold share. In 1970, Class I railroads moved around 600 billion ton-miles of freight; by 2015, that number reached 1.8 trillion. But volumes have since slipped, falling to about 1.4 trillion ton-miles in 2020. Trucks have been the winner: between 2017 and 2023, their share of tonnage grew by 3 percent while rail’s declined by 8 percent.  

In other words, rail’s innate advantages only matter if we deliver reliability.   

I’ve seen and I applaud the industry’s relentless focus on efficiency. I’ve also witnessed countless attempts that either under-delivered or damaged the industry with unintended consequences. Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) reshaped how Class I carriers operate, lowering operating ratios and squeezing more productivity out of every locomotive, railcar, and crew. It proved what was possible when the industry aligned around efficiency.  

On the other hand, PSR’s rigid schedules made it hard to adapt when conditions shifted — because of weather, sudden demand surges, or unexpected maintenance. Efficiency gains were real, but so were the frustrations of shippers left waiting.  

The lesson is clear: efficiency without adaptability is a dead end. The next stage of rail planning must combine both.  

That’s where mathematically precise, algorithm-driven planning comes in. Rail scheduling is a perfect candidate for this approach: every variable, constraint, and objective can be expressed as data. By applying industrial mathematics, scheduling solutions such as RACE Planner — developed by our team and in use across major bulk rail networks — millions of possible combinations can be searched to deliver the best plan. Not in days, but in hours, or even minutes.  

The process is transparent and deterministic, so you know exactly why a plan was chosen. And when circumstances change, you can quickly re-plan with confidence, finding the next-best option without scrambling to recover. Instead of hoping your plans will hold, you know they will. Every single time.  

And clarity matters, especially when plans involve so many moving pieces. Visual tools like Gantt charts and Marey diagrams provide at-a-glance understanding of timelines and network flows, as well as giving stakeholders a common picture. When everyone with permission and an internet connection can see the same plan, collaboration improves — and trust follows.   

Australia has the world’s fifth largest freight rail network by volume, moving 307 billion ton-miles per year. Bulk commodities — including mining, metal manufacturing, and agriculture — are among the top users. Mining dominates, spending AUD 1.5 billion (just under USD 1 billion) — three times more than the next-largest, all metal manufacturing industries combined.    

Australia also provides clear evidence that advanced planning technology not only recovers value long left on the table by inefficiency but also opens the door to new opportunities across the rail sector. Look at what mathematically optimized scheduling has achieved for the country’s coal industry alone: 

• Hunter Valley Coal Chain Coordinator (HVCCC) oversees activity along the world’s largest and most complex coal chain — consisting of 12 producers, 45 coal mines, 4 haulage providers operating 13 separate fleets (comprising 70 separate rail units), and three terminals — and exporting to customers around the globe. In any two-week period, the coal chain can load around 75 vessels serviced by over 1,000 separate rail journeys. Every day, RACE Planner automatically generates a synchronized rail schedule, cargo assembly plan, and vessel queue, ensuring the entire coal chain operates at maximum throughput.  
• Aurizon is Australia’s largest rail freight company and the world’s largest transporter of coal from mine to port. It owns and operates the Central Queensland Coal Network (CQCN), one of the largest coal rail systems in the world, where 5 operators compete for access to tracks while working to fulfil customer orders. Using advanced mathematical optimization through RACE Planner, Aurizon transformed its planning from a static weekly process to a dynamic daily rolling cycle. This shift enabled unprecedented terminal throughputs and faster coal velocities, while reducing planning times from days to hours — all while ensuring track capacity is allocated fairly and in line with competition laws.  
• Pacific National is Australia’s largest private freight rail company and the country’s leading provider of long-haul intermodal services. Its fleet includes more than 6,000 coal wagons and 600 locomotives, operating across seven coal chains on Australia’s east coast. To meet demanding customer contracts, Pacific National uses our advanced optimization to balance complex rail operations with ongoing maintenance activities — keeping services reliable and commitments intact.  

These are just a few examples of the measurable results that have led to wide adoption among Australia’s bulk rail companies, particularly those dealing in mining and agriculture. The results were so strong that the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) amended Aurizon system rules to embed an optimization requirement into the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) and support the participation of all network users to maximize overall efficiency and ensure Australia remains competitive.  

Skeptics on this side of the world often say: “Australia’s tracks are state-owned; North America is privately owned — conditions don’t compare.”  

Yes, countries are different, but so is each rail company. The best — in fact the only —planning solution must be highly customizable to provide that perfect fit, optimizing for your specific KPIs, working within your constraints, maximizing your assets.  

When it comes to proven planning solutions, it’s the similarities between the two countries that count. These include:  

• Massive geographic scale  
• Complex commodity flows (coal, grain, potash, iron ore, intermodal, etc.)  
• Harsh weather and climate disruptions (floods, wildfires, storms, etc.)  
• Dependence on ports, producers, and third-party supply chains  
• KPIs that prioritize throughput, reliability, safety, cost efficiency, etc.  

When you can generate and update plans using real-time data for maximum throughput, ownership structure matters less than operational complexity; what Australia has demonstrated is that RACE Planner’s algorithms can handle anything you can throw at them.  

Class I carriers in North America face persistent challenges that weaken their position in bulk freight. Too many still depend on legacy systems that slow planning and leave assets underutilized. Railroads pour billions into infrastructure, but those investments can’t always deliver full value when planning itself remains sub-optimal.  

Agility is another weak spot. When weather shifts, demand spikes, or maintenance disrupts schedules, most carriers struggle to adapt quickly. The result is costly inefficiency; trains delayed, capacity wasted, and revenue left on the table. Customers notice, and many have shifted loyalty to trucking in search of reliability, even when rail should be the better option.  

Mathematical optimization finds strengths hidden in those weaknesses. Evaluating every option and constraint ensures each plan is the best it can be — and when disruptions occur, planners can quickly generate a new optimal plan — keeping equipment and crew running at full potential, the supply chain moving smoothly, and every train working to maximum effect.  

Scheduling bulk rail is never a single-player exercise. Producers, haulage providers, track owners, terminals, and even maritime operators all have a stake. Each has its own priorities, and disruptions can throw weekly cycles off course in a matter of hours.  

What the industry needs is a holistic approach — one that doesn’t solve in isolation but brings all these pieces together in a single system. That’s how you get plans that hold in practice, not just on paper.  

Climate disruptions are no longer one-off events. Floods in the Midwest, hurricanes in the Gulf, wildfires in Canada, each has knocked bulk corridors offline. When coal, grain, or chemicals can’t move, supply chains become fragile fast.    

We can’t afford to treat these as isolated shocks. They are structural realities, and planning has to adapt. That means building in resilience from the start — not scrambling after the fact. Optimization and scenario modeling give us the tools to pause or reroute trains ahead of storms, minimize downtime, and restore services faster.  

My long career in rail has been extremely rewarding. For much of it, I was exactly where I wanted to be. Just a year ago, I had no intention of moving — until a once-in-a generation opportunity came along to solve problems that have held back North America’s bulk rail industry for decades. It was a no-brainer. I could see potential that went beyond transforming this industry I love. The benefits ripple outward:

• Producers lower costs and gain reliability  
• Railroads unlock revenue while controlling expenses  
• Communities see safer highways and fewer emissions  
• Society secures energy and food supply chains  

I’ve worked in rail long enough to know the industry doesn’t lack determination. What it sometimes lacks is the confidence to move past the familiar.   

For bulk rail, the choice is clear. We can cling to efficiency alone and risk losing ground, or we can evolve, combining efficiency with resilience through new approaches to planning. The opportunity is here. We have the tools. We have the expertise. What remains is the will to bring them together.  

If we do, bulk rail will not only maintain its central role in North America, but it will also strengthen it, reclaiming share from trucking, securing critical supply chains, and delivering benefits that extend well beyond our own industry.