How Can Rail-Connected Communities Avoid Getting Left Behind?

At last week's American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) annual conference, one of the final speakers shared a Moneyball quote. It made me think.

Rail had its Moneyball moment. Rail communities haven’t.

When the rail industry adopted Precision Scheduled Railroading, it rewrote the rules. Like Billy Beane’s A’s, it used sharper data, bolder math, and a willingness to rethink tradition. The result? A leaner, more disciplined model that changed how potential was measured and success achieved.

It worked.

But while railroads adapted and flourished, communities didn’t. We’ve been trying to manage 21st-century realities with 20th-century tools: aging infrastructure, reactive behavior, and adversarial advocacy instead of strategy.

It’s time for communities to have our Moneyball moment.

Not by fighting the railroad, but by learning the new game, and playing it in a way where our winning supports theirs.

That means we seek to pay for upgraded crossings and pedestrian access with the approval of rail rather than with their funding - and we partner with them to advocate for prioritizing rail infrastructure funds when there's not enough available. It means building partnerships that reduce friction and generate monetary value. And it means tracking metrics tied to the outcomes we want - not just what’s easy to count.

The goal isn’t to extract concessions or impose oversight. It’s to build a system where rail works better because the communities it runs through are strong and resilient - and vice versa.

The hard truth? Railroads don’t resist change because they’re blind to community concerns. They resist it because the system they operate in - Precision Scheduled Railroading, federal preemption, and fiduciary duty - mandates efficiency and risk reduction and discourages responsiveness that doesn't clearly add to the bottom line. 

Communities aren’t powerless, but we do need to stop asking for a different game and start changing how we show up to the one we’re in. 

As teammates.

The last 25 years have shown that court battles and legislation rarely move the needle on the core issues rail towns face.

What hasn’t been tried at scale is what Moneyball proved effective:

Strategy built not on tradition, instinct, or anger, but on better questions, comprehensive data, and joint success.

That’s what I’m working to build.

And after ASLRRA’s conference - after hundreds of real conversations with the people who own short lines, plan operations, and manage the consequences up close - I’m convinced that this is the way.

They didn’t shut the door. They leaned in.

They saw the opportunity, then helped to define and refine it. 

That kind of candor and shared responsibility?

It might just be how we build a modern rail system that doesn’t have to choose between profit and partnership.

This is good for the industry. It's good for our communities.

And - yeah, it’s corny - but it’s pretty damn good for America, too.