CEO Hunter Harrison was appointed to the position this past March, and he quickly implemented an overhaul that now has customers complaining.

• Read more: CSX customers demand end to shipping bottlenecks

Major U.S. shippers such as Cargill have been calling for improved service, greater accountability and fewer delays. Key complaints include longer transit times, unreliable switching operations, inefficient car routings and poor communications with CSX customer service.

Harrison defended his strategy of “precision scheduled railroading” at a hearing at the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) in Washington recently.

The session marked the first public forum for shippers and trade groups to air grievances and give Harrison the chance to defend his strategy. The STB has been reviewing the railroad’s performance weekly and acting as intermediary between CSX and disgruntled customers.

Since he took over, Harrison closed CSX rail yards, lengthened trains, mothballed locomotives and slashed overtime pay and hundreds of jobs. He also changed the way rail cars are sorted in yards and replaced “unit” trains carrying a single commodity like coal or grain with trains carrying diverse freight.

He apologized to shippers for service disruptions, which he blamed on derailments and internal mistakes, including closing too many yards.

Speaking after Harrison, Cargill vice-president Brad Hildebrand asked the STB to publish minutes of its weekly calls with CSX management and asked CSX to return resources to its network.

“In a nutshell, (precision scheduled railroading) means having to do with less,” he told the regulators.

While some customers have noted improvements, others said CSX’s disruptions continue to create costly logistical headaches for companies from the chemical and agricultural sectors to the automotive industry and steel producers.

Their supply chains, plants and distribution channels rely on CSX’s rail network across the eastern United States.

Harrison said his strategy was critical to his previous turnarounds of two Canadian railroads — Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway — and said, the “best is right around the corner.”

“We’ve made some mistakes. This is not a failure of precision scheduled railroading,” he said.

Harrison told the STB his turnaround plan has been implemented across CSX’s system but requires “fine-tuning.” He hinted at more possible layoffs and other yard changes.

Chemours Company asked the STB to require a “flight plan” from CSX outlining future system changes and how they will affect shippers.

In what could be a distant threat to CSX’s revenues, Chemours and trade groups renewed their calls for changes to federal regulations to allow shippers served by CSX to gain greater access to other operators.

Two trade groups asked the STB to require a service recovery plan from CSX with granular performance data and penalty-enforced deadlines.

Dow Chemical Co.’s supply chain vice-president Greg Jozwiak urged the STB to improve rules to expedite relief during disruptions.

“The reality is the procedures take too long,” Jozwiak said. “We need a service remedy counted in days, not weeks or months.”

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Customers have complained of longer transit times, unreliable switching operations, inefficient car routings and poor communications with CSX customer service.

CEO Hunter Harrison, who implemented cuts when he was appointed to the job in March, defended his strategy of “precision scheduled railroading” at a hearing at the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) in Washington.

The session marked the first public forum for shippers and trade groups to air grievances and give Harrison the chance to defend his strategy. The STB has been reviewing the railroad’s performance weekly and acting as intermediary between CSX and disgruntled customers.

Since he took over, Harrison closed CSX rail yards, lengthened trains, mothballed locomotives and slashed overtime pay and hundreds of jobs. He also changed the way rail cars are sorted in yards and replaced “unit” trains carrying a single commodity like coal or grain with trains carrying diverse freight.

He apologized to shippers for service disruptions, which he blamed on derailments and internal mistakes, including closing too many yards.

Speaking after Harrison, Cargill vice-president Brad Hildebrand asked the STB to publish minutes of its weekly calls with CSX management and asked CSX to return resources to its network.

“In a nutshell, (precision scheduled railroading) means having to do with less,” he told the regulators.

While some customers have noted improvements, others said CSX’s disruptions continue to create costly logistical headaches for companies from the chemical and agricultural sectors to the automotive industry and steel producers.

Their supply chains, plants and distribution channels rely on CSX’s rail network across the eastern U.S.

Harrison said his strategy was critical to his previous turnarounds of two Canadian railroads — Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway — and said the “best is right around the corner.”

“We’ve made some mistakes. This is not a failure of precision scheduled railroading,” he said.

Harrison told the STB his turnaround plan has been implemented across CSX’s system but requires “fine-tuning.” He hinted at more possible layoffs and other yard changes.

Chemours Company asked the STB to require a “flight plan” from CSX outlining future system changes and how they will affect shippers.

In what could be a distant threat to CSX’s revenues, Chemours and trade groups renewed their calls for changes to federal regulations to allow shippers served by CSX to gain greater access to other operators.

Two trade groups asked the STB to require a service recovery plan from CSX with granular performance data and penalty-enforced deadlines.

Dow Chemical’s supply chain vice-president Greg Jozwiak urged the STB to improve rules to expedite relief during disruptions.

“The reality is the procedures take too long,” Jozwiak said. “We need a service remedy counted in days, not weeks or months.”

— Eric M. Johnson is a Reuters correspondent based in Seattle.

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Despite early strong support for the measure, a recent poll suggests sentiment against the measure, known as I-522, is growing amid an onslaught of corporate-financed advertising ahead of the Nov. 5 referendum. Voters will decide whether many common grocery items containing ingredients from genetically altered crops should be labelled as such.

Supporters say labelling foods made from genetically modified organisms (GMO) would provide information for consumers to make informed shopping choices. Food and chemical companies say the wording would suggest something is wrong with gene-modified ingredients that the companies believe are safe.

Many foods are made with crops that have been genetically altered. Corn and soy, two top biotech crops, are key ingredients in processed foods from cereal to chips to cookies.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), which represents more than 300 food and beverage companies, has put roughly $11 million into fighting the measure, or roughly half of the nearly $22 million raised by opponents of labelling, according to Washington Public Disclosure Commission figures as of Oct. 29.

That far outstrips the roughly $6.8 million raised by supporters of the labelling initiative, according to the Commission.

“They are making this the most expensive race and are desperately adding last-minute money to try and buy this election,” said Liz Larter, spokeswoman for “Yes on 522” campaign, a reference to the ballot measure’s number.

Legality contested

State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, said in a lawsuit filed Oct. 16 that the grocery group illegally collected and spent more than $7 million while shielding the identity of its contributors.

But the GMA and other opponents say they have corrected any finance filing irregularities and they are trying to turn back a measure that would confuse consumers and have numerous consequences.

“It would require tens of thousands of common food and beverage products to be relabelled exclusively for Washington state unless they are remade with higher-priced, specially developed ingredients,” said Brian Kennedy, GMA spokesman. “The measure will increase grocery costs for a typical Washington family by hundreds of dollars per year.”

The outcome of the Washington vote will be closely watched around the country as more than two dozen U.S. states and the federal government wrestle with whether to require labelling.

A similar labelling measure narrowly failed in the 2012 election in California by a vote of 51.4 per cent against to 48.6 per cent in favor.

Heavy spending

A consortium that includes General Mills, Nestle USA , PepsiCo, Monsanto, DuPont and other corporate giants, are the key contributors to the nearly $22 million raised to campaign against the bill.

Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company and top developer of biotech crops, has put in nearly $5.4 million to fight the labelling., including $540,000 added on Monday.

In September, one poll showed support for labelling led opposition by 45 percentage points. But a survey released on Oct. 21 by The Elway Poll, a regional non-partisan public opinion research group, showed support leading by only four points.

David Bronner, president of Escondido, Calif.-based Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps and a supporter of labelling, said the ballot initiative may lose in Washington state, but he sees eventual victory in some state or on a federal level.

The soap company is the chief financial backer for the pro-labelling campaign, contributing more than $1.7 million. It makes an array of cleanser and lotion products it markets as organic.

“We’re in this for a long haul,” Bronner said. “Even if we lose here we’re still feeding the national debate and conversation. We’ll get it eventually.”

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Local, state and federal health and regulatory officials said the likely cause of the Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak was Jouni Meats Inc. and Gab Halal Foods, both of Michigan.

Most of the people sickened were in the Midwest — two in Illinois, one in Iowa, three in Wisconsin and nine in Michigan, where the meat shops are located, the CDC said. One sick person was identified in Arizona.

Seven people reported eating a raw ground beef dish at a restaurant, the CDC said, adding that roughly half of the people were hospitalized, although none died.

“The restaurant served raw beef to customers and had acquired the raw beef from two retailers,” the CDC said in a statement, without naming the restaurant.

Last week Jouni Meats recalled approximately 500 pounds of ground beef and Gab Halal Foods recalled about 550 pounds of ground beef, the CDC said.

Jouni Meats sold the meat, used to make a raw Middle Eastern ground beef dish called kibbeh, without a label between Dec. 4 and 9 to customers, including a Detroit-area restaurant, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Gab Halal Foods also sold bags of ground beef in clear plastic at around the same time to customers and the same restaurant, located in Macomb County, local and federal officials said.

Khalil Jouni, owner of Jouni Meats, on Monday said he believed the ground beef had been safe when he distributed it and may have become tainted somewhere down the line.

“I produce meat to other restaurants, and my customers, and none of them got sick,” Jouni said. “I make sure everything is very clean.”

Gab Halal Foods, which Jouni said is owned by his brother, could not be reached for a comment.

The illness from the foodborne organism usually causes diarrhea, fever and abdominal pain. It can be fatal for the elderly, young children and those with weakened immune systems.

The CDC warned people not to eat raw or undercooked beef and to return or throw out recalled products.

“This is especially important for children under the age of five years, older adults and people with weakened immune systems because these people are at a higher risk for serious illness,” the CDC said.

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