Member Spotlight

Member Spotlight: Kurt Miles

The Traffic Club of Philadelphia is proud to feature our June Member Spotlight: Kurt Miles, Senior Manager of Short Line Development at CSX Transportation. With more than 37 years in the rail industry, a career that started in the cab of a Conrail locomotive and has grown into one of CSX's most respected commercial roles, Kurt brings a depth of experience few in the industry can match. He has been a valued member of the TCOP Board since 2021.

From the Eastern Shore to the Engineer's Seat

Kurt's journey into railroading started with a free internship while he was a student at Salisbury State College (now Salisbury University). He worked under Frank Waring at RHM Consultants, a firm focused on rail, highway, and marine transportation. Frank, as Kurt describes him, became "like a second father." When Kurt told him he wanted a job away from home, Frank made a call to a small railroad in Vermont.

That call led to a summer with the Green Mountain Railroad. Kurt loved it so much he came back after graduation as a locomotive engineer. But homesickness eventually won out, and when Conrail started hiring engineers out of Baltimore in 1989, Kurt jumped at the chance.

The Conrail Years

Kurt spent the next eleven years running trains for Conrail. He ran out of Potomac Yard to Philadelphia, Harrisburg on the Port Road, up and down the Northeast Corridor to Philadelphia and south towards Washington, across his home Delmarva Peninsula out of Harrington. As seniority chased him out of those territories, he made the move to Selkirk, New York, and never got laid off again. From Selkirk he worked to Boston, North Jersey, Buffalo, and Syracuse.

"The 90s flew by," Kurt recalled. "People talk about TV shows and movies from the 90s, and I'm like, I barely saw any of that stuff because I was either sleeping or on an engine somewhere." With the eight-hour rest rules of the era, it was nothing to work 30 starts in 25 days.

Witnessing the 1999 Conrail Split

Kurt was a working union engineer when CSX and Norfolk Southern split Conrail in 1999. Selkirk went 100% CSX, so there was no choice to make about which carrier to follow. It was a front-row seat to one of the most consequential moments in modern Eastern railroading, and the perspective it gave him, watching a network change hands from inside the cab, is one he has carried into every industry conversation since.

Climbing the Operations Ladder

In 2001, the division road foreman called and asked Kurt to consider stepping into management. After eleven years of nights, hotels, and being away from home, he took the job at Selkirk. From there, he was off to the races: Trainmaster in Philadelphia from 2003 to 2007, then Crawfordsville, Indiana, then Chicago for two and a half years.

It was during his Philadelphia assignment that Kurt did something remarkable. He went back to school. At night. While running train operations during the day. Two and a half years later he had an MBA in Logistics, Materials, and Supply Chain Management from Wilmington University. "It was brutal, but it was worth it," he said. "I wanted a shot at a better life. I wanted to do more than just operations."

The Pivot to Commercial

The MBA opened the door. A commercial role came up and Kurt landed in Florence, South Carolina, in a position called Service Startup Integration. For four years, his job was to walk new shippers through everything it took to begin moving freight by rail with CSX: setting up their account paperwork and computer systems, coordinating with the operating team on how their cars would be handled, and staying close during the first weeks of service to catch and fix any problems before they became habits. He calls it one of the best jobs he ever had.

His operations background gave him something most commercial folks at a Class I never have: instant credibility with the operating side. "I could speak their language," Kurt said. "It's helped me my whole career, because I lived it. I did it. Eleven years as an engineer, ten years in field supervision."

From Florence, Kurt moved to Jacksonville to run the empty Autorack Fleet, a high-pressure, seven-day-a-week role that gave him visibility with CSX commercial leadership. After a period of organizational change at CSX, Kurt landed what he calls "one of the best five-year periods I've ever had": Business Development Manager for the Northeast, headquartered in Baltimore. That role is also how he came to the Traffic Club of Philadelphia.

Building Traffic in the Northeast

One project from those Northeast years stands out for Kurt. CSX had a vacant intermodal yard in Valleyfield, Quebec, and the line from Syracuse to Montreal had survived an attempted sale. Kurt and his team got together with a mission: build traffic on that line.

Kurt set his sights on converting the Valleyfield facility into a transload terminal. He interviewed four different companies, brought along a French-speaking colleague, and ultimately partnered with Jon Van Horn, a well-connected local businessman with the backing and drive to make it work. Since opening in 2023, the facility has handled over 4,000 cars in just under three years, generating meaningful new traffic on a line Kurt helped keep in the CSX family.

Returning to Jacksonville for Short Line Development

In 2023, Kurt was recruited to the Short Line Development group in Jacksonville. CSX's Short Line Development team manages the railroad's relationships with more than 240 short line and regional partners, who together generated over $3.7 billion in CSX revenue and 1.2 million carloads in 2024. It is, in many ways, the perfect role for someone who has spent decades building bridges across the operations and commercial sides of the business.

The Traffic Club of Philadelphia

Kurt joined the TCOP Board in 2021, taking the seat previously held by his CSX colleague Charles Roots, who was moving to the Cincinnati area. With Kurt headquartered in Baltimore at the time and having worked in and out of Philadelphia at multiple points in his career, he was a natural fit. The Board voted him in, and he has been one of TCOP's most engaged members ever since.

What he loves most is the matchmaking. "After so many years out here and knowing so many people, being able to match these people up is always like one of my favorite things to do. Let them get their conversation started, whatever it may be, and then wherever CSX needs to fit in, that's where I come in."

He also has high praise for the Annual Dinner. Kurt has been to the New York Traffic Club, and in his words, "Philadelphia's got to be hands down" the better experience. The pageantry, the size, and the manageability of the room make it special.

What His Colleagues Say

Q & A Section

Q: What advice would you give to the next generation coming up in rail?

A: "It's okay to try operations. Nobody wants to work weekends, nobody wants to stay out all night, and I didn't either. But I did it. And it made me who I am for the last 20 years of my career. The credibility you get from having lived it is something you cannot replicate any other way."

Q: How would you describe TCOP to someone who has never heard of it?

A: "I've been to the New York Traffic Club, and Philadelphia's got to be hands down the better experience. The pageantry, the size, just how nicely the dinner is done. But the real value for me has always been matching people up. After all the years out here and knowing so many people, being able to make those connections and let folks get their conversation started is one of my favorite things to do."

Q: What has stayed with you most from your years on the operating side?

A: "Knowing the network really well. That was a big advantage for me in industrial development and short line work, because, I mean, I railroaded all of my operations time in the Northeast. I knew the territory, I knew the people, and that helps you every single day."

A Career Defined by Showing Up

From the cab of a Conrail locomotive in 1989 to Senior Manager of Short Line Development at CSX in 2026, Kurt Miles has lived nearly every chapter of the modern Eastern rail story. He ran trains through the Conrail era, witnessed the 1999 split firsthand, climbed the operations ladder across five states, earned an MBA at night while supervising train operations during the day, and built a second career in commercial development that has touched short lines, transload partners, and shippers across the Northeast and beyond.

What unites all of it is something simple. Kurt showed up. He learned the job, he learned the people, and he has kept doing both for 37 years. The Traffic Club of Philadelphia is fortunate to have him on the Board, and the industry is better for the work he has done across it.

Thank you, Kurt, for everything you bring to TCOP and to this industry.

Stay tuned for our next Member Spotlight!