"Timing is everything," I think somebody might
have said. I hired out on the railroad as a brakeman in Chicago, seeking to escape a blizzard by walking
into the employment office of a railroad. Didn't exactly save me from that, or the following, blizzards, but
the timing was right. They hired me.
Relocating to NYC 32 years ago, I worked
for Conrail's New Jersey Division as the Supervisor of Train Operations and later trainmaster at the Oak Island hump yard,
a "little-big" yard with 32 classification tracks making 60 classifications. Timing, making the right
connections from receiving to dispatchment was everything. Velocity of track turnover was key.
In 1985, I switched employers to Metro North Railroad,
in charge of Grand Central Terminal in New York, after being promised weekends off and a 30 percent raise. I got
the raise, at least. Timing again was/is everything. Trains came into the terminal "all wrong" and the
task was to make them depart "all right."
After 36 years, I retired as Deputy Chief, Field Operations. And
I learned a few things in those years:
1.
Proper planning prevents poor performance
2. Good railroading
is 10 percent planning and 90 percent execution
3.
Technology is no substitute for supervision
4. Every
operating decision is a financial decision, and vice-versa
Ten90
Solutions LLC is committed to using these principles to resolve, and solve, problems of capacity, performance, safety; to analyzing
the reciprocal impacts of changes in any part of the operating environment-- infrastructure, traffic patterns, regulations--
to the operation as a whole
