James Drogan

Re Conversations with Dave, Joe, and Keith

It's tempting to hide behind the burdens of geography and large, expensive assets. And perhaps we have succumbed to that temptation for too long. What would a railway look like if every possible item was moved from a fixed to variable expense?

There may be an example that the railways can learn from. See the discussion of Nucor (steel) in J. Collins, Good to Great, Harper Business (2001), 0-06-662099-6.

Perhaps the responsiveness of the railways is a function of their size. Maybe four majors is too few.

In Forces I speculate on some ideas for considerations by companies seeking to survive and thrive in the future. In An Innovative Business Model for the Freight Railway I propose a new agenda for the railways. Some Ideas on the Application of Information Technology to the Freight Railway is also likely to be relevant.

I'm not suggesting I have the answers and I am quite confident that I fail to understand the fundamental, deep-seated issues that prevent, not just the railways, but the freight transportation community as a whole, from achieving a higher level of performance.

In Barriers and Catalysts in Global Transportation I concluded, in part, that: "The fundamentals of transportation – equipment, operations, supporting infrastructure – are not an issue. The ability to rapidly reconfigure these fundamentals to respond to the market is an issue." I have modified the first part of this in a previous statement on this issue, but I hold with the last part.