LOMBARD, Ill. — CEOs of three Class I railroads are among the impressive list of speakers for this year’s winter meeting of the Midwest Association of Rail Shippers, set for Jan. 17-19 at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Lombard, Ill.
Katie Farmer of BNSF Railway, Tracy Robinson of Canadian National, and Alan Shaw of Norfolk Southern head a list that also includes John Fenton, CEO of Patriot Rail; Henry Posner, chairman of Rail Development Corp, and Lorie Tekorius, CEO of the Greenbrier Companies.
Also on the schedule are Ian Jefferies, CEO of the Association of American Railroads; Martin Oberman, Chairman of the Surface Transportation Board; analyst Anthony Hatch of ABH Consulting; Adam Nordstrom, Principal, Viking Navagation; Glenn Pushis, Senior Vice President, Strategic Projects, Steel Dynamics; David Shannon, General Manager, and RailPulse.
The theme of the winter meeting is “Better Together, Parntering to Navigate a Dynamic Rail Environment.”
More information and registration is available at the MARS website.
Yes, rather interesting that a certain other major “western carrier” located in Omaha, Nebraska cannot seem to get one of their executives to attend this meeting.
Perhaps they are not interested in “Better Together…Partnering together to Navigate a Dynamic Rail Environment.” While not trying to sound cynical, one does love these ‘touchy-feely’ themes for industry conferences such as this (noted above).
Perhaps a more obvious, if less pleasant theme might be “Ignoring our customers and pursuing quarterly profit goals, thus ensuring a dysfunctional and shrinking freight railroad market ….” (or something like that?)
Re-call the old quote from Lily Tomlin in the late 60s: “I try to be cynical, it’s hard to keep up …”
Maybe that is why some are called the Lords of Omaha.
Perhaps someone from the other major carrier in the west could show up and explain their embargo on traffic in three Midwestern states? Interesting how this bit of news has slipped under the radar, with only one trade journal that I can see reporting on it.
Charles Landry. If only what you have said comes true. We can all wish but, that may be about all.
Where is the UP CEO ?
Interesting. UP is absent.
Charles, you said a mouthful. And indeed, if the CEOs present, to borrow from Shakespeare, are to thine own selves being true, they will know they have earned some measure of re-reg. The industry and its shippers may be in for some interesting times.
I don’t see freight rail customers (or Amtrak) among the speakers.
Each of the Class 1’s has a monopoly in its home territory, just like the RR’s did in 1886, which led to the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887.
The Wikipedia article cites, “Railroads saw that competition made it hard to pay their stockholders and bondholders the amount of money promised to them, and competition was therefore ‘bad.'” This sounds like the current situation.
The Class 1’s and their ruling Wall Street tycoons will send Lawyers, Guns and Money so such an act is not a done deal.
The over-compensated CEOs get top billing in the article.
However, Martin Oberman is the most significant and consequential speaker.
Whatever platitudinous words Martin Oberman speaks, this is what he will mean: “Re-regulation”.
And the CEOs in the audience will know d…….ed well they have earned it and will have it coming. The time for them to have wiggled out of it has come and gone.