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FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | MARCH 2025 21 By Steve Beno Hhhhooonnnkkk, Hhhooonnnkkk, Honk, Hhhooonnnkkk. Do you recognize that sound? You can hear it every day, several times a day. That's the horn sequence every train makes when coming to a crossing. I tried to find an exact figure for the portion of national freight that moves through Beaumont, but I wasn't able to. What I can say is that the Los Angeles/Long Beach harbors are the busiest ports in the U.S. and most of that freight moves from the ports by rail and most of that rail traffic moves through Beaumont. Add to that truck traffic and you can see that much of the nation's goods move through our city. So, I wondered if there's an app that could help me understand the movement of freight on the rails. Look; this isn't a completely insane notion. I've mentioned the terrific FlightAware app. I'm looking at it right now. The map that came up stretches from Santa Ana to Twentynine Palms, from Barstow to Tijuana (why do I always pronounce it as if were spelled Tiajuana). Even in this confined space, there are too many planes to count. If I press one of them, the app identifies the carrier, f light number, origin and destination, speed, and altitude. There are any number of reasons why train travel is different from air travel. Mostly it has to do with the ratio of passengers to freight. On the rails, the vast majority is freight while the opposite is true for air. Nevertheless, I'll bet one of the planes displayed on FlightAware is a FedEx freight f light. I don't think I told you my FedEx story. From 1973 to '75, I was a corporate officer at Tiger International, which owned Flying Tigers freight airline. Those were heady years (until it got boring) with my corner office at the top of our 10-story at the west end of LAX. Next time you take off from LAX, look between the runways as you leave the ground and you'll see it. Anyway, at one of our corporate meetings, Wayne Hoffman, our CEO, derisively joked about some pissant operator which was hubbing out of Memphis using corporate jets to move freight. That startup was Federal Express which later bought Flying Tigers to get access to our operating sites and our planes. Around that time, I thought it would be good for my two kids to develop an appreciation of the stock market. So, I bought each of them $100 worth of stock in several companies. When it came time to choose between Tigers and FedEx, I smartly chose the latter. Each of them sold out around $1,200. This proved two things. My first intent failed – neither of my kids has any real interest in the market. Secondly, if I had been so prescient, I would have sold my house and put it all on FedEx stock. (Come to think about it, I did pretty well when I consider the appreciation on my house. Maybe I should have bought the stock instead of a new car.) Back to the rails. I searched for train apps — all games. Tried railroad. Better. Mostly games, but I did find five that weren't. I have my doubts about the two Amtrak apps. On one, when I tried to plan a trip from Riverside to New York City, I kept getting a "sold out" notice, even for trips two months away. The other app wasn't much better. I was asked to select a destination but couldn't find a listing for New York, Manhattan, or Brooklyn. I gave up. The New York MTA app seems much better but, of course, it's limited to one city. There's an app called AskRail. It's "designed to assist first responders and others with freight rail incidents." Looks like a great idea. Doubt it applies to us. If you're a rail freight shipper, you'll want the Union Pacific app for "shipment solutions" and prices. So, my fantasy map of active freight trains spread across the country, a la FlightAware, doesn't exist. By the way, I had more success with trucking. Lots of games and simulators, but also apps for maps, routes, loading, truck stops, tolls, jobs, and logs. That gives me comfort if I decide to buy a semi and go back to work. (By the way, I looked up "semi"; [does the rule regarding end quote punctuation apply to semicolons?] it seems it can refer to the truck or the trailer. Really. Look it up.) If you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! Planes, Trains, and Truckmobiles

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