By Joanna Marsh, Freight Waves; April 11, 2019
With almost all of the Class I railroads transitioning to precision scheduling railroading (PSR), an operational model that emphasizes running railcars on a fixed schedule, a question surfacing within the rail industry is how much emphasis should the railroads place on lower operating ratio.
Investors like to see how a company’s operating ratio, which measures a rail carrier’s operating expenses as a percentage of its revenue, changes over time because it can be an indicator of how well that company is generating profit.