And, then really look at our smart investments, how do we leverage those things, like capitalizing locomotive renewals, refurbishing locomotives that can be pushed off into the future because we’re creating our own locomotives by having them more productive. I think this is a natural evolution on some of the linear elements that were started in the past. Now, taking a non-multidimensional point of view on it, not focusing on one particular thing, but elevating the entire suite of operating efficiencies at the same time in tandem with one another, disciplined railroading, disciplined service, accurate handling of cars and reduction of waste and cost is really the plan. And, that will show in the form of yard operating plans, disciplined operations in terminals, disciplined and progressive ways of moving the train service plan into the meet the commercial needs of today.
I am highly confident, highly confident that we’ll achieve the targets and we will do it in a way that’s sustainable and we will do it in a way that fosters growth and we are on the path today. We are well underway. So, that increases my confidence.
Operator: Our next question is from the line of Walter Spracklin with RBC Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Walter Spracklin: Yes, Thanks very much. Good morning, everyone. I know you’ve put a lot of time under this, but I do need to come back to it and that is the trying to square up the changes that John is making here. They are substantial with the lack of any customer disruption. I mean, it used to be and maybe I’m dating myself here, but it used to be when I write we saw PSR change, it didn’t, if customers weren’t disrupted then it wasn’t happening, was kind of the view. And, when you take out 200 locomotives, soon to be 500 locomotives, I mean that kind of has a leave of Merck. We know there’s been lane reductions. I guess feedback from those customers must have been quite negative. So, I’m just wondering are you just refocusing on those other customers and you’re getting good service to them and they’re coming back to you with some good feedback and perhaps some of the less or lower margin customers are going to be shed a little bit.
Just really surprised that we’re not hearing more customer blowback from some of these significant and important changes that you’re making?
Alan H. Shaw: Walter, that’s our strategy. That’s what we committed to doing. We’re going to implement and we have been implementing PSR in a responsible and sustainable manner. We saw what happened at our peer in 2017, and we’re not tearing this thing down to the studs. John knows how to do it without tearing it down to the studs, as the activist COO has said he would have to do. Ed is close to our customers. Our customers appreciate and see the improved service. We’re focused on safety, and we’re focused on a sustainable plan for Norfolk Southern that drives long-term shareholder value. John, you want to talk about how you’re doing this in the right way?
John F. Orr: And I think Walter, by the way, it’s nice to hear from you. I would say, it’s what we said at the very onset that we’re taking a balanced approach. I’ve laid out really challenging and urgent near-term and mid-term targets, and I’m taking an aggressive disciplined approach to manage it. And, I’ve used the George Foreman Grill example, you don’t set and forget operations. You sweat it out and you can’t drive this alone. So, creating a team of capable railroaders focused on the big rocks and small rocks at the same time, delivering the fundamental of safety, creating stability across the network and then challenging every asset that we have, every standard that we have and building compliance and building momentum around those things is really important.
So yes, it is sweat equity in a lot of respects, Walter. And, it is really the key focus areas of yard time and dwell. And, you know what that does. When we drive our current dwell down from mid-23s to ‘22 and we’ll be taking that down even further, not only are we handling the cars better in the terminals, but we’re getting more cars on trains, getting to the customers sooner and even the bad order count, taking it down by double-digits, by almost 50% means those the discipline of handling those cars in the terminal and getting them back into the flow of our core service offerings means the customers are seeing those cars faster than they would have otherwise seen them. So, I would think that they see that as a value and rather than a negative disruption, a positive indication that we’re building momentum and commitment to them, while at the same time reducing handling some costs.
Ed Elkins: And, just to close the loop, Walter, on say the locomotive specifically, remember last year, we actually had to add locomotives back into service. We spent a fair amount of money in materials trying to get locomotives that had been stored back up and running, so we could dig out of the tough hole we were in following the East Palestine derailment. It’s how we got service really back on the right trajectory. And, now we’re able to start attacking some of those resiliency costs we’ve added and remove locomotives and some of the other costs we had to throw at the system. So, there’s a lot of opportunity here to remove costs that will be non-disruptive to the customers.
Alan H. Shaw: And to summarize, the service level improvements, the dramatic service level improvements are what the customers are reacting to, and that is across our markets and across our customer base.
Operator: Our next question is from the line of David Vernon with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question.
David Vernon: Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking the question. So John, you’ve been at the property a little over a month. I’d love to kind of get your perspective on kind of what the root cause is here, that you see as far as kind of what drove the problems. Is it a question of kind of what Norfolk was trying to do or how they were doing it? And, kind of any thoughts you have on that would be helpful. And, then as you think about kind of taking 200 locomotives out, maybe another 300 locomotives, what does that mean for headcount? Because I would assume that the sequential headcount number was up a little over 500. Obviously, the non-craft trades, the non-craft job action coming out a couple of 100 heads will be down. But, what do you think about the operating headcount, as you start to free up assets and run more fluidly?
