Traffic & Market Trends
  Industry Indicators
    Traffic Originated
    Projected Railcar Deliveries
    Traffic Trends
  Railway Market

In This Issue
  BNSF+CN: Colossus of roads?
  Passenger rail: Strong, stable, secure
  Railroader of the Century
  ECP Brakes

Commentary
  From the Editor
  Commentary of the Month

The Railroad Worker is Railway Age's Railroader of the Century.

The award goes not only to the railroad workers of today, but also to the men and women who built this industry and have passed it down to us. Who have, in some cases, sacrificed life or limb in the performance of duty.

At Railway Age, we believe it's an honor well-earned, and long overdue. We considered the contributions made to this industry over the past 100 years by a distinguished collection of railroad presidents and managers, suppliers and trade associations, legislators and regulators, consultants and researchers. Their efforts have been remarkable. But from our perspective, none of the advances realized by this industry in the 20th Century, be they in technology, productivity, profitability, or deregulation, would have been possible had The Railroad Worker not seen them through, often under difficult circumstances.

To paraphrase Gus Welty, Railway Age's late Senior Editor, the 20th Century should be called the century of people. They are the tens of thousands of rank-and-file employees who keep the railroad industry running. They operate trains and switch cars. They keep the physical plant in the best shape it has ever been. They move twice as much freight today-with far fewer hands-than during World War II, when railroads handled what was at the time an unprecedented amount of traffic. (The industry at one time employed over two million; today that number is under 200,000.) Railroad management calls railroad workers "the industry's most important assets." We agree.

Jake Jacobson, president and chief operating officer of the Copper Basin Railway and Railway Age's 1994 Railroader of the Year, says the people he works with day in and day out are why he feels his job "can't get any better than this." "I have been blessed with many titles in my 41 years of railroading," he says, "and I have been most proud of the title 'railroader.'"

"What an exciting time for the railroad industry!" Jacobson says. "We-the industry and the railroad workers-have collectively evolved railroad safety to state-of-the-art levels. We have seen the change from steam to diesel and from telegraph to e-mail, and the power of computerization."

If the railroad industry can be compared to a tapestry composed of many elements, "let us not forget that the sweat, toil, perseverance, and ingenuity of the railroad worker is woven into the fabric of this hallowed fraternity that we so proudly call 'railroad,'" says Jacobson.

"A quiet but intense pride marks railroad people," says Smithsonian Institute Senior Transportation Curator Bill Withuhn. "I think it's because, first and foremost, they're professionals. Railroaders work in a special environment. This industry is inherently decentralized, with facilities spread out over thousands of miles. In such a far-flung system, management has to depend upon workers at every level exercising a high degree of independent judgement. That judgement goes together with trust. Railroaders have always had to trust one another, not just to do a job but to do it well. Trust-and your own pride-come from knowing that your colleagues can depend on you. An old railroader I knew called it 'covering your ground.' That meant skill and a cool head, a person worth having around in demanding situations. These are the qualities that mark railroad workers. Their pride is earned."

The Railroad Worker has helped this industry realize tremendous gains in productivity during its renaissance in the past 20 years. "Look at the contribution railroad workers have made since enactment of the Staggers Act," says Bill Dempsey, the former Association of American Railroads president and National Railway Labor Conference chairman, and the 1992 Railroader of the Year. "We had a situation in which Staggers was passed as an act of desperation by Congress. The collapse of the Penn Central in the early 1970s was the worst industrial catastrophe in the U.S. up to that time, and it spread like a blight to the Midwest with the demise of the Rock Island and the Milwaukee Road.

"Railroads and their workers faced a situation bleaker than ever before, and when Staggers was passed there were a lot of people who said, 'This will never work.' But post-Staggers results have been stunning. Most people expected that rates would go up on average. Exactly the opposite has happened, while at the same time railroad profitability has risen. Why is that? There is only one answer-a great increase in productivity, an average 6% a year since 1980. A lot of factors have contributed toward that, and the contributions made by workers are among them."

That rates came down "is the industry's most compelling defense against the effort now under way to roll back Staggers, the most successful piece of transportation legislation in U.S. history," says Dempsey. "Some are asking that the industry be reregulated, and that is in the face of great benefits that have been conferred upon rail shippers. We are able to defend against this threat in significant measure because of the contributions workers have made over the past 20 years. Although there can be arguments as to the exact degree to which workers have contributed, no one should wish to deny that they have played an important role in the industry's recovery since 1980. That this has been to the workers' great benefit as well as that of stockholders and shippers and retirees demonstrates the interdependence of all members of the railroad family."

Railway Age's Railroader of the Year award has been presented annually since 1964 to persons who have contributed something of great significance to the industry. North America's railroads are regarded as the best in the world, and railroad workers have made an important contribution to that status. At the close of the 20th Century, and the dawn of the 21st, selecting The Railroad Worker as Railroader of the Century is a fitting tribute.

On March 21, at the Railroader of the Century dinner in Chicago, Railway Age will present the Smithsonian Institute with a plaque commemorating 100 years of service and commitment by The Railroad Worker. The plaque will go on a national tour of major railway museums, to be followed by permanent placement in the B&O Railroad Museum, Baltimore.