Mission Statement

At RailCrew Xpress, we assist America's railroads to better serve the nation, by providing safe and reliable crew transportation, while conducting ourselves in a manner that promotes reward, fairness, respect, and consideration for all our stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders.

Company Goal

The goal of RailCrew Xpress is to provide safe, dependable transportation services, and to perform these services efficiently. The safety standards of this company will not be compromised, subordinated or diminished by any other goal or challenge.

RailCrew Xpress is a place where everyone is encouraged and rewarded as they expand their knowledge and fulfill their individual potentials. We invite our employees to enjoy a sense of individuality with accompanying freedom of expression. Our highest aim is to be considered an enviable workplace by each of our employees. We will conduct its affairs in a businesslike manner, with ambitious goals commensurate with its position of leadership in the transportation industry and in the communities we serve. Ethical practice and respect for the needs of those around us will always be reflected in our standards and our decisions.

History

RailCrew xpress was officially formed in August 2005 to provide crew transportation services to class-one railways in the United States.

Railways depend on third party providers to transport crew—mainly engineers and conductors—from train to train. This may seem odd to those who might wonder, why don’t the crew members just get on another train? The answer lies in the fact that the limited infrastructure for freight rail transportation is already overextended: tracks that should handle 10 trips per day handle 40. The freight routes are also fairly short, 150 to 250 miles, and trains and crews are scheduled to the limit. Both these factors mean that while crew are called upon to cover more routes a day, often with little time between, crew members may not be able to get rail transport back to an originating location that would not conflict with already scheduled track use. U.S. Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) rules also contribute to high crew turnaround—when a crews' allowable working hours are up, they must get off a train and go back to their home rail depots. All of this presents a logistical challenge to railways in managing their skilled crews.

The founders started the company because they saw a need for technology solutions to streamline the crew transportation component of the freight railway business. The railway industry has strict contract penalties with their suppliers so it is critical we guarantee to our customers that their rail crews will always arrive on time. The new mobile computing solution will give us the up-to-minute location information and improved fleet tracking accuracy needed to provide the best service available.

The Management Team

Brian O’Hara
President and Chief Executive Officer

Brian joins RailCrew Xpress having had an extensive career of over 20 years in transportation logistics. Brian recently served as Vice President of Transportation and Logistics for MachineryLink, a Kansas City based leading provider of leased grain combines throughout North America. In this role Brian had full responsibility for Machinerylink’s specialized Transportation company, Machinerylink Transport. During Brian’s three year tenure the team was able to grow revenue by over 300% while dramatically improving safety ratings, on time service, and cost per mile. Prior to that, Brian spent eleven years at DHL, as Senior Vice-President of Operations where he led six operating regions across the US with 150 service centers and 8,000 employees. Prior to DHL, Brian served a variety of leadership roles at UPS within their hub operations and air delivery service.

John Bickerstaff
Vice President, Business Development & Customer Support

John is a founder of RCX and brings nearly 10 years of crew hauling operations experience combined with over 35 years of executive level operations experience to our Lenexa team.

John Hillring
Chief Financial Officer

John spent 18 years in telecom where he gained extensive experience in both financial and operation management in a number of their early stage ventures. Most recently, he was CFO at a Kansas City-based company that developed a WiFi network built for the US highway transportation industry.

Susan Eitzen
General Manager Central Division

Susan brings to RCX 36 years of transportation experience, the past 20 years have been within the railroad crew hauling industry. Prior to the crew hauling industry, Susan owned and managed a Kansas City based moving and storage company. Although she has been involved in all aspects of crew hauling most of her concentration has been on field and dispatch operations.

Shane Halter
General Manager Northern Division

Shane has worked 4 years in the transportation industry. He has worked from the ground up in his 4 years at Railcrew dealing with training, safety and dispatch operations. Prior to Railcrew Shane went to the University of Texas and played 17 years of professional baseball.