Devon Parsons.com

WOW. What a week.

First off, I apologize for not doing daily updates, but last week was just too crazy to do so. Not only that, but I was planning on doing updates over the weekend until I remember that the oh-so-cruel UF Physics department decided to give our second exam the Monday after break.

So, after the test, here I am. For confidentiality purposes, the names of people from my externship week have been altered. And what a week it was.

Day One

I got up at 6AM. I make note of this because I haven't gotten up that early in a while, and thrust me back into reality that waking up at 8AM for classes really isn't so bad. After a wonderful breakfast of scrambled eggs and fresh fruit with my hosts, I took off for RailAmerica headquarters. RailAmerica is a shortline holding company, essentially, they manage 42 railroads across North America. These "shortlines" are railroads that are usually small by industry standards--often less than 300 miles or so. I would be spending most of my week with their newest property which RailAmerica recently purchased along with its parent company Fortress Investments, the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) running from Jacksonville to Miami.

FEC Headquarters building in southeast Jacksonville, Fl. Now home to the RailAmerica corporate offices as well since the aquisition.

Day One started at headquarters for RailAmerica, and it was essentially meetings all day. Sitting in on the meetings gave a real perspective on the managment process that goes on behind the scenes in the railroading world. For instance, we started the day with the FEC managers staff meeting, where they gave updates on the railroad, how business was doing, and future projects the managers wanted to implement. It was also a time to meet the individuals I would be spending some of the week with at the FEC. Following that meeting was another where I sat in with RailAmerica Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President on his weekly conference call to the different RailAmerica regions. Discussed were any problems an individual railroad was facing, solutions, etc, etc. Following that was the Chief Executive Officer's staff meeting with most of RailAmerica corporate, and after that was another meeting where various topics and subjects came up for review. These topics were, for example, how to analyze the current system to improve fuel efficiency and how the individual would go about doing so.

Essentially the day required a lot of meetings stamina, but it was well worth it. It really gave a good glimpse into the area I want to pursue--the business side of railroad operations. I learned about the chain of command and how proposals get approved and the thought and work that goes into them. And while the business side was extremely interesting, little did I realize that on day two I would be hitting the ground (the railroad ground) running. No more office building for me until the end of the week.

Below is a map of the FEC route down the east coast of the state. It's about 350 miles, 8 hours running time from Jacksonville to Miami nonstop.