Al Fazio, a colleague and friend for most of my career, has worked in every form of railroading: freight, main-line passenger, rapid transit and light rail. We’ve collaborated on articles for Railway Age, developed conference presentations and published a book on light rail. Al’s knowledge and expertise are, in my mind as well as those of countless others, unmatched.
This is a complex book by one of the most un-complex people I’ve ever known in my 32-plus years of reporting, writing and commenting on the railway industry (except when it comes to Al’s family—wife Tina, four children and 18 grandchildren, at this writing!).
Al is well-versed in modern technology but has never lost his “old school” approach to doing things: relying on the fundamentals of common sense, sound engineering and operating principles, and “safety first.” That is, there’s a right way, and a wrong way—no gray area, no compromise. That’s key for an industry like rail that depends upon many safety-critical elements synching to create a well-oiled system: rolling stock, motive power, track, signals, communications, operations, transportation, and—most important—people.
People: That’s what this “application text,” as Al describes it, is all about. Al says it’s about “explaining the use of analytically based program and project management techniques in a railway environment … such techniques as logic-based scheduling, development of estimates and their use in project activity budgeting, work formulation, organizational and financial breakdown structures, earned value analysis, and forecasting of both schedule and cost performance.” But it’s really about people, because all the functions just mentioned depend upon skilled people bringing their individual talents to a collaborative environment.
Returning to Al’s focus on the fundamentals, he notes that “the raison d’être (the most important reason or purpose for someone’s or something’s existence) of a railway is transportation.” Based upon his years of experience, he believes that “it has been two generations or more since the path to executive leadership lay through the execution of major capital programs. Those responsible for execution of such programs, be they employees, consultants or contractors, would do well to recognize this culture.” Al makes a very strong case for this here.
Among the new generation of railway professionals is Al’s son Anthony, who co-authored this book. A Professional Engineer like his father, Anthony has spent his entire career on Northeastern railways—NJ Transit, Amtrak, SEPTA and now PATH, where he is Track Department Superintendent. The father of five ventured into consulting with Jacobs Engineering for a while, but he’s a railroader at heart.
The rail industry is filled with acronyms. The one for “earned value analysis” is EVA, which (if you’re a “space junkie” like me who grew up with NASA’s Apollo moon program) also means “extra-vehicular activity”—venturing outside the relative safety of your spacecraft into a hostile environment to explore things unknown, gain knowledge or acquire insight. Conversing with Al, or reading one of his many books, is an EVA worth taking—except of course that, aside from having conventional wisdom challenged, it’s risk-free.
Like me, Al is an Italian-American who appreciates a meal consisting of a healthy helping of al dente pasta in homemade tomato sauce (it’s not called gravy!) with perhaps braciola or meatballs, concluding with a very rich pastry, like cannoli. For those of you hungry for a refreshing look at railway management principles, your hunger will be satisfied with this multi-course meal from a master chef.
Buon appetito!
