Has the coronavirus outbreak affected recent rail conferences and events?

20161212 Tonyhatch (Cropped)

Yes.

Cancelations – the following is a (very) incomplete list mainly, though, my own schedule: 

  • A (the?) major rail supplier’s annual Management/Leadership Conference in Florida last week.
  • The JoC’s annual Trans-Pacific Maritime (TPM) Conference, 2000 folks, last week (small beer compared to Adobe’s conference cancellation for 20K, but still....). 
  • CSX’s Short Line Meeting, this week.
  • Lower participation – REF (rail cars) in Palm Springs, by an estimated 15% (not bad but then it is a mission-critical even for that sector); other Investor Conferences by up to 50% (due in part to increasing numbers of corporate travel bans, which impacted my colleague from a major Canadian bank on my panel at SEARS this week). The travel bans will have a broad and unfortunately perhaps lasting impact... 

Still on -

  • The afore-mentioned SEARS, the Annual Railroad Day on the Hill (which, given all of the glad-handing, sorta surprised me; I look forward to hearing the feedback). 
  • Other notes: huge impacts on airlines, cruise ships (of course), sports (Serie A soccer in Italy may end its season; wither the Tokyo Olympics?)