FROM THE EDITOR, NOVEMBER 2021 ISSUE: Hunter Harrison, who four years ago left for that PSR railroad originating at the Heavenly Gates, where St. Peter, holding a gleaming crystal Hamilton railroad timepiece
Hunter Harrison has, without a doubt, become a legend in the railroad industry. Throughout his career, he introduced many new methods for addressing the high costs inherent in such a labor-intensive heavy industry. He demonstrated the importance of partnering with customers and suppliers to create synergistic solutions. His business strategies are still being talked about and applied. But his personality will never again be replicated.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions last week favorably reported the nominations by President Joe Biden of Democrats Linda Puchala and Deirdre Hamilton, and Republican Gerald W. (Trey) Fauth III, to the three-member National Mediation Board, which administers the Railway Labor Act (RLA). Puchala and Fauth are renominees.
Handheld mobile devices equipped with DigiCrew are making their way into the hands of Union Pacific (UP) conductors and locomotive engineers, boosting efficiency.
King of Prussia (known by locals as “KOP”) is not a town, but a sprawl dominated by a mall, northwest of Philadelphia. It started as the location of the King of Prussia Tavern late in the 18th Century, named after Frederick the Great, who ruled Prussia from 1740 until 1784. He was highly regarded for modernizing the government of his country, promoting the arts, and especially for his skill as a military leader. His descendants established modern Germany nearly a century after his death. Today, KOP is the proposed destination for an extension of SEPTA’s Norristown High-Speed Line.
Call it the Twilight Zone of reality when three rail labor unions embrace the convictions of extreme-right public figures Tucker Carlson (Fox News), Republican Governors Greg Abbott (Texas) and Ron DeSantis (Florida), and Republican Senators Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rand Paul (Kentucky) and oppose vaccine mandates intended to protect society against the deadly COVID-19 virus and its Delta variant.
Leveraging/improving the role of freight railroads during the 2020-2021 supply chain crisis: What can be done better or at least differently?
In an unusual twist of circumstances, there are three events ongoing at this writing that have a lot to say about Amtrak corridors and trains in the Midwest. All were scheduled to take place within a three-day span.
I’ve received some comments, what is called “feedback” these days, on my most recent post regarding NTSB’s report on a fatal incident on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Some of the commentators agree with
Never before in our recent memory has so much focus been put on “supply chains.” The popular press has added the term to the language of the everyday person. We hear things like: “I went to the store today and the items I wanted were out of stock. Must be a supply chain problem.” Railroads are part of the supply chain, but few people realize or understand it.
