Traffic Control
By RON LINDSEY, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Paradigm Shifts The challenges to even approaching truly scheduled operations are not just technical, functional, and organizational.
William Beecher
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hroughout my 25 years of independent consulting, including performing market studies and developing technology strategies for suppliers and railroads, I have had the opportunity to speak with a variety of senior railroad operation managers. During those discussions I would often ask the individual if his/her railroad ran to schedule. The response was consistently the same: “Yes, but ... (some fatuous excuse, e.g., reducing crew starts given short trains).” To some extent, these responses can railwayage.com
be seen as understandable given the data handling constraints of century-old operating technologies and associated practices as well as the evolving, inefficient silo-based IT architecture since the 1970s. Additionally, there is little to no enterprise perspective of the consequences of one department’s action relative to other departments, e.g., excessive locomotives to cover shortages due to lack of actual schedule. However, the challenges to even approaching truly scheduled operations are not just technical, functional, and organizational. Arguably, the most difficult challenge is
that of modifying the management practices that have existed for decades. Therefore, advancing the efficiency and safety of U.S. freight railroads requires making shifts in both the technology paradigms as well as that of management. Technology Paradigms My article, Enterprise Perspective, in Railway Age’s April 2017 issue addressed the paradigm shifts in the four core technologies that can greatly advance both the safety and the efficiency of railroads: 1) wireless voice to wireless data; 2) November 2017 // Railway Age 29