Zebras to Apples

Host Bryndis Whitson welcomes railway expert Trish Slivinski to the show. Trish works for railways and companies that are clients of railways and has experience in a wide array of different jobs relating to train travel. She shares how she got involved with rail and what she’s learned from it as well as how the different aspects of rail travel can affect the supply chain.

Trish explains all the intricacies of rail transport including train schedules, loading, finance, operations, and a host of disciplines that keep railways functional. She has experience working in a great many of them and that knowledge gives her insight into how the supply chain is impacted and enhanced by the specifics of railways. Trish and Bryndis discuss everything from how rail is a greener mode of transport than trucks and what it takes to get a train moving to how strikes affect rail transport and the potential for worker accidents. Trish has advice for anyone curious about a career in railways and shares the challenges and rewards of such a choice.

About Trish Slivinski:

Trish Slivinski was born in the small Northern Ontario City of Thunder Bay. She grew up the oldest of 4 siblings with a stay-at-home mother and an entrepreneur father. Her mother was from a broken family and both parents taught her the value of hard work and personal success at an early age. These deep-rooted values motivated Trish to leave the small Northern Ontario City to pursue post-secondary education.

During her second year at university, she found a summer job in transportation at CP Rail which led to a successful long-term career in Transportation. She graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and then she worked on a Business Admin degree before being transferred to Vancouver BC.

During her railway career, she has relocated to pursue promotions in Vancouver and Calgary, at the CP Head Office. Trish has an accomplished career in rail that has spanned a variety of departments including; Intermodal, Finance, Contingency Planning, Operations Business Performance, Service Design, and Bulk Train Planning. She has attained a variety of skills throughout her career; Process Improvement, Six Sigma, Lean Management, Financial and Operational Analysis, Performance Measurement, KPI Metrics, and Project Management. She was also trained as a Train Conductor.

The crude oil decline in Alberta in 2016 resulted in a major career change for Trish when she was laid off from CP and found herself, for the first time in her life, unemployed. She has seized this opportunity to start a new career in a different industry, Road Construction. She worked for the last 2 years as the Supply and Logistics Coordinator for Western Canada with (Colas) McAsphalt Industries. She is a single mother of twin boys, a hockey enthusiast, and can be seen in the summer riding her motorcycle (Lily).

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Sheldon Nagy accident story

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Contact Bryndis Whitson:

• Website: ZebrasToApples.com
• Instagram: @ZebrasToApples
• LinkedIn

Contact Trish Slivinski:

• Trish Slivinski on LinkedIn

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Transcript

Bryndis Whitson: [00:00:03] Hi, my name is Bryndis Whitson, and you're listening to the Zebras to Apples podcast. The fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. Every town and city it feels like has a train going through it. Countries were built and connected by the railway. In Canada, $380 billion of goods are moved each year by rail, and it supports at least 188,000 jobs. In the United States, it's almost $900 billion and 120,399 employees as of September 2024. In this podcast, I chat with my friend and railroader Trish Slivinski. Trish worked for one of Canada's Class one railways, CP Rail, now known as CP KC, for 29 years and continues to work in the rail industry. We see trains coming and going through our community, but rarely do we know where they are going or what they what they are carrying. Please join me in my conversation with Trish Slivinski and learn a little bit more about the railway and the trains going through your community.

Bryndis Whitson: Okay, so I'm here with Trish and we're talking about supply chain logistics. Trish has a really fascinating background from everything in rail but also in sales and so many different things that we'll kind of get into, so welcome.

Trish Slivinski: [00:00:57] Thank you, Bryndis. Thanks for having me. This is great.

Bryndis Whitson: [00:01:00] Let's start at a basic thing of, how did you get into this kind of field in general?

Trish Slivinski: [00:01:06] I think it was just my first job. I was in Winnipeg, I had left home to go to University of Manitoba, I took my Bachelor of Science in math and graduated. Before I graduated, I was looking for a summer job. I had gone back home, a couple of years done work at home. Then I'm like, no, I really want to stay and applied for this job at the rail. My friend's dad worked at the office and that started me in my rail job. That was based in intermodal, which at the time I didn't know much about rail. There was different options, but intermodal is the containers that travel on a rail car, and you see those containers being delivered by a truck on the last mile. We loaded those railcars with the containers, and we did at the time also have these trucks that backed onto cars, which they called piggyback, but they don't have that anymore. So you could tell how old I am.

Bryndis Whitson: [00:02:12] Not that old.

Trish Slivinski: [00:02:13] Well anyways, they backed those things down, what they called a circus ramp. I was able to, because I worked quite a few nights and stuff, so I was able to practice my backing up. I've backed up a semi down one of those tracks. I've also used one of those packer machines that places the containers on the railcars. There was a lot of little things that I got to experience when I was there. I worked there ten years, basically through my degree. Then they transferred me, so I got to go to Vancouver from Winnipeg. I spent some time in intermodal there. Then they transferred me to Calgary, where you find me now. The thing about the railway is, it's like a large company and there's so many different opportunities at different areas that I was able to use my schooling, use some of my experience and get different jobs. For me, that was what kept me there and kept me interested. They placed me in a role every couple of years, which just kept everything so interesting to me. I was in finance, I did accounting, I did service design, designed the train schedules. Then I ended up in an operations group at the very end planning coal trains, which was so different as well, but very interesting.

Bryndis Whitson: [00:03:49] Math is such a big piece that people don't normally think of.

Trish Slivinski: [00:03:54] No. I mean, the whole world of analytics is now blown up exponentially with AI and stuff. But very driven in the railway, the math.