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Platform Chats
Platform Chats
The Past and Future of the Rail Industry
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Steve Hill has over 50 years of experience in the rail industry in track and bridge engineering and construction. With a career that has taken him all over the globe, Steve reflects on his experiences with AREMA, the lessons he's learned, and the future of the industry.
I like talking about my industry. I've been doing this a long time now. Got connected with Area, Roadmasters, B B, ARIMA as a way to give back. And this industry has been so good to me. I mean, I've got a nearly 50-year career. I'm still doing consulting. I still get paid every now and then to go out and kick rocks. But I gotta give something back. I gotta share my experiences, my knowledge.
SPEAKER_00You may know the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association, or ARIMA, as the quote, keepers of the manuals. You may know them as the quote people behind the largest annual railroad conference in North America. You may not know about AREMA at all. This podcast is designed, no pun intended, to change your view of who AREMA is and how AREMA has changed the trajectory of many railway careers over its 100-plus year history. Welcome to Platform Chats with your host, Wolf Lesser, where he takes a moment to discuss the impacts AREMA has had on the very people who are proud to be called members. Are you ready to roll with AREMA?
SPEAKER_01This episode is brought to you by Unabridged Structures. Unabridged Structures provides mentorship and advisement to emerging technologies and early stage companies focused on infrastructure. They have a proven track record of bringing technology solutions to the railway industry. For more on Unabridged Structures, go to Unabridged Structures.com.
SPEAKER_04Welcome everybody to episode three of Platform Chats. I'm your host, Walt Blesser, a member of Arima, currently a director on the Structures Functional Group, and I gotta tell you, I am excited about today's episode. I am excited about every episode. I know there were some hurt feelings when I mentioned that episode two might have been better than one. That's been cleared up. That's that's water under the bridge. And as a bridge guy, I feel very comfortable saying that. Uh today is really cool for me because I get to speak with one of my mentors, uh, not just as one of the first people I interacted with as a young design engineer, but also I would consider a mentor to me on how to do an AREMA membership correctly. If you want to consider your ARIMA membership a career, this is the guy to talk to because this guy has done it all. Uh he's been a member of ARIMA since uh before I was born, and he still is as active, if not more active, than many of what I would say uh the AREMA membership base currently has. So, with that introduction, Steve Hill, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_03Wow, thanks. I didn't know I was that famous.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. And there it is. And in case you don't, if you heard it once, you're gonna hear it, I hope, a lot during this uh during this episode. Steve's got a contagious laugh. Uh I l I like to say that Steve, um, there's a term I like to use. He carries good weather. So when Steve's around in general, I he can tend to light up the room, and I'm and I think he's gonna light up this podcast. So Steve, I gotta tell you, man, I've been reviewing your everything you sent to me, and I've known you for a long time, and it's hard to know where to start, except I do know as a young guy, I used to address shop drawings to your name at Canadian Pacific, but I'm pretty sure that's not where you started your career, is it?
SPEAKER_03No, no. I uh I started at uh really right out of the University of Kansas, where we both went. I uh graduated the first time there with a history degree and put that history degree to best possible use by starting to work for the Union Pacific on the uh section crew as a laborer. Just you know, I could see KU there up on the hill as I was pounding spikes. Went on from there into uh Kansas City on a survey crew with some of the engineering background that I had before I switched to history uh to to some use, and then I figured after three or four years of doing that, I wasn't gonna get terribly much farther in this industry without the engineering degree. And it only took me two semesters. I took it kind of laid off two semesters to finish my engineering degree, and then I went from there to Bloomington, Illinois for the Union Pacific, uh uh Illinois Central Gulf, I'm sorry. And worked a year there, then worked a year in Mississippi on a 4R project, where I did a lot of drilling holes in the Yazoo Clay, the Mississippi Delta, a lot of soil stabilization work. Then I went to the Sioux Line, 1980, spent a lot of time there.
SPEAKER_04So Sioux line for those and for those of us that are uh maybe not as seasoned in the railroad industry, the Sioux line is now currently part of the Canadian Pacific, correct? And it sounds like they might have been a part of it for a long time.
SPEAKER_03Right. Sioux Line was majority owned by CP for oh most of its history, really. At some time in the 80s, CP said, well, what are we gonna do with this American railroad we own down there? You know, the industry started to change, you know, this is after after staggers. Boy, you know, we gotta figure out what to do. And so they played around a little bit and eventually bought the Milwaukee Road, spun off uh the Wisconsin portion of the original, the old Sioux line, which became Wisconsin Central, and now, ironically enough, is Canadian National. The more things change in this industry, the more they stay the same.
SPEAKER_04No kidding. And you were when I I remember I came on board in 02, roughly, I worked with you for a couple of years on the Black River Bridge project up there in La Crosse, Wisconsin. And shortly thereafter, I believe you packed it up and moved to the Bay Area. Is that right?
SPEAKER_03Right. Yeah, the Black River Drawbridge project was the last project I worked on at uh CP before leaving to go to California. I was it was one of those we got almost done, and you know, all all of the all the problems were solved, so I left. Or if you want to look at the other way, I left and all the problems were solved. So whatever you think, whatever you like to how you however you want to view it.
SPEAKER_04Depending on how, yeah, depending on which way you want to look at it. But then you I remember you spent a good 10 years working for Caltrain as the chief engineer of track instructures there in San Carlos, and I remember visiting you there a few times. Uh why don't we talk a little bit about your work there?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I came out to Caltrain, the commuter operation, the former uh Southern Pacific uh operation on the peninsula to San Francisco to San Jose. Came out here as uh director of construction initially and finished up the project where they were converting the old SP double track ABS jointed rail operation to dual main, multiple main line, all welded rail, mostly on concrete ties and all CTC and going from 24,000 passengers today to 60,000 passengers or if over that time period. Completely different operation.
SPEAKER_04I was gonna say, why don't you talk a little bit about the difference between working for a class one and then working for an agency like Caltrain, which I believe, if my memory serves me correctly, they receive funding from the state, uh federal, they have both uh freight trains on that track as well as passengers. Is that correct? Maybe give a quick overview of the big differences between that and and maybe CP.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, uh it's called culture shock. Uh uh there's the culture shock of coming from the Midwest to California, which is a strange and wonderful place to live. I believe that. But you know, it's you know, I'm coming from Minnesota and I'm out here in January, and it's everybody around here, you know, it's 40 degrees outside, and everybody's wearing parkas, and I'm walking around in short sleeves. And I'm saying, what? What do you mean it's cold? Uh and yeah, then the culture shock in the work environment of a for-profit railroad to a publicly funded agency, uh, just trying to wrap my head around, okay, where's all this money coming from? You know, why do we have all this money and what are we doing with it? And is that the right way to spend it? And they say, you know, basically, hey, the money's there, spend it. Okay. It's it's a different way of doing things. And I never really got super comfortable with it. You know, it was it's more politics than engineering, ultimately.
SPEAKER_04And you strike me as a guy that probably likes the engineering more than the politics, but maybe I'm wrong. Um, understatement, yeah. Duh. Yeah, so but I gotta give you, I gotta give you credit, Steve. You you hung in there for a solid 10 years. I mean, that's most people, uh, you know, after a few years of of a bad fit, probably would have split. Because I know after that you went over to to the Iowa Pacific uh holding company, which I believe runs multiple short lines across the country.
SPEAKER_03Is that right? They had 10 properties around the country, uh and a couple properties in England. I actually got to go see. That was fun. But uh different you go you're going from a class one railroad to a publicly funded railroad with all with money coming out their ears to a short line with no money whatsoever. Talk about another culture shift. So um it was it I kept thinking back to the days uh when the Sioux line acquired the Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Road had been in bankruptcy for so many years that those guys, the phrase is, you know, they were they'd done so much with so little for so long, they were now qualif fully qualified to do anything with nothing. You know, that was the Milwaukee guys. What a spirit. I mean, those are some tough railroaders and really top-notch railroads because they had to be. And then, you know, go to go to Caltrain with money for everything, and then then to a short line with no money for anything, and it's I'm back in the doing doing everything with nothing again. It's it's it's it's been fun.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I bet. It sounds like quite this circle of life there as far as a railroader is concerned. I mean, you've got, like you said, privately funded CP, and then you've got publicly funded Caltrain, and then you've got a shortline, which is a whole nother story. And I, you know, I although the topic of this podcast is not uh 100% the business side of railroading, so why don't we instead of defining class one shortline and uh publicly funded transits, let's talk a little bit about the reason we're here, which is your experience with AREMA. And like I said at the beginning of this podcast, you have been a member of AREMA since uh well, when did you join? I mean, you've been a member of AREMA throughout the entire railway career that you've held, correct?
SPEAKER_03I joined AREA first in 1975, and you had to have three years railroad experience to join. So it was I was three years in. I joined as soon as I could, basically. My first committee.
SPEAKER_04So that I'm sorry. That hasn't changed. You still got to have three years of experience. I'm glad you brought that up. I know a lot of uh young folks have reached out to me too, uh, since we started this podcast, and I know uh what you just said is correct. So when you graduate or when you start your career, you become an associate member, right? And then a full member three years later. You're you're eligible to be a full member of a REMA three years later, which I believe gives you the ability to vote on technical material amongst other things. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_03I don't remember if there was AREA had associate members at that time. I'm not sure they did. Um, but it was the it was I was on the survey crew in Kansas City at the time, and you know, I got a couple of questions. Well, why do you want to join AREA? Well, I want to learn about this industry I'm working in. Yeah, I want to experience on, you know, I want to learn how to run a rail gang, I want to learn how to run a tie gang, things like that. So one summer, I a couple of summers I got sent out on the uh spray train on the Kansas division. So, you know, going Kansas City to Denver at 20 miles an hour, that's thrilling. Uh the interesting thing was I worked for Bill Wimmer when he was a division engineer in Kansas City. You you people out there with the long memories remember Bill Wimmer, who eventually became chief engineer of the UP. So yeah, I knew Bill Wimmer back when. Back in the old days.
SPEAKER_04Way way back when. And I believe his uh I believe he has offspring that also work for Union Pacific, doing a good job over there for for the the big railroad out of Omaha. And uh doing 20 miles an hour across Kansas. I mean, I'll tell you right now, driving from Kansas City to Denver on I-70 at 80 miles an hour is not very fun either. Uh so I can only imagine what 20 is like. So you joined AREA, and A what what is the difference between AREA and AREMA? Uh what we would consider AREMA today.
SPEAKER_03Well, AREMA is a combination of four predecessor organizations. AREA, Roadmasters and Maintenance Way Association, which is actually the senior organization. I say that with pride, Roadmasters, I mean uh Railway, Railway Bridge and Building Association, and the communications and signal part of the AAR. Those are the four predecessor organizations that make up what is now known as AREMA. So I joined AREA, soon got involved with uh committee one, which is uh track and track and ballast, and I worked on uh one of subcommittees on on ballast, particularly when I was with the ICG, I was doing all the geotechnical work, learning about uh ballast sections and foul ballast sections, and why all that stuff is coming up through the through there for bad drainage and stuff. And learn learn the one very important thing. There's only only three things you need to have good track drainage, more drainage, more and better drainage. That's that's all you need to have good track. Yeah. Which as bridges, you know, you want good drainage for your bridges too. You'll apply that later.
SPEAKER_04So you joined the group. Now, were we were they still having the annual conference that would, you know, that we recognize today. Were they doing that when you joined? Uh, I think at one time you told me you've almost never missed a conference, which is pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03AREA conferences were in the spring, and it was just a technical conference uh held in the Palmer House. Beautiful place in Chicago. And then a few years later in 78, I joined Roadmasters Association. Roadmasters Association's background, like I say, it's older than AREA. And it it was AREA was the technical side. Uh they produced the manual that you know we have now, manual of uh railway engineering. That that was AREA's document, those those recommended practices, you know, the design of your bridges, the design of your track, uh things like that. That was AREA. Roadmasters was an organization of the uh middle and uh lower supervisors, uh, the people who did the work. AREA wrote uh created the recommended practice, Roadmasters and the B and B associations did what those recommended practices were. They put it to work. They were the hands-on people. So there were two different philosophies. Roadmasters and B B always held their conferences together in the fall, and every four years they had an equipment show. Equipment show was always Roadmaster B B. It was never AREA. So the equipment shows that we have now every year is is a legacy of Roadmasters and B.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Which I think, I mean, if you want to get right into it, I mean Committee 10 for uh the structures functional group, if uh correct me if I'm wrong, but that that represents what used to be Roadmasters B B Group.
SPEAKER_03Is that uh it's it's really committee 10 is really the old B B Association. Roadmasters, um I I had become in 1992 I was uh president of the Roadmasters Association, and the merger with all of these to become become AR AREMA happened in '98, '99. And there was a lot of gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts by all the organizations. You know, we're the league, we're the best. Worked through all of that forming, storming, norming, and performing to become AREMA and what we are now, very effectively now. And we uh had to had to come together. So committee 10 really was the B and B Association. Their first meeting, there were 10 of us there, met at the AREA conference in the spring, and we had a room and said, okay, we're gonna be this committee. And we picked the picked the name, structures, maintenance, and construction. Came together as one of the new one of the few new committees that was formed with the formation of a REMA. Roadmasters had the same option to do it, but chose not to.
SPEAKER_04Oh, so what happened to them?
SPEAKER_03Um they they were, I guess, content to be you know absorbed into the the various track related committees that that existed. But B B association was very adamant that they wanted to preserve the reach into the corporate supervisor level. AREA always had the reputation of being a chief engineers club. And Roadmasters and B B were the hands-on guys. I mean, that's how they that's how they looked at each other. It wasn't strictly true, but that was the perception on uh in many people because AREA wrote the standards, recommended practices, and Roadmasters B and B put them in practice and made it work. So all that, you know, like I say, forming, storming, norming, and performing that's become a REMA, those are those those feelings are gone until a REMA said, okay, we're gonna form some teams. So they formed a maintenance away team, a bridge team, and a couple of other teams. It was interesting to sit there and then they said, yeah, okay, they're gonna make these teams committees. And team 42, which was bridges, uh, was rather than set up as a separate committee, was said, okay, you're gonna become part of committee 10. So now we have, here we are 20 years later, looking at team 42 becoming part of committee 10. And here are these earnest, talented, mostly middle management people who were on team 42 coming in and being the rabble rousers in committee 10. That committee 10 was the rabble rousers into the new arena. So it was fun to watch that dynamic go on. That yeah, hey, you're saying the same things we said 20 years ago. You know, we're on the same side here. So it was it was it was fun to watch that happen and and and make things work.
SPEAKER_04Well, sure, and and the goal of any you know consensus committee, consensus organization is to get everybody's voice heard, right? So you want to hear from the guy that's has the PhD, that that understands the metallurgy of the of the structure we're talking about, and you want to hear from the guy that's gonna bust ribbons and uh and be out there in the field, right? Performing the work that's that's on the plans. And so I think that's the beauty of committee 10, too, is that in the structures functional group, we've always had that uh voice, if you will, right, of the of the folks in the field performing the work.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And that's yeah, that's reflected, you know, in our bridge inspection handbook and our bridge inspection seminar. That's why that bridge inspection seminar is a direct legacy from the B B Association. They did that seminar. I took that seminar in the 80s and thoroughly enjoyed it. Sitting there listening to the Don McCammons of the world tell me about what it means. With you know this steel bridge I'm looking at here. And Dominic Hammond is still one of our instructors for the bridge seminar we've done 30 times now.
SPEAKER_04Since we that is a yeah, that I was gonna say that's a great transition. I know a lot of people think about Arima as the people that create uh the manual for railway engineering, but uh committee 10 has a robust history of uh performing, well, maybe that's not the right word, sometimes it's the performance, right? But uh, you know, performing these seminars for bridge inspections, scour. I know you guys have been working on a fix-it seminar. And I know you're passionate about, you're a very passionate guy, and and you're very you're a very passionate guy when it comes to getting out there in front of frontline individuals and and preaching the gospel of that is railroading. Am I wrong about that?
SPEAKER_03You're not wrong about that. I I I like talking about my industry. I've been doing this a long time now. Got connected with Area, Roadmasters, B B, AREMA as a way to give back. Yeah, this industry has been so good to me. I mean, I've got a nearly 50-year career. I'm still doing consulting. I still get paid every now and then to go out and kick rocks. But I gotta give something back. I gotta share my experiences, my knowledge. I teach these uh bridge inspection scour seminar. I do mostly the scour side, uh, but I've taught virtually every segment of the bridge inspection seminar too, one time or another, over the 30 some times we've delivered it over you know the last 15 years, I think we've been doing it now. I have fun. That's that's that's the time that I have the most fun, is in a classroom like that. Or we're going to a virtual presentation of this system now. But in in there talking to people and listening to their experience, the best time of those seminars, and you've taught a couple, so you know what I'm talking about, is when you have a subject and then someone in the class says, Oh, yeah, this is how we did we dealt that dealt with that. Or yeah, we've tried this and it didn't work, but you get this interaction, discussion going on. That's the most valuable time of those classes.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I agree with that completely. I mean, I think the interaction with the audience is is the is far better than anything you've got on the PowerPoint slides. Uh, and you, you know, I again I think this is where your passion comes out. I think you like to get in there and and you're animated and you and you're dealing with with the students in a way that, you know, whether you've got, you know, I know you have 50 plus years of experience, and you might be dealing with a guy that's got not even two, and you treat them the same, and I think that's awesome that you do it the way you do it. And and I and I I guess that brings me to a point of the value you get out of Arima, are you using it mostly as a vessel to give back to others, or would you say that you also have found lifelong friendships that have helped your career, or maybe potentially helped you find that opportunity at Caltrain? Or I I I'm going this where I'm going with this is the same question I ask every guest. Um if if I just walked into your office and I've got uh two or three years of experience and I have a flyer in my hand that says join a REMA and I go to Steve Hill, why should I join a REMA? What are you gonna tell that individual? And remember, Steve, we have a time cap.
SPEAKER_03So first I'd want to know, okay, what where's your area of interest? You're coming into this, you've been in this industry a couple, three years now. Are you more interested in track, bridges, locomotives? Where is it? Where do you fall what's your passion? What drives your interest in being in this industry? And then, okay, they say track. Well, okay, doing track design, you like running a tie gang? Have you run a tie gang? Have you been on a tie gang? You like bridges, okay? Have you worked with the bridge crew? Have you uh been out on a on a change out where you've got, you know, unlike uh unlike the highway departments who can just build a little, you know, divert a road over somewhere and take six months to build a bridge where and I rarely had more than than 12 hours, last train to first train, to change to get it get a bridge in and run and operable. So where's your passion? What's what what are you most interested in as someone new to the industry? And you can go find anything in Arima to feed that. And this is where the committees come in.
SPEAKER_04I love it. So you're gonna help them narrow down that passion, which I couldn't could not agree with you more, and then from there assist them in joining the appropriate technical committee.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, where their interests lie.
SPEAKER_04And then while there, I mean you you've done it all. I mean, you you join the technical committees, you've you've been a secretary and a vice chair and a chair, and you've you were a you were on the board, and then you were all the way to president. So, you know, what I guess that's a good question is what uh i if the same young individual looks at you and says, Okay, well, I'd love to follow your leadership path. Um, you know, some of those roles are are three years at a time. So what keeps you coming back, Steve? You you haven't missed a conference since 1976. What keeps you coming back to this organization? Uh the people.
SPEAKER_03The people I get to know. Um, you know, this there was this young engineer out of HNTB who did this bridge design for lacrosse. Hey, I'm talking to him now. And you know, look at what he's done. Look at what Walt has done in his career. And you know, he's he's got his own company now, again. Uh, and that's fantastic. He's followed his passion. And if I've helped in any way in that, I'm glad. But that's that's that's what I would like to be able to do with more people. Yeah, but then you get to work with with some extraordinary people. I I mentioned Don McCamin, you know, what he doesn't know about bridges ain't worth knowing. Uh I certainly, you know, I I like you say I taught all of the segments at one time or another in the bridge inspection course, but I'm in most of those, I'm delivering Don McCamin's words. I'm just the vessel that delivers Don McCamin's thoughts as best I can. And then you get to work with somebody like a John Unsworth. I think right now he's probably, well, he, I, in my opinion, he's the premier railroad bridge designer in North America, if not the world, right now. I have a signed copy of his book, Design and Construction of Modern Steel Railway Bridges. I even have a photo credit in that book. So, I mean, these are the kind of connections you get. Work with these people, you and you know, the REMSA side, the equipment side, you know, the big, huge equipment shows that we do. My first job, my first project I worked on at the Sioux line was to transform all of the section crews from mostly motor car and truck to get around hand tools to put them all in high-rail boom trucks with hydraulic tools. And I got to work with some really good uh suppliers in the industry. Auto truck uh out of Chicago built most of the trucks. And you know, you learn a lot about you know design of trucks, and you know, you got to build a huge body and put all these tools on there, and then you continually fight the battle of the section crew is carrying all of this stuff, and they keep throwing more junk on there. That pretty soon, in any time somebody brings an extra sandwich in their lunchbox, the truck's overweight, you know. And you always have that problem. You still have it now. Learning about that, and you know, the the flip side of that is obviously you're laying off a lot of track people because you're eliminating a lot of section crews because now you're giving them more mobility, that every other section crew is now gone. So there's there's pluses and minuses to everything you do. The company wants this done, and here's why you're doing it. And then, okay, here's an effect, you're you're getting rid of half of your labor force. And you know, if you look in uh what Railway Age magazine, they always had that in their in their first couple pages about the railroad industry, you know, it says you know, 125,000 employees. You know, when I started there, it was over half a million, approaching a million. So you see how the industry has shrunk. Part of that is giving people better tools and safer tools to do their job. These are the kind of things. Yeah, this is why I love this industry. It's fun. I do this more for fun now than really because, you know, I'm semi-retired, but I still have fun doing this stuff. Am I rattling on or yeah?
SPEAKER_04It seems like you have a relatively unquenchable thirst for learning and learning new things. And I feel like you've that's been a theme in the stuff you've talked about today, is that that you might have a passion for bridges or accelerated bridge. I guess they call it accelerated bridge construction if you work outside of the railroad industry, but in the railroad industry you call that bridge construction. Yeah, that's normal. That's how it's normal. That's just normal. And but at the same time, you just spent a few minutes talking about you know using hydraulic tools. So, you know, I guess your point really there is no matter what your passion is, you're gonna be exposed or have the ability to be exposed to so much more than you might have ever thought you have interest in just by attending the the conferences. I mean, I don't know about you, but I I love the fall conference. Uh and I know that you have been a basically a conference, I I don't want to say as you're a conference organizer, but talk a little bit about your involvement with the national conference, Steve.
SPEAKER_03Well, back before uh ARIMA was created, when there was still things, um, AREA had the organization set up that when someone was elected president, they brought someone to that spring conference who was basically their gopher for the meeting and making sure all the other stuff got to happen. And they're a part of what was called the conference operating committee. In 1988, I think it was. Sounds right. Warren Peterson of the Sioux line was elected president of AREA. And I came to that conference as part of the conference operating committee to help. That's the group, the volunteer group that puts on the technical conference, makes sure all the speakers are there, uh, does the registration, does gets everybody signed in, and all of that. And that conference operating committee still uh works now as the is the backbone of delivering the uh conferences every year in the equipment shows. As a current member, you you go to now, and they staff all of the uh registration areas, the uh the doors into the meeting rooms, make sure everybody check everybody's badges and all that. I've been on the conference operating committee since 1988. You don't get off that conference operating committee once you're on.
SPEAKER_04And what did can anyone join that? Uh I mean, can I join that? You know, I you know what my experience has been, I've been part of different technical committees, but I I would assume that the conference operating committee is always looking for a few good folks.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, anybody can join. Absolutely. We're always looking for more people. Like you say, this is these are the people who make the conference happen. These are the guys standing at the doors and looking at your badge, and they say, Oh, you know, you got the right badge for today. But it's it's working with uh the headquarters staff, Desiree and uh Stacy, who are the headquarters people who are organizing, and you know, they're they're the they're the bosses, you know. The wizard of Des does everything. She's amazing. And uh Stacy, uh who's head of uh technical uh sessions, and Beth, our CEO, great people to work with, fun people to work with, but they're they're busy like crazy making sure the president gets around and gets to his has his script with him and delivers all of the stuff and organizing all of the uh the breakout sessions, uh the Tuesday technical sessions for every you know, you got six or seven different streams, you know, you got track and bridges and things like that. All the functional groups delivering their own really good quality presentations about uh bridge replacement or technical design of uh uh new new technology for uh rail detection, things like that. So these are the people in the background that make that conference work for all of the people attending. That's a fun group to be with because it's there's a lot of old friends that have been on this on this committee for a long time, too.
SPEAKER_04And I'm guessing you're probably Jonesing to uh to get back to a real in-person conference. Uh unfortunately, it sounds like this year's is gonna be virtual as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it's looking like what, 2022?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, probably 22, I'm hoping.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And if my memory serves me right, that's gonna be in Denver. I think you're right. Your hometown. Right. Uh well, that's why it's coming here.
SPEAKER_03Um figured that, you know. It was a simple request. It's the Walt Blesser Honor, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I put that request in about uh 20 years ago. Yeah, good. And uh happy to see that it's working out. Not even knowing you'd be living in Denver by then.
SPEAKER_03That's pretty pretty astute of you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Fantastic. Well, I mean, I guess my last question is uh, again, you know, you got your your guy, your your gal that's that's sitting out there right now, and any last words of advice you'd like to give that person before they embark on their railway career, Steve?
SPEAKER_03I heartily encourage you to join in this great industry. It's fun. It's it's it's a group of people who dedicated to making industry successful. And because it is a for-profit group as opposed to a wholly publicly funded group, it's a different attitude. And now certainly their their members are from publicly funded agency. Obviously, I was you know, Caltraining part of that, but it's it's the core focus is this is an industry that mostly has to do it on their own merit. Class ones receive pitifully little public subsidy. There's always the you know the comparison. Well, you know, look at all the subsidies the trucker, trucking industry and the airlines get to compare to the railroads. Okay, there's that. I'm the rugged individualist. I can thump on my chest and say, boy, look at it, aren't we good? But they had to come through a lot. And you know, the bankruptcies of the 70s and the tough times of the 60s and 70s have, and the change in regulation have made it a thrilling industry to be part of.
SPEAKER_04I agree. And and as a guy that's uh many years uh younger and entering the the industry later, I still have the same passion that you do. I'm excited about the what the future holds. I think that the technology we're seeing, uh, you know, you mentioned uh changing from the hydraulic tools and how that potentially eliminated some jobs and and some of the work you did in the past. I think, well, I guess uh some things never change. I mean, we're seeing technologies and drones and and trucks that drive along and inspect the track instead of people walking. And the I think the biggest benefit is it's becoming safer. Uh it's uh it's always been a dangerous industry. I think we're becoming safer than we've ever been. And I think that uh all the cool technologies we're seeing in other industries, what people don't understand is they're being used in the in the railway industry as well. And I can tell you right now, that's what keeps me coming back. And so, Steve, I I just want to say thank you. Uh, I'm running up against my little time meter here. Uh it says that we need to wrap it up. So thanks again for for joining us on uh platform chats. And it sounds like I hope to see you at a committee 10 meeting maybe this summer. What do you think?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, at least it probably be virtual still, but maybe, you know, they're talking about trying to go to St. Louis. I think we haven't heard any details yet, but hopefully we can actually be there.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's where I'm gonna wrap it up, Steve. I'm gonna say see you in St. Louis, and thanks again for being on.
SPEAKER_03And thanks for inviting me, Walt. I had a fun time. Always good talking to you.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. Take care. Bye. Thanks. Bye.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for rolling with Arima on today's episode of Platform Chats. For further information about Arima, please visit arema.org or contact us at info at arema.org.
