BOW WAVE 273

Bow Wave Issue 273--AfterOfficeHours Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2005 WavyLine.com	Issue No 273 14 Feb 05
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. AfterOfficeHours.Com
3. US Rail Indicators
4. Prettejohn Sketches Out High Road for Lloyd's
5. Enigma Simulator
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

New Readers this week include:

Marine security man Les Chapman
law student Fouzia Ouali
Surveyor Chris Peace of Andrew Moore & Associates in HK Mariner Henry Tin Ko Bik
Peter Rozum, President, Shipowners Assurance Mngment in Montreal Dan R. Acton of cat.com
Container cultural historian Alexander Klose, Weimar

News of Readers

Alexander Klose is a Phd student at Bauhaus University, Weimar in Germany doing research on the cultural implications of containerization (containerisation takes command - how containers hit the world and how they are changing it). He is a philosopher, media theoretician and artist and comes from Berlin.

Contact him at:-

a.klose@berlin.de

Readers Write

John Guy of PR Agency Merlin writes:

LONDON-based shipping publisher Maritime Media has decided to bring most of its editorial function in-house for the publications that it produces on behalf of the Baltic Exchange and the International Bunker Industry Association.

The Baltic and World Bunkering magazines were being edited by leading media consultancy Merlin Corporate Communications as part of an outsourcing contract.

As a result of the move, Lucy Budd, previously deputy editor on both magazines, has moved from Merlin to Maritime Media's Fulham offices, where she takes over the editor's post of The Baltic. She remains deputy editor of World Bunkering and David Hughes of maritime media consultancy Anderida Marine will take over as managing editor.

Roger Overall, formerly the editor of both titles, will concentrate on a career as a freelance photographer from his new home in County Cork, Ireland. He is concentrating on corporate work, having already won an award for a photograph taken while on assignment in South America for a maritime client last year. He will also continue to sell stock images of the shipping industry to the media and corporate customers, regularly adding to the searchable gallery that can be viewed at:-

http://www.maritimephotography.com

Item 2 announces a new venture which we hope will help Readers all over the world to make their presence known.

Enjoy.

2. AfterOfficeHours.Com

Humphrey Hill and Sam Ignarski are pleased to announce the launch for Beta Testing of their new venture AfterOfficeHours.Com.

After Office Hours is an up to date version of the books and directories kept at home by people in the transport, shipping, insurance and international trade worlds who are liable to be called by their clients in some kind of emergency. It is designed to add a new usefulness to the presentation of contact information and to serve as an internationally known help site. For the first time surveyors and experts will be able to post the availability of their personnel and travellers in any location.

The After Office Hours website will carry an up-to-the-minute listing of contact numbers of subscribing members. These are frequently published in books issued by insurance organisations, surveyors or lawyers and sometimes in their websites. Inevitably these directories are incomplete and do not attempt to cover the industry as a whole. They are also frequently out of date or not particularly helpful in the heated circumstances of an emergency. AfterOfficeHours will be a neutral, industry-wide directory which serves international trade by supplying:-

-->an extensive list of numbers in the widest possible spread of categories;
-->a place where organisations can list their hot lines and mobile numbers with confidence;
-->a place where surveyors and others can post their availability in any given location whether permanent or temporary; -->a place where service providers can post the organisations for whom they work;
-->a portal where specialist service providers can be found; -->a WAP enabled capability.

The first 100 beta testers commence work this month. New Subscribers will each be offered a free entry for a three month period. Subscriptions will be in the range of £250 for basic entries and £600 for the more detailed listings.
If you would like to register for a free trial please go to:-

http://www.afterofficehours.com

To find out more

e-mail us at:-

ContactUs@AfterOfficeHours.com

3. US Rail Indicators

Our friend Charles de Trenck of Citigroup/Smith Barney HK has passed on this analysis of US railfreight performance, compiled by his colleage Scott Flower. We never see anything like this in Europe:-

Key Performance Trends

Through 1Q to-date, train speeds at the eastern railroads have not faired well. Specifically, average train speeds at CSX and Norfolk Southern have declined 7.4% and 7.2%, respectively, versus the same time period a year ago. While it is no secret by now that CSX has been mired in operational difficulties in recent months, Norfolk Southern's operations have been running more smoothly. In fact, through 2004, service metrics at Norfolk Southern were the best among the U.S. Class I rails. We believe weather conditions have certainly played a role thus far through 1Q in hindering operational performance in the East, and in Norfolk Southern's case, we note more challenging comparisons to last year. Looking ahead through 1H and beyond, as Phase II of the CSX ONE plan is implemented and weather issues abate, we believe operations at the eastern rails may begin to show signs of year-over-year improvement.

Although not spectacular, service metrics at Burlington Northern have shown relatively minimal deterioration through the year-to-date, particularly in comparisons to the company's regional counterpart, Union Pacific. Specifically, Burlington Northern's average train speeds and average terminal dwell times have declined 2.3% and 3.3%, respectively, through 1Q to-date. Notably, this represents the best collective performance among the U.S. Class I rails. Accordingly, we believe that Burlington Northern's network remains relatively fluid, thus aiding growth in traffic volumes; this belief is borne out by the 7% increase in year-to-date carloadings.

Canadian National's operations started the year off poorly, but have since reversed course, thus resulting in year-over-year improvement in the company's service metrics. However, we note that comparisons through 1Q to-date are unchallenging due to last year's Canadian Auto Workers union strike that impacted operations for four weeks. Hence, we would not be surprised to see a notable improvement in the company's service metrics in the near-term before comparisons begin to normalize at the end of 1Q.

Contact him at:-

scott.flower@citigroup.com

4. Prettejohn Sketches Out High Road for Lloyd's

One of the more important speeches on the future of Lloyd's was delivered last week to the Insurance Institute of London by Nick Prettejohn, the CEO of Lloyd's. It bears careful reading for its frank admission of how faulty is the process of Lloyd's, still, and for advocating that the FSA revise its Conduct of Business code to require brokers to state their commissions in full to customers. Read the speech here:-

http://www.lloyds.com/index.asp?ItemId=9361

5. Enigma Simulator

The website of our technology partner Marinade this week contains a rather excellent simulation of the wartime Enigma machine which generated coded communications for the Germans. A must see for anyone who is interested in the subject of crytography.

http://www.marinade.ltd.uk/2003/enigma.shtml

6. And Finally...

Many thanks to regular correspondent Douglas Webster for this affecting tale:-

A woman brought a very limp duck in to see the vet. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the birds chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said "I'm so sorry, Cuddles has passed away."

The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure?" "Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead." he replied. "How can you be so sure?" she protested. "You haven't done any tests on him or anything. Maybe he's just in a coma or something, I demand a second opinion!"

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few minutes later with a brown Labrador Retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the exam table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog and took it out, and returned a few moments later with a tabby cat.

The cat jumped up on the table and sniffed delicately at the bird. Then it sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, a 100% certifiable, dead duck." Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and out popped the bill. He handed it to the duck's owner who gasped in shock, " £150 she cried... £150 just to tell me my duck is dead ???"

The vet shrugged. "I'm sorry. If you had taken my word for it, the bill would have been £20...but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan the price went up considerably."

PS from Frazer Hunt

A linguistics professor was lecturing his class.

"In English," he explained, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative."

"However," the professor continued, "there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up. "Yeah, right."

BOW WAVE is published each week to over 11 600 Readers in the transport,insurance,shipping and finance industries.

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