The 2025 edition of Railway Age’s Next-Gen Freight Rail (NGFR) conference will feature Genesee & Wyoming Vice President Engineering and Railway Track & Structures 2024 Engineer of the Year Jeffrey Watson in a fireside chat with RT&S Editor-in-Chief David C. Lester.
Jeffrey Watson knows a lot about hard work and leadership. While an engineering undergraduate at Mississippi State, he joined the Marine Corps Reserve and served as an infantryman. When he left the Marine Corps in 2002, he joined CSX as a Management Trainee in the Engineering Department. After serving in various positions with CSX, he joined Genesee & Wyoming as a Roadmaster on the Meridian & Bigbee Railroad. Watson likes to talk about leadership and his belief that strong leadership is about building strong teams. “Success as a leader is 100% contingent on the strength of your team,” he says. “If you create a team and provide them resources and direction they need, you virtually ensure the success of your mission or project.” Watson is an integral part of G&W’s capital planning, ensuring that the company’s 110-plus railroads have the best equipment. He also spends time analyzing new properties to see what needs to be done to rehabilitate them and follow those field visits with budget and capital planning meetings.
Watson and Lester’s session will touch upon:
- Engineering strategy based on characteristics of a route: tonnage, track speed, primary commodity, length of road.
- Capital and maintenance across significantly varying geography and climates (41 states, 4 Canadian provinces).
- Similarities and contrasts in engineering strategies, practices and support functions between Class II and III railroads and Class I’s.
- Technology in engineering.
- Establishing capital cycles and eliminating risk in acquired properties.
- Infrastructure modernization: upgrading from timber bridges, jointed rail, archaic components, old C&S technology, etc., on lower-revenue routes.
- Challenges of operating 13,500 main line miles that aren’t a contiguous network.
- Leadership, career development, and career-minded employee retention.
The NGFR speaker lineup also includes CSX President and CEO Joe Hinrichs, Railway Age’s 2025 Railroader of the Year; Canadian Pacific Kansas City President and CEO Keith Creel; Christopher P.L. Barkan, Ph.D.,Executive Director, RailTEC and The National University Rail Center of Excellence, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Bill Jacobs, Head of Innovation, CSX. The luncheon will honor Railway Age’s 2025 25 Under 40 “Fast Trackers.”
Railway Age’s Next-Generation Freight Rail conference takes place March 11, 2025, from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the Union League Club of Chicago. A unique opportunity to discuss the freight rail industry’s future, the conference brings together top executives and thought leaders to discuss topics ranging from business strategy to the latest technological innovations and increasing safety and reliability. The conference also features a luncheon honoring the 2025 winners of Railway Age‘s Fast Trackers 25 Under 40 awards.
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