The Inside Track by Michael Sussman

An Open Letter to Warren Buffett

Mr. Buffet, congratulations on your purchase of the BNSF Railway. It is a welcome investment in North America’s transportation system. It also provides a timely opening to address a systemic, long-standing problem—the incongruence between investment of capital, energy, and land for freight and passenger transportation and the inherent value of railroads to any well-functioning modern society.

Only by understanding this shortcoming and seizing the opportunity to transform its causes can we bring North America out of its economic malaise and environmental jeopardy.

OnTrackAmerica conveys a new talking point for railroads

Railroads, in addition to being energy efficient, are also tremendously space efficient. A compelling way to express this is: It takes a 27-mile convoy of tractor-trailers on the highway to move the same goods as a one-mile train.

Collaboration in Action

The following is an excerpt from pages 86 to 89 of Business Intelligence Success Factors, written by Olivia Parr Rud and published in 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. This excerpt, authored and contributed by OnTrackAmerica founder Michael Sussman, forms the conclusion of Rud’s Chapter 4, Collaboration. The book is available online from www.wiley.com/business, at www.amazon.com, and wherever books are sold.

Collaboration in Action: A Case Study

Competition has been the driving force behind the U.S. freight rail industry and related public policy since the first railroad began operations in 1830. This is a curious phenomenon for a contiguous “network” of railroads within a transportation “system.” With competition in the marketplace and competition for government attention as the prevailing influences, the system continues to underutilize rail technology, even though railroads move freight on one-third the amount of fuel and consequent air pollution as trucks moving on the highway. In the following section Michael Sussman, founder of Strategic Rail Finance and OnTrackAmerica, describes how collaboration is helping to rebuild and strengthen the national railway system.

It's Time to Move Beyond Conflict

On December 11, 2008, thirty rail industry and government leaders gathered in the US Capitol Building to discuss ways of improving coordination among rail transportation public- and private-sector stakeholders. I co-facilitated this five hour conversation with Barbara Gray, Director of Penn State University’s Center for Research in Conflict and Negotiation. In light of our government’s recent failed attempt to stimulate housing ownership through the private financial industry, I felt we needed to consider how the public and private sectors can collaborate more effectively and with more integrity.

OnTrackAmerica is Starting a Conversation

On December 11, OnTrackAmerica hosted another in a series of rail stakeholder dialogues, convening leaders from throughout the railroad industry and government, face-to-face. The purpose of that meeting, held at the U.S. Capitol Building, was to forward a process that integrates more stakeholder voices and perspectives, so that multi-stakeholder collaboration becomes institutionalized in the process of national transportation planning.

We're Launching OTA... by Michael Sussman

We're launching OTA to raise the cause of rail transportation to the level of a national mission in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

OnTrackAmerica offers a new way for government, the public, and the rail industry to intelligently understand each other’s concerns and contributions.