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“Railroads aren’t on the radar screen for most Americans. Most complain when they have to stop at a grade crossing in order to let a train go by,” says Peter F. Turrell ’65. “Except for Amtrak, railroads get little visibility. We take them for granted until they stop delivering the crucial goods and products we need to keep our economy going.”
Turrell doesn’t take railroads lightly. His career has been dedicated to keeping trains running around the world. Turrell was recently promoted from vice president of international operations to senior vice president of the International Rail Group at RailAmerica, the world’s largest short line and regional railroad operator.
“Some people romanticize railroads,” says Turrell, an economics graduate, “but to me, railroads, along with long-haul trucking, are the invisible backbone of our economy. They’re a crucial part of our national survival.”
Based in Boca Raton, Fla., RailAmerica specializes in short rail service, explains Turrell. There are some 550 short lines in the United States, and RailAmerica operates 47 of them, he says.
“We serve portions of the country where the major Class One railroads, like Union Pacific, have pulled out. We serve light-density, industrial clients. We see ourselves as a retailer, working as a smaller, more flexible force with the ability to tailor our service to the requirements of smaller communities, smaller industries.”
His railroad career began in 1969 with the Illinois Central Railroad, and he worked in the operating departments of MidSouth Corporation (now Kansas City Southern Railway), Amtrak, and Nuevo Central Argentino railroads.
Turrell joined RailAmerica in 1999 and has been responsible for overseeing operations of the company’s operations in Chile and Australia, which consist of 4,550 route miles, 139 locomotives and 3,500 rail cars.
“We have a full management team on hand in both countries to oversee operations on a daily basis,” says Turrell, whose office is in Boca Raton. Turrell lived for two years as a general manager in Australia in the late 1990s.
“I communicate on a daily basis with our general managers, and several times a year I fly to both countries. My goal is to maximize our profits, to increase our sales opportunities outside of North America. One of the issues we had to face, for example, was a call for privatization of rail service in Australia. The effort was defeated. I try to see the big picture and work with our general managers on site to resolve problems.”
And, yes, he jokes, he does accumulate a lot of frequent flier miles with his global travels on behalf of RailAmerica, having already made two trips thus far this year to Australia and usually racking up five to 10 trips a year. Turrell’s transportation career began overseas during a two-year tour of duty in Vietnam.
“I developed a taste for transportation in the Army. I dealt with marine, air, and ground transportation and got a taste for moving people and goods around,” says Turrell. “I had a wife and two children when I left the Army in 1969. This was a time when the fate of railroads was uncertain, many rail lines were in bankruptcy, so it was a challenge to go into the rail business.
“Many people questioned whether railroads would even survive. I enjoyed the challenge of always trying to make my division viable, profitable. My point of view was to provide economic service. Rails are not a glamour business, but they are an essential business.”
Crediting Lafayette for providing him with great friends from his ROTC and fraternity days, Turrell says he appreciates the hands-on approach that his economics professors took.
“I remember how our industrial relations class went to a real labor-arbitration hearing. We sat in on the sessions and got to see the give and take between labor and management. It gave me practical, worldly insight on how the two forces need one another to survive,” says Turrell. “It’s one thing to read about mediation in a textbook, it’s another to see it up close.”
Equally insightful, says Turrell was a project in his marketing class.
“Our professor took us to a small mom-and-pop grocery store, and we had to analyze its operations from a marketing perspective and try to generate more sales. Going in there not as a customer was an unique experience for me. Even though I never went into retail sales, the experience made me look at how to shape a business so it better serves its customers.”