From 'if/then' to unconditional (Pat Foran, Context, November 2009)

The conditional tense reigned supreme during the reporting of a number of stories in this month's issue — from the cover piece on Norfolk Southern Railway's $2.5 billion Crescent Corridor, which the Class I plans to establish via the public-private partnership route ("If funding falls into place, then the 2,500-mile domestic intermodal corridor will, too.") to our RailTrends summit recap ("If railroads can hold off the D.C. threats while embracing the D.C. opportunities, productivity and earnings growth will be explosive, and marketshare opportunities in medium and short lengths of haul will be dramatic.") to our rail-car repair market update. The latter story's slant: If the economy picks up, so will repair work.

A lot of the "if/then" talk is tied to economic recovery, whenever and however it'll begin its creep, but not all of it. Every railroad seeking a public funding commitment of any kind is having conditional conversations with the governmental powers that be and, increasingly, the communities they serve: "If you fund this project, XYZ benefits will come."

Although there's clearly more interest in rail in D.C. these days, especially passenger rail, the list of transportation projects seeking public backing is long and getting longer. The competition for dollars is fierce. Even though NS execs believe the timing of the Crescent Corridor is in "their favor," as Executive Vice President of Law and Corporate Relations James Hixon told Managing Editor Jeff Stagl, they say they aren't thinking in present tense. The Class I recently launched a Web site (www.TheFutureNeedsUs.com) to promote the corridor, of course, but also the Class I's faith in its ability to deliver the "rail is the clear choice, the one that's worth investing in" message. "The future needs us. It needs green jobs, a competitive economy, clear roads, clean air," reads the site's front-and-center sentiment. "That's why Norfolk Southern and its partners are thinking ahead."

A marketing effort in and of itself does not constitute "forward thinking." And selling the future when the present is like it is presently is no mean feat. But waiting for "if's" to become "then's" just might be tantamount to certain defeat in these uncertainly interesting times. It'll certainly hurt your chances of getting a piece of the public-funding pie. NS' very public approach to embracing the future — and unconditionally, at that — is very welcome.

RailTrends '09 (bonus coverage)

More on RailTrends: The fifth iteration of our annual summit may well have been the best yet, as colleague and RailTrends programming consultant Tony Hatch posits in his take on the event (see page 15), held Oct. 6-7 in New York City. Our eclectic program afforded an opportunity for debate and idea-sharing, and there was plenty of both. Here are a few sound bites that weren't referenced in the irrepressible Mr. Hatch's recap:

• "The majority [of our members] are not interested in full-blown 're-reg' of the rail industry. They do not believe it serves their interests in any way. ... The answer I hear most often now is 'improved competition.' How do you do that? That's the $64,000 question." — Bruce Carlton, president and CEO, the National Industrial Transportation League
• "For years, the highway industry has spoken with one voice. Rail, as I'm finding, is much more fragmented. Hopefully, we'll be able to bring it together." — Anne Canby, president of The Surface Transportation Policy Project
• "This is the slide railroads hate to see in public. This is the elephant in the room." — UBS analyst Rick Paterson, referring to a PowerPoint slide in his presentation titled "The rails are getting price — because they can"
• "What's the next big opportunity to break through? It's in labor relations. We've got to get away from the adversarial/confrontational relationship. And if we could do that, there's no telling what could happen." — CN President and CEO E. Hunter Harrison, who was on hand to pick up Progressive Railroading's first-ever Railroad Innovator Award
• "We are holding firm to a 2010 deadline, regardless of any waivers that have been filed." — Joseph Szabo, Federal Railroad Administrator, referring to the positive train control implementation plans railroads must submit to the FRA by April 2010
• "The more light I shed on these things, the dimmer it gets." — Rail-car market forecaster and analyst Toby Kolstad, coining a Yogi Berra-ism

Darkness and light may have been undercurrents during the day-and-a-half summit, but dimness didn't rule, thanks to the insights our panelists offered from the lectern and during networking breaks. For that, we thank them. Thanks, too, to this year's sponsors: Miller Tabak + Co. L.L.C., Balfour Beatty Rail Inc., RailWorks Corp., Gross & Janes Co., Macquarie Rail Inc., Oliver Wyman Inc., RailSolutions Inc. and HSRupdates.com. See you next year.