Hunter Harrison
Analyst · UBS. Your line is open sir
I appreciate your question, Chris. That’s good question, I was going to raise -- you have raised the question. One, you should think about sensitivity of your plan. When we make a operating decision to reduce expense or change the operation, say maybe in early April, we might not see the benefit net-net in the P&L still in August or September, depending on collective bargaining agreements, and depending on the tax treatment, and all those various things coming to play. So, we can take certain actions and we know exactly when those benefits will start kicking in. It’s a little difficult and it’s kind of for me here it’s a learning experience. It’s kind of different everywhere you go, but the trust of what we have talked about that we are trying to do, it hasn’t changed at all. We’re down -- and look after, I’m not restricting my numbers to second quarter. This is just kind of where we stand today or where we see ourselves to return. We’re down about 900 locomotives now it’s certainly not over and probably clearly go to a 1,000. I’m not sure where it’s going to stop. We’re now depending on the way you look at the way you whether you include store or not, but the way I look at it if you look at the active inventory, we’re down about 60,000 freight cars from where we were earlier in the year of 200,000 again to 135,000 or 140,000. I think that we have emphasized that we -- this is more of the team and me, but I think from hump standpoint, I think we started off somewhere I think 12. The number is quite about some round. Humps and I think, we think we’re going to end up probably within the next year. We’ll end up with three, it could be two or it could be four, but in that range a significant drop in the number of humps. And I would add to that is that look, those humps that we’ve taken had a service hump, doesn’t mean we have to sell all the land and throughout the year and I'd hope t hat on day post-Harrison that this company is going. But we’re going to see growth in the merchandise side where we did and maybe there be a time into the future. So you know we are going to keep hope on. We’re not -- we’re not having a dry sale here. I think that as result of some of those things, the capital spend over the next several years unless there is opportunity to come up and at this point I am aware of that we will come down pretty significantly from what has been in the plan forward. I think this year we are going to be down $500 million or so. Yes, there will be $100 million this year, when you look at year-over-year basis versus where we end up last year we close for $600 million. Somewhere in that neighborhood and I would expect, that’s going to -- the reason that we’re going to be able to take that all day obviously on locomotives, rolling stock and lot of things that going to support that. That’s going to help obviously free cash flow, pretty significantly, which I think -- I think my personal view is, we should certainly have some influence on the board when they make the decision to authorize the additional buyback that if some will be done, financed internally and with operating expense reduction. Yes, we’ll basically with one exception, all the operating metrics are trending and hitting in the right direction, very, very encouraging. If you are a headcount person, I think the headcount as we are seeing today -- I am not doing this quarter-over-quarter, but we stand today about I think 2,300 -- again that’s now somewhere we are trying to set some record with, but I wouldn’t be surprised if before the years that is a lot things come together that could be 3,000. So, when I look at that, I look at my past experience in this business, and I’m just saying that’s hell of course. I hated these amount of people, but I'd say that’s all I guess and but there is other opportunities that we will for us. And the team is coming together, and clearly you’re going to ask this question, so I’ll try to address. What’s the bigger challenge that we get? One of the bigger challenges we have is what I was talking to you about before and it’s the change, it’s the change, it’s the cultural change, and that’s difficult for organization to go further. And we are having a little bit there ourselves. And at all levels, you saw that, this was right prior to my arrival. So, I think I should refer that our friends in either way. I'm a neutral with just a 1,000 people, but I did take note that they were -- I think effectively all management people. There were no Indians if you were Indianan so we didn't take away from what was being done to the business plan. And I think our view going forward will put us in a position we don’t have to replace those. Now, on the operate side, do we have a few guess, yes. If that's the address, yes, I think our human resource group along with Cindy and others here in the team are sensitive to that. I think we've recruited -- they know better than I, but 15 or so people that we think are top notch, high potential, very honest from various background and various locale. And so I think that there's something we can solve and deal with. And there's a lot of things in the bucket, so if I let with that, this is back and review and had a look at second quarter I got to be pretty excited and I got to be excited about third and fourth and three or four years out. You know the other plan, the live plan on this report is, you all said I couldn't get it done in four years and now you owe me because I can get it done in four months, so the bar's been raised here but I'm ready for the challenge.