The railway industry lost another of its bright lights this week with the sudden passing of my friend, Connie Sumara. Connie retired as vice president of Blog
The railway industry lost another of its bright lights this week with the sudden passing of my friend, Connie Sumara. Connie retired as vice president of
I am not going to complain about snow again. In fact, I am not going to look back at all in this blog because pitchers and catchers have reported to SPRING Training (I’m a Mets fan, and this is the time of year when I have hope), and soon all of this white stuff will be far behind us.That being said, it also means that two of the most important Short Line events of the year are not that far away. Railroad Day on Capitol Hill is March 13, and ASLRRA Connections 2014 is April 22-25.I’ve written many times about the impo
Railroad safety is in the national spotlight and it’s not likely to leave there soon.That’s not tremendously surprising given last year’s high-profile accidents and derailments. As I wrote last summer, there are some rail accidents that are so big that you just know they are going to have a profound impact on the industry for years, if not decades. Lac-Megantic, in Canada’s Quebec province, moved near the top of the list following the devastating runaway train, derailment and fire there.
Phil, I hope you were wrong.Stan, the same for you.Rob, you don’t know what you are talking about.(In case you were wondering, Phil and Stan are two famous groundhogs.
Last night I received some really great news. My good friend, Judy Petry, was named President and General Manager of Farmrail. I cannot think of a harder working or more dedicated person in our industry, and this title is just recognition for the many years of hard work that she has put in for her company and employees, and for what she has done for the railroad industry as a whole.My personal history with Judy goes back to 1996, when I attended my first RMI users group meeting in Atlanta. This was one of my fi
Those of us in railroad industry circles are well-acquainted with the term Just-in-Time delivery, or JIT. JIT is an inventory control system that replenishes and delivers products to a retailer just as a current supply is depleted. It’s a critical element of assembly line operations, including car parts for auto plants, and lean manufacturing in general and requires precise coordination among supply chain partners.I was reminded of this last week when many consumers (including myself) encountered a not-so-just-in-time delivery of their holiday packages.
Once again the year has flown by, and we are at the start of a new year. I can’t honestly say that 2013 was the greatest year for our industry in all areas, but there were a couple of good points. Let’s take a look at the good stuff and then peek at what we will be facing in the coming year.
I would like to think that I am a creative person. While I don’t paint works of art and haven’t written the great American novel (yet), I am a problem solver, and one who can make a computer do what you want it to do (well, maybe most of the time). I have written a number of systems that help run railroads, work daily at a railroad keeping customers happy and internal costs as low as they can be, and for fun build highly detailed models of race cars. And, every two weeks I put together 250-500 words about life on a short line railroad. With all of that, you would
The news about the STB decision on whether RailTerm should fall under railroad labor laws last week was very interesting, and it got us talking about what it really meant. If you didn’t see the news item in last week’s email newsletter, click here to see the whole decision. Even if you read the news
Remember being told that if you hung onto a certain item of clothing, such as wide or narrow ties, capri pants or bell bottom jeans, that they’d come back in style again? It might take 10 or 20 years, but invariably it would happen.Ditto for policies and priorities in the rail transport sector.
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