I know that it has been quite awhile since my last posting. Quite a bit has happened in the last month. First of all, in October I went to the ASLRRA Eastern Region Meeting in Williamsburg, VA. We were in the old historical part of town. What a great time that was. I've never been to that part of the East coast and really had fun.

The meeting was not only interesting, but educational and entertaining. I especially enjoyed the dinner in 'town' at the Shields Tavern! The food was great and the staff friendly and enjoyable. The main reason I went was for the networking which as always was worthwhile! Even though I felt like I had a cold or something the entire time.

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Over the years in talking to people about what I do, most are totally flabbergasted! They can't even comprehend that someone would work for a railroad, much less that they would still be around. In fact, when you ask the average person on the street about railroads, they often first think about commuter or passenger rail. Now that's interesting!!

I know the US is pretty backwards with commuter rail. Especially compared to Europe or Japan. But for most Americans to think of commuter rail over freight? Wow! Did you know that Logistics overall is 25% of our GNP?! That's a lot of stuff moving around!

And with that, most don't even think of what is transported by rail. As a former boss of mine at BNSF used to say, we transport everything from coal to kitty litter. And he is right.

So what does a freight railroad do?

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Yesterday I decided to take a break and take off into the mountains to see the aspen turning!

I even convinced my mom to take off and come with me. I'm very glad we went!

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I know that in my posting from September 8th, I had speculated that if the price of oil fell that the Class 1's would likely follow in their fuel surcharge. Well it now looks like that speculation was correct. There is an article in today's Progressive Railroading that says three of the Class 1's will reduce their fuel surcharges for October.

Now that's some good news for the shipper for a change!

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I was recently reading a blog on the Progressive Railroading site that was both interesting and funny at the same time. It is titled "Rail-car supply more of a concern to shippers than the economy, informal poll shows."

The author has an interesting point to make which in and of itself makes some sense. Then you get into the comments that follow.

They really

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