Track Plan

~ This article first appeared in the Leader-Vindicator newspaper. ~

I am a new member of the Clarion Model Railroad Club.

The meeting room features a layout modeled after the Lake Erie, Franklin, and Clarion Railroad, better known as the LEF&C.  On Thursdays model railroaders gather to operate the railroad as though it were the real thing.  Each “engineer” is given a computer-generated work order and must navigate his locomotive(s) around the line to pick up and deliver specific railcars to various yards and businesses stretching from Clarion to Brookville and Summerville, plus, via a fictional connection, all the way to Kane.

Twice now I have operated with the group and there is no doubt it is tricky work.  I find it to be a mentally gratifying experience and I’d like to spend a week straight learning the layout.

The way I see it, there is nothing special about a big rig.  Road vehicles can wander and the countless variations in destination dilute the significance of a road or parking lot and, by extension, the vehicles themselves.  Despite massive investments in road improvement someone must still instruct the vehicle how to act along every inch of right of way, every time it goes.  In a sense, the road must be re-planned each time it is used.

Trains have a very special route that is planned ahead of time, as though someone told the machine “You may go right here.  Not a foot to the left, not an inch to the right, but exactly in this spot I created for you.”  When the track is put down carefully it doesn’t matter how many twists and turns lie ahead, the locomotive will cruise right through it all and the cargo follows dutifully.  Mountains can be tunneled and valleys bridged and the train slides along without a glance at the peak or a look to the bottom.  For me, the appeal of a railroad is the planning that laid the rails to guide the freight.  A track is something special: A physical assurance of repeated throughput of goods.

Not long ago I tuned in to a radio program that encouraged listeners to imagine what it is that invigorates them and then convert that idea into a job.  So properly aligned, the speaker said, we can flourish at work and the overflow will radically impact everything and everyone around us. 

I keep coming back to those darn trains: I am energized by the reality of planning that yields predictable results.  I like to take the 10,000 foot view to survey the landscape and then mark out the track to be followed for efficient, repeatable delivery of goods and services.  In other words, I want to build the track and then know that the goods and services will follow along reliably without someone needing to re-plan the route each and every time.

It’s easy enough to translate this idea into a business analogy.  Our core business is the railroad company: its equipment, yard, and the people who make it happen.  Our track is represented by the work we do in order to get products to customers.  When someone becomes interested in our farm I want them to hop on the train that will lead them smoothly through the terrain and deliver the result they want.  Our job is to maintain the right-of-way so the train does not derail, an accident that makes us look like a bunch of fools while all our customers sit stranded.  Of course, accidents do happen and we also need a highly trained rapid response team to clean up the debris as quickly as possible. 

I don’t want a business that’s analogous to a truck.  It is not appealing to wake up and focus intently to get the same result as yesterday.  Instead, every routine must become a part of the track, representing the ballast and the ties and the tie plates and the spikes and rails and every other piece that helps the train of customers pass through smoothly.  So assembled, the routine carries the train without absorbing a day’s effort, thus freeing minds to work on building new right of ways and finding new passengers.  If the work crew fails at any part of the routine then the track deteriorates and pulls the focus back to repairs.

This study of my “perfect job” has revealed a few things about my character.  I truly, absolutely hate it when we’ve driven the same loose spike so many times that the action seems normal.  Most loose spikes, like trash in the sales area or mismatched signs in the beef cooler or inventory hidden in the back, are so easy to fix and yet remain the job for the day.  I never figured myself to be a detail person but looking with this new perspective reveals that indeed I am.

If I get a chance I’ll build a business as though it’s a track plan for a railroad.  I guess I better start studying maps.