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Since the end of August I have been on the road almost every week. Where the first eight-plus months of the year were mostly spent at home (which is really unusual for me), I have been more than making up for that recently. While most of the traveling has been for customers and ASLRRA meetings, my last two trips were for committee meetings and while both were interesting and even fun, they were that way for different reasons.My first meeting was for the AAR’s Wireless Communications Committee. I have been the ASLRR

Life is a gamble. Choices we make guide what we do, and the better choices made (and with a little luck), you live a long and prosperous life. And, not unlike someone spending a week at the Mirage in Las Vegas, we make bets all the time. Wait a second. You say that you never gamble? Sure you do, if you have any form of insurance.Insurance is a bet. You are betting with your insurer that if you pay the stakes (otherwise known as your premium), they will pay off at a very high payback if you hit on your bet. They have looked at the odds, and the less likely you a

Warren Buffett, who is widely treated with near rock-star status in the railway industry, was one of the few voices of reason coming out of Washington, D.C., this week.He seemed to appear on all the major news channels as the debt ceiling deadline loomed providing calm, no-nonsense commentary on the crisis at hand.

Instead of being a railroader this time I am going to put my concerned parent hat on. I was watching the news this week and two stories caught my attention. The first one had to do with a school in New York that has amended its rules for recess. Out of concern for injury to its students, they have banned all balls of any type from recess. Huh? What? This has gone too far. When did my generation (which is now at the age where they are the supervision in the schools) become a bunch of wimps, afraid that someone might get hurt? Is there suddenly a rash of broken

Here in the Northeast, we don’t start the school year until after Labor Day, so this week has been “Back to School Night” week in the Friedland household, with Rob’s on Tuesday and Andrew’s tonight. I always find Back to School Night interesting, because for the most part, your only knowledge of your child’s teacher has been what they have told you or what the teacher has sent home. You then get to meet the teacher in person for the first time and find out that they really don’t have two heads or eyes in the back of their head or any of the other strange things that

Is Indianapolis the new Chicago? In the world of railroad trade shows, it’s starting to feel that way.Conventions in Chicago were a fall tradition for decades in the rail industry. Who can forget the lower-level ballrooms of the Chicago Hilton or the events held at the Palmer House? Or those late dinners entertaining customers at famous steakhouses or in Little Italy?Several rail groups have held their conferences/conventions in Indy lately and the biggest show of all kicks off there this weekend. I’m speaking, of course, of

Just got back from the first stop of the ASLRRA’s annual fall tour, the Eastern Region meeting in Norfolk, Virginia. For those of you who don’t make one of the three regional meetings a part of your calendar, you are missing a really great meeting to attend. While Connections, the ASLRRA’s annual meeting is always a smorgasbord of everything going on in our industry, the regional meetings tend to focus more on the area the meetings are in, and the current events affecting our industry. Regional VP Carl Belke did a

The railroad industry lost an original with the passing this week of Rick (R.J.) Corman. While I didn’t know Rick well, he made an unmistakable impression just from our few meetings over the last two decades. He’ll be remembered for his smile, laugh, generosity, business acumen, and of course, his courage and spirit in waging a 12-year battle with cancer. He was 58.I extend sincere condolences to Rick’s family, friends and colleagues at

The M&E celebrates its 110th anniversary. Photo by Rudy Garbely.

A couple of months ago I received the form from the Railroad Retirement Board that lists your pay in information for the year, and while I normally take a quick look at it and file it someplace, there was a number that caught my eye on this one. It was the months of service, and the number was 242. Twenty years (while that is my paid in months, in fact my time at the M&E started in the early 80’s, so in reality I have been doing this for over 30). And my years are just a small part of the close to 200 years of experi

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