The art of scheduled railroading

In the midst of a year when railroads are feeling the impact of a sputtering economy and dealing with calls for reform from dissatisfied customers, Canadian National finds itself in an enviable position.

CN, in the words of Paul Tellier, "is the North American rail industry's service and efficiency leader." CN's president and chief executive officer-who took CN private in 1995, directed the absorption of Illinois Central with barely a hiccup, and almost pulled off a transnational merger with Burlington Northern and Santa Fe (arguably the best-performing U.S. Class I)-told CN shareholders last month that "we have met the benchmark we set years ago when we said we would become the best railroad in North America." He reminded them that the value of their holdings has, in the past five years, more than tripled.

For Paul Tellier and the rest of the people-management and labor alike-who have built CN into what it is today, an operating ratio below 70% and ontime performance better than 90% (not to mention the stock price) isn't good enough. As benchmarks go, "ours can no longer be the rail industry," said Tellier. "We must become one of the best-run, best-managed, best-performing companies in North America. CN must be the leader in innovation."

I came away from a conversation with CN Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Hunter Harrison-a career railroader who set and surpassed his own benchmarks on the Burlington Northern and then the IC-feeling that CN may already be the leader in innovation. In our cover story (Highlights), Harrison explains the philosophy and nuances behind running a scheduled railroad. As you'll discover, it's more art than science.

High hopes for high speed: Few people are as well qualified as Contributing Editor Jim RePass to interpret where high speed passenger rail is headed. RePass, who abandoned a lucrative career as a management consultant to found the National Corridors Initiative and garner grass-roots political support for passenger rail, has good reason to believe that the national movement toward more and better passenger service is indeed sustainable. Partisan politics? "There are supporters on both sides of the Congressional aisle," he says. America's entrenched automobile culture? "Put it in Park."

RePass's report (Highlights) describes the high speed rail component of a little-known Transportation Research Board/FRA program called IDEA (Ideas Deserving Exploratory Analysis). IDEA is geared toward improving safety on lines shared by freight and passenger trains. It's also mere pocket change in the immense bankroll of federal transportation dollars.

"An annual budget of $1 million to explore worthy ideas seems like another slap in the face after a long history of neglect," says RePass. "The story here isn't what the IDEA program has accomplished, which is significant. Rather, it's about how a long-dismissed industry is fighting back with a cooperative program to create and apply new technologies that will help rail once again become the major transportation mode it must be, if we are to have any hope of developing a balanced transportation system."

Say that again? I took courses in Calculus and Probability & Statistics in my senior year of high school. Over the years, what I learned has slowly faded into the deep recesses of my mind. Recently, though, I had an abrupt awakening. Would you like to know the mathematical formula ("binomial logit model") for estimating the probability of a Montgomery County, Md., resident accessing a WMATA Metrorail station by foot (i.e., "walk and ride")? Here it is:

P_nio = exp(V_nio)/[_jeCno exp(V_njo)],

V_nio = ƒ (T_io, SE_n, BE_o, BE_d)

Allow me to explain: "P_nio = probability of person n choosing means i for accessing the nearest Metrorail station from the person's residence at origin o. C_nod = choice set of modes available to person n traveling from origin o to the nearest Metrorail station. V_nio = utility function (systematic component) for person n traveling by mode i from origin o to the nearest Metrorail station. T_io = trip characteristics for travel (e.g., time) by mode i from origin o to the nearest Metrorail station. SE_n = socioeconomic characteristics of trip-maker n (e.g. income and vehicle availability). BE_o = built environment vector for TAZ origin o, representing measures of land-use intensity, land-use mixture, and walking quality."

A researcher identified as from "Univerity of Califoria, Berkeley" is the author of this mathematical morass, published in a recent edition of a prominent, U.S. DOT-sponsored public transportation scholarly journal. I applied this formula to determine the probability of driving my car to my NJ Transit rail station in a blizzard. I got stuck in my driveway.