Railway Track & Structures - September 2008 - (Page 13)

AREMA NEWS President’s Column am honored to be able to write this first column as incoming president of AREMA for the 20082009 term. I look forward to serving AREMA and its members in this capacity and intend to continue the direction and progress that has made AREMA successful over the past many years. Before getting into my initial thoughts concerning my term as president, I’d like to thank Larry Etherton for the excellent job he has performed over the past year as president. The Association has strengthened its budget reserves, increased membership, increased the AREMA Educational Foundation scholarship fund and the number of scholarships awarded each year and increased attendance at the last Annual Conference. Thank you, Larry, for a job well done and I look forward to your help and support in the next year as you remain active in the Association as past president. I’d like to outline a couple of my initial key goals that I feel are important to the continued success of the Association that I and others will concentrate I New goals for a new year on over the next year. First, one of the most important services AREMA provides to the rail industry is making available the Manual for Railway Engineering and the Communications and Signals Manual. These technical guides provide design, maintenance and operational recommended practices to the entire rail industry, including Class 1, 2 and 3 railroads, the shortline industry, passenger and transit and a host of governmental agencies at the federal, state and local levels. Rail experts serve on committees and add or update the technical material to keep it current with modern-day practices, technology, materials, logistics and other factors. These recommended practices in general are proven, efficient and cost-effective and give guidance to the industry’s engineering and operating departments. As a group, we need to continue to update the Manual material to keep it current with today’s best practices and add new practices as they are developed, especially as related to the heavy haul environment in which we operate. As the stress state of the rail infrastructure continues to be challenged, we are continually learning how to provide a reliable and available infrastructure to our transportation teams. These learnings need to be promptly incorporated into our recommended practices. I have recently challenged committee leadership to more promptly Robert J. Boileau AREMA® President 2008-2009 complete Manual assignments so that AREMA can put the best practices of the experts into the hands of its members as quickly as possible. To support this goal, additional participation in committee work by AREMA members is needed, which brings me to the second goal I’d like to discuss. The demographics of AREMA, and especially its committee members, is very much like that of the freight rail industry in general. We are a maturing group that is seeing and will continue to see a large number of retirements over the next five to 10 years. These retirements will leave a large void in AREMA committee rosters and could inhibit participation and work output as it pertains to committee assignment work and updating the Manuals. Most freight rail engineering departments are hiring large numbers of new employees and engineers due to the turnover that is occurring. It is incumbent upon the Class 1s and the industry in general to strongly encourage its new employees to join AREMA, join a committee and then support their participation in attending committee meetings and the Annual Conferences. My concern is that if this is not done, membership and participation will decrease and AREMA will have a difficult time providing its services via the committees to the industry as a whole. This issue has been broached with the vice presidents of engineering of the Class 1s and they are supportive of the need. The next step is for these vice presidents or other senior engineering managers to contact and encourage newer engineering employees to join AREMA and join an AREMA committee. Our committee leadership and subcommittee chairs will welcome the new members and will very much appreciate the additional help. The new employees will be able to network with others in the industry from other companies and backgrounds and will be able to use their AREMA participation to learn more about railway engineering, which can be applied in the day-to-day decision making in their jobs back home. Please seriously consider this issue and this request within the companies where you work. I would also like to advise that the Structures Group within AREMA took on a large and important project to develop the Bridge Inspection Handbook. I am pleased to advise that the Handbook is now complete and is ready for purchase. The Handbook outlines what every bridge inspector and bridge engineer should know to properly inspect, maintain and manage its company’s bridge assets. This will be a great guide for newer employees, as well as veterans. Please visit the AREMA Website to check out the Handbook. The American Short Line and Regional Continued on page 14 Railway Track & Structures September 2008 13 www.rtands.com http://www.arema.org http://www.rtands.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Railway Track & Structures - September 2008

Railway Track & Structures - September 2008 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D Larry Etherton Rounds Out Successful Term as President of AREMA Remote Bridges Present Challenges New Mexico Rail Runner Express Making Tracks for Santa Fe Products and Literature People Calendar Sales Representatives Advertisers Index Website Directory Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - September 2008

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