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It is well-known that once you hit December 15^thon the calendar, you might as well wait until the new year to get something of any substance done in business. The fact is, between shopping, holiday parties, shutdowns, vacations, and the holidays themselves, the business year ends then and doesn’t restart until the first week of January.

A number of years ago we were putting together the opening video for the general session at the ASLRRA Connections, and after doing the typical pictures of locomotives videos for the open in previous years, we decided that this year we wanted something different. We asked for pictures of people. And we got people pictures. Lots of them, and in the end we created a video that in a little over two minutes showed the faces of our industry, the people who made the freight move.

When the National Transportation Safety Board had their meeting to report on their findings about the Amtrak accident in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago, I will admit I did have some concerns about what the Board would find.

When I was a child growing up in Maplewood, N.J., my father was an amateur radio operator, or a Ham. He would spend evenings down in his radio room in our basement trying to communicate via radio to all parts of the world (causing the televisions in the house to be all static, usually right in the middle of the show you were trying to watch), and over the years he ended up speaking to people in well over 100 different countries or territories in all corners of the world.

I have been at my new job at the Mass Central for six months now, and looking back over the time, it has definitely been challenging at times, quiet at others, and possibly some of the most rewarding time I have had in my 20+ years in this industry. While any day at a short line is different from the day before, for the most part my job at the Morristown & Erie was the same it had been for 20 years – make sure that the freight went to the right place, and make sure that the customers are happy.

Last week’s ASLRRA 2016 Connections was a really good meeting. It had all of the ingredients that you would expect: a great hotel, big expo with lots of suppliers to talk to, a good turnout of railroaders, good general sessions, and a set of breakouts with topics to interest everyone. It is an amazing process to watch, especially since Holly and I were some of the first people to arrive and some of the last to leave.

With my new state of never being in one place for more than a couple of days at a time right now, you would think that a week on the road wouldn’t be that big a deal. Actually, it was, and for a number of reasons: First, I got to spend three nights at home in New Jersey in eight days, which wasn’t too bad. Next, I was in Washington D.C., for Railroad Day on Capitol Hill, where we had the combination “thank you for your past support, but we now need your support for this” tour, and that was followed by the CSX Short Line Conference in St.

I’ve written about my love of baseball many times in the past, and for the first time in many years, the off season has been a lot shorter for my New York Mets than it has been in years past. Of course the outcome last season was not as good as we would have liked, but like any Chicago Cubs fan knows, there is always next year…Like any baseball fan in the winter, you watch what moves the team has made to sign new players to the team, and what moves they make to retain any free agents. Everyone wants their team to have the big name players, and hopes that they have t

Right now the political focus in this country is every place except Washington D.C., due to the hotly contested race for President. It’s kind of interesting spending time in a Super Tuesday state now, because I am seeing political ads on TV where having spent most of my time in New Jersey and having one of the last primaries, we would rarely see an ad on TV. Just because the focus is elsewhere, doesn’t mean that what is going on in Washington is any less important.

I’m a huge fan of the TV show Mythbusters, and that fact that this is their last season is a loss for all of us, as the show has got a number of people, both young and old, interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

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