Advisory · Operations · In the Field · US | International
SteelWheels.Co brings Transportation, Engineering and Mechanical together to examine what is holding it up. We work with railroaders, owners, rail-served industry, lenders and counsel on the operating, equipment, commercial and regulatory conditions behind the problem.
The year a passive interest became a lifelong passion. In a Burlington Northern diesel shop, learning to maintain, service and troubleshoot locomotives, spending more hours in the shop than in school. A close, reciprocal working relationship with the EMD service rep, there in the shop and for years after, accelerated it further. By 1985 it had become a contracting career across rail, marine, naval and power generation. From there the work moved through locomotive commerce worldwide, wartime railway reconstruction in Iraq, shortline management, and terminal and network operations on BNSF, Norfolk Southern and CPKC. It ran on to transit capital work under the Port Authority and Class I engineering production across the BNSF system. Every discipline, from the shop floor to the front office, now feeds SteelWheels.Co. Alongside it stands a bench of colleagues with the same bent for railroading, each with more than 20 years in the industry, bringing similar yet distinct experience and expertise.
The career of Frédérick M. St. Simon, Principal & Founder, SteelWheels.Co.Keeping trains moving, track to standard, equipment running and crews motivated. You and your team and crew do the commonplace safely at all hours and in any weather, in sleet or heat, with never enough time or hands. Some days it doesn’t feel like there’s enough time even to find out why the same trouble keeps coming back.
Railroading is a lifestyle. Some days are diamonds (you wish there were more) and some days are coal (you wish there were fewer).
A recurring delay can involve the train plan, track condition, equipment availability and the terms under which the traffic moves. Each department can know its part and still need the rest of the account. SteelWheels.Co brings those disciplines together around the condition that needs changing: real answers that solve railroading’s Murphy’s Law problems, the snafus and the fubars.
I’ve been railroading since 1980, across Transportation, Engineering and Mechanical, as carrier and contractor. Locomotive commerce followed in 1985. That work connects train and terminal operations, track renewal, locomotive maintenance, equipment transactions and the commercial decisions that determine whether a railroad can sustain the service it runs.
SteelWheels.Co carries that work forward as a firm of career railroaders. We take the operating problem together with the track, equipment, people and paper it depends on.
I lead SteelWheels.Co as Principal & Founder. Our bench of senior railroad specialists brings better than 160 years of combined field experience across operations, infrastructure and mechanical systems. The discipline follows the matter: train operations, track, equipment, capital programs, commercial decisions or regulatory work. We put the relevant disciplines on the condition you and your team and crew need to change.
Train and terminal operations, track maintenance, capital program execution and distressed-project recovery. We examine the connection between the operating plan, the condition of the property and the work required to keep it in service.
Shortline commercial restructuring, shipper negotiations, owner-side agency engagement and rail-asset due diligence. We examine what the property can carry, what it takes to carry it and the commercial arrangements supporting the operation.
FRA, FTA and STB matters, operating procedures, incident records and workforce instruction. We connect the written requirement with the field practice and the documentation supporting it.
A complaint tells us where the trouble is felt. It does not establish the cause. These are the kinds of questions we examine, with the operating record and field condition deciding the answer.
More effort cannot remove a constraint it has not identified. If switching sequence, available track and locomotive use do not fit together, the delay can survive a change in any one of them. SWC’s operations and infrastructure work examines those connections so the response addresses what is actually holding the movement up. This is where an outside read helps when each department holds only part of the account.
Completing work and establishing the condition for return to service are different obligations. If the inspection record, finished condition and responsibility for the decision are disconnected, the work can leave a loose end. SWC brings track inspection, maintenance planning and regulatory work to that connection. The remedy must address the remaining condition and the record needed by the responsible railroad, not simply report that the gang has left.
A roster count does not establish usable capacity. Condition, maintenance requirements, components and the assignment all matter. SWC combines mechanical knowledge with equipment valuation, procurement and fleet planning to examine whether repair, reassignment or replacement addresses the actual need. That joins decisions otherwise divided among the operating department, shop and capital owner.
An instruction cannot supply missing information, equipment or preparation. Where the difficulty is being called a motivation problem, the working conditions deserve examination too. SWC’s operations, workforce instruction and procedural work address what the crew is expected to do and what supports it. Engineer and conductor instruction and certification-program administration support the employing railroad; the railroad makes its own certification determinations.
An operating plan and a commercial agreement have to support the same railroad. If service obligations, shipper terms and rehabilitation requirements pull in different directions, changing the train plan alone will not settle the matter. SWC’s shortline commercial restructuring connects shipper negotiations, owner-side agency work and rehabilitation-program administration. Owners, operating partners, lenders and buyers can examine the property as an operation rather than a collection of separate estimates.
A report’s conclusion must be tested against the record supporting it. SWC provides non-testifying expert work and pre-trial strategic advisory on operating practice, safety, infrastructure, equipment valuation and regulatory matters. We examine the technical account across disciplines, so counsel can distinguish what the file establishes from what it merely assumes. This is non-testifying work, not an offer of testimony.
What happens when you write back
When the bench is full, we say so and give you a date.
A locomotive’s condition, maintenance requirements, assignment and market value belong in the same decision. SteelWheels.Co works across locomotive and rolling-stock transactions, valuation, component sourcing and fleet planning, with diesel-propulsion experience extending into marine, industrial and defense applications.
Condition and market evidence for financing, collateral assessment, lease-end decisions and counsel’s review.
Buy-side and sell-side equipment decisions, including condition assessment and the operating purpose behind the transaction.
Locomotive, track-equipment and maintenance-asset sourcing tied to the work the equipment must perform.
Component identification and sourcing across locomotive, marine and industrial diesel applications.
Utilization, maintenance and lifecycle planning considered together rather than as separate answers to the same equipment problem.
Technical and market analysis for counsel on equipment-value disputes, financing and insurance matters before trial.
Managed locomotive dismantling for major-component salvage and rebuilding, distinct from treating the whole asset as scrap.
The owner needs to know what has been built, what remains unresolved and what the record supports. A progress report cannot answer those questions by itself.
SteelWheels.Co’s owner’s-representation work connects contract documents, field conditions, installation deficiencies and the program record. Where responsibility passes between the owner, construction management and the field, the question is what was required, what was done and what remains to be resolved. That connection matters before acceptance, while the evidence is available and the people who know the work are still on the program.
Review the stated basis against the field condition and supporting record.
Examine the disputed obligation against the contract documents and the work performed.
Assess the claimed condition against the site evidence and allocation of responsibility.
Document the condition before it is covered or accepted.
Maintain the record connecting the work, the decision and the unresolved item.
Preserve program history and outstanding issues when the owner-side personnel change.
Train and terminal operations, track maintenance and rehabilitation, mechanized production, locomotive and rolling-stock maintenance, capital programs and project recovery. Engineer and conductor instruction supports the railroad’s certification programs. Extra Board documents engineers’ and conductors’ certification histories for the railroad’s own hiring and certification decisions.
Commercial restructuring, equipment transactions, owner representation, government contracting, operational intelligence and non-testifying technical work. We work with railroad and industrial owners, transit agencies, capital owners, lenders and counsel, including infrastructure work in austere operating environments. The field condition remains part of the decision when the decision is made away from the railroad.
SteelWheels.Co’s work connects Transportation, Engineering and Mechanical with the commercial and regulatory decisions around them. These are descriptions of the work, without naming the organizations involved or offering them as references.
Track-renewal program and project work in an operating passenger-rail environment, joining field execution with contract administration, change orders and owner-side documentation.
Planning and execution of high-volume tie and rail renewal, coordinating people, production equipment and the railroad operating around the work.
Locomotive valuations and transaction work for financing, lease-end assessment and equipment disposition, connecting the asset’s condition with its market.
Owner-side agency engagement, rehabilitation-program administration and shipper negotiations considered as parts of the same operating business.
“Every night when you reported for duty, he already had a plan. The work was organized, the information was there, and you were set up to succeed—not set up to fail.”Dylan Jones, former brakeman and conductor
“I’ve read a couple of your LinkedIn articles and have been impressed with the depth of understanding of how competition actually works within the industry and your ability to distill it into nomenclature that a typical audience can understand.”Jon Harman, VP National Accounts – Agriculture, Genesee & Wyoming Railroad Services
“Proud to be railroading with you Simon.”Thomas Jared, Assistant Vice President, CPKC
A recurring delay, a track condition that will not stay settled, equipment that does not fit the assignment, or a decision waiting on an incomplete record. Name the condition and what you and your team and crew need to accomplish. We can begin there, in writing.
I read the railroad as a railroader. SteelWheels.Co brings the disciplines together around the matter you put in front of us.