Dianne Barnett Keynote Speech

• By: LRW
• On: 07/06/2026 16:04:02
• In: Annual Conference

Good morning. 

I just want to take a moment to look around this room. Do you see what I see? Railroaders. Leaders. Trailblazers. Mentors. Daughters. Mothers. Dreamers.  

Women who clock in before the sun comes up and leave after it sets or who hold nontraditional schedules. Women who know what it feels like to walk into a room and be the only one who looks like you and who did it anyway. Women who have given years, and skills, and pieces of themselves to an industry that is finally starting to understand what it has had all along.  

YOU are the story. You are the reason we are here today. And the story, our collective story, is far from over. 

Beyond my name. And I want to tell you a little about where I come from because I believe that before you can strengthen someone's story, you have to be willing to share your own. 

Let me start by taking a moment to acknowledge some people who have shaped mine because none of us arrive at a podium like this alone. There is always a team behind us – people who invested in us before we fully understood what we were becoming so I want to take a moment to acknowledge a few of them.  

Mark Bishop. My first Division Manager when I began my career in Birmingham, Alabama in 1998. In an industry that rarely slows down, Mark gave me something rare. He gave me his time and his genuine attention. He was a listening ear, not a half-distracted one, but the real kind that seeks to understand before it seeks to advise.  

Deb Butler. 2013 LRW Railway Woman of the Year as well as a former EVP and CIO at NS. Deb understood something that takes a lot of us years to figure out - your network is part of your work. She didn't just tell me that. She took time out of her own busy schedule to check in with me periodically and challenged me to push beyond my comfort zone. She understood that building culture is not someone else's job. It is everyone's calling. 

My manager, Brian Barr. Brian is the kind of leader that every professional deserves but not everyone gets. He valued what I brought to the table – my experience, my perspective, my way of seeing things, and rather than contain that, he created room for it. He challenged me in ways that stretched me. He trusted me to lead. He trusted me to create, and in doing so, he sent a message that I carry with me into every room I enter: Your contribution matters. Your voice belongs so I am so blessed to be able to benefit from his experience. 

And my husband, Dennis Barnett. He is a retired railroader, so he knows this industry, he knows what it demands, and he knows what it costs. And through all of it, he has been my biggest supporter. There is something powerful about having someone at home who believes in you without condition – who sees you at your most exhausted and your most doubtful and still says – Keep going. You've got this.  

These people represent something that every woman in this room deserve : someone who saw you, said so, and made space for you to become more. If you have people like that in your life, honor them, thank them, and then become that for someone else. 

In addition to being a 2nd generation railroader, I also grew up as a preacher's kid.  

I know, you might be thinking what does that have to do with railroads? Hold on. I'll get there. 

My father has stood before congregations throughout my life and preached about faith, about perseverance, about the kind of strength that carries you through the valley when you can't yet see the mountaintop. He has a gift for taking something invisible — hope, courage, calling — and making it so tangible that you can feel it in your chest. 

He is also a retired locomotive engineer who has sat in countless cabs, his hands on the controls, responsible for hundreds of thousands of tons of machinery and cargo moving across the country. He began his career as a track laborer so he understood that the ground beneath him had been laid by others and that he was laying ground for hands that would come after. 

I want to pause on that because I don't think many people fully understand what it actually means to lay track.  

Track laying is not glamorous work. It is physical, precise, and relentless. A track gang works in EVERY condition. Heat that bends the air above the rail, cold that stiffens your hands before the sun is up, and rain that turns the ground beneath your feel to mud. They position, align, and drive spikes and tamp ballast. Section by section and mile by mile. 

Here is one of the most impactful parts – They lay track for trains they will never ride for destinations they will never see for cargo they will never touch and crews they will never meet. The train runs because of them.  

…and here's why the track must always be laid forward. A train cannot run on track that ends. No matter how powerful the locomotive, no matter how experienced the engineer, no matter how valuable the load. If the track stops, the train stops. Progress requires that someone is always working ahead, always extending the line, always building beyond where the last person left off. That is not just a railroad principle, that is a leadership principle, and a mentorship principle. That is the principle that every woman in this room lives out every time she invests in someone coming up behind her.  My father knew this. He never forgot what it felt like to be the one building the foundation before anyone was watching. And when he finally sat in that locomotive cab, he carried that track gang with him. 

From him, I learned a couple of things that I have carried my entire career: 
 
1st: Every journey has a purpose beyond the one you can see. The cargo we're moving is someone's livelihood, Christmas morning gifts, medical supplies, someone's dream. 

2nd: The signal doesn't stay clear forever. You have to be ready to move when it is. 

I grew up in a household where faith and steel coexisted. Where the sermon on Sunday and the locomotive on Monday weren't contradictions but they were the same lesson. Be called to something, show up, do the work, and trust that what you carry matters even when you can't see where it's going. 

This August, I will have been in this industry for 28 years and those lessons have never left me. 

I have an eight-year-old daughter named Ashlea. A few months ago, we were watching a train pass so she started counting cars and it kept going. At one point, she looked at me and asked “Where is all that stuff going?" I told her I didn't know exactly but I was sure that it's going everywhere - to stores, hospitals, warehouses, and farms. It's going to families who are waiting on the things they need, things they want, and things they've 
saved up for." It took her a minute but then she replied that she didn't realize how much stuff the trains carried. She was right. That train and every train and every one of you is carrying someone's hope. The grain that feeds a community, the lumber that builds a home, the medicine that extends a life, the parts that keep a small business running. 

We talk so much about the logistics of railroading - the schedules, the tonnages, the gross ton miles, the on-time performance – and it all matters so much but sometimes we need a kid to simplify it to remind us of what it all means. 

Ashlea is going to grow up in a world that her parents, grandparents, and all of you helped to build and I want her and other kids like her, to understand just how important that work is - That what moves on the rails moves the world. …and the women in this room? We are part of the reason it moves. 

When I think about who Ashlea might become, what she might choose to do with her life.  It's too early to know but I know she will never question whether a woman belongs in a hard-hat industry. She will never wonder if she has what it takes to lead something complex and physical and powerful because she has watched her mother and other ladies just like you do it.  

That is the story we are leaving them. That is the track we are laying. And it matters more than any of us can fully understand. 

Shortly after I heard the theme for this year's symposium, I was watching a track and field event and the parallel spoke loudly to me. Everything that we are doing is part of a race. Not a race between us but a race we are all running together. In track and field, the 4x100 meter relay is one of the most exciting events in sports. Four runners, one baton, and a race that is won or lost not just in the running but in the exchange. …and here's what most people don't fully realize the exchange zone is a 20-meter window where the baton must pass hands. It is where championships are made 
and it's where championships can be lost. 

The incoming runner is giving everything. They've run 100 meters at full sprint, she is burning, her lungs are on fire. Her legs are screaming, and in the middle of that — she has to extend her arm back, trust her teammate's hand is there, and release. Not slow down, not look back, not grip it tighter because she doesn't want it to drop. What about the outgoing runner? She has to take off before the baton arrives because she can't wait. 
She starts running, trusting that it's coming and she grabs it in full stride.  

Now look around this room.  Some of you are in that early sprint - you are in the first 40 meters, everything is new, your muscles are learning, you're absorbing speed, skill and knowledge at a rate that even surprises you. You are the next generation of this industry, and we need your fire. 

Some of you are at full stride somewhere in the middle of your leg. You have found your form, you know your pace, you've overcome the things that tried to ‘derail' you in the early days. You're not running the same race you were running five years ago. You're faster, sharper, and more confident in your lane.  

Some of you are approaching the exchange zone. You have run far, you have run hard, you have run when people said you could not, when the conditions were terrible, when no one was watching, and also when too many people were watching and waiting for you to stumble. Now you are carrying something that doesn't belong only to you anymore. You are carrying a baton of experience, wisdom, hard-won knowledge, and hard-earned 
relationships. 

The question is not, ‘Am I ready to let it go?' The question is, ‘Am I running hard enough so she doesn't have to slow down to catch me?' That is the standard. That is our calling. In a championship relay, you don't coast into the exchange zone. You run/push harder than ever, because your whole purpose in the final meters is to transfer maximum momentum. …and for those of you coming up behind, reaching out to receive that baton  
You have to start running before it arrives, you cannot wait to be handed opportunity. You have to take off in faith knowing that it's coming because it is and when you feel it in your hand, you must run like your whole team is counting on you. Because they are. We all are. 

This event is about the importance of stories. I want to say something about that word because I think we sometimes treat it as if it's the soft/squishy part. The nice part that comes before the real work starts. That's not what a story is. 
 
Growing up attending church, testimony was not optional, it was essential because testimony (your story of what you came through, how you came through it, who helped you, what it cost you) became someone else's roadmap.  

When you tell your story in this industry, you are doing the same thing. When the woman who has been in this field for 30 years tells the truth about what it was like to be the first, or the only, or the one who fought - she is laying rail forward. She is building tracks that others can travel faster because she laid it.  

Think about what that means, practically. When track is laid well – when it is level, properly gauged and aligned – the train behind it doesn't have to slow down to navigate it. It can run at full speed, carry more, and it can go farther but when the track is rushed, when corners are cut, when the work is done in silence and isolation with no one checking, the train suffers. It slows down, it can derail, and it never reaches the destination it was built for.  

Your story is track. The truth of your experience including what worked, what broke you, what rebuilt you, what you wish someone had said… That's rail someone else is depending on. When you withhold it, when you keep it private out of humility or exhaustion or the fear that no one wants to hear it – you're leaving a gap in the line and we can't afford gaps. Not now. Not when there are women behind us running at full speed, trusting that the track is there. 

When the woman who is five years in tells the woman who is five months in, "Hey, here is what I wish someone had told me". That is a baton pass, that's momentum transfer, that's championship-level investment in someone else. …and when the woman who is just beginning says, "I am here, I belong here, and here is what I bring". That is not arrogance, that's the sound of the signal turning clear.  

Strengthening our stories means several things: 

It means telling them. Not waiting until you've accomplished enough to deserve an audience, not waiting until the story has a perfect ending. Your story right now, at whatever stage you're at is worth telling. Because someone in this room needs to hear it. 
 
It means listening to them. There is no story in this room that does not contain something you can learn from. The woman who has been at this longer than you has currency you can't get anywhere else. The woman who is newer than you sees things with fresh eyes and a new perspective that we are prone to stop seeing after we've been at it long enough. Both are valuable and both are necessary. 

It means protecting them. When another woman's story is minimized, when her accomplishment is attributed to luck or to someone else, when her expertise is questioned, when she is interrupted or overlooked, we have a responsibility to say: "Let her finish. I want to hear this."  

It means expanding them. The story of women in railroading is still being written. You are writing it. Every day you show up, every promotion you earn, every young woman you mentor, every seat at the table you claim or create, you are adding a chapter.  

My parents would often say while I was growing up that a testimony isn't just about what happened to you but a testimony is about what you do with what happens to you. 

This industry has been through a great deal and is still evolving. Some of that change has been difficult, some transformative, and some a bit of both. The real question is how we have responded, how we are responding now, and how we will respond next.  

I want to leave you with the image of a train. Not one standing still, not a museum piece but a train in motion. One that has been moving for generations long before any of us were born on tracks laid by women whose names many of us do not know, whose faces we have never seen, and whose contributions were rarely recorded and still, the train moved because of them. 

We are the train right now. We are moving through time, through challenge, and progress. We are carrying cargo that matters. We are carrying the dreams of industries that need our skill, and we're carrying the hopes of little kids like my daughter who are watching us. We are carrying the legacy of every woman who ran her leg before us and handed us the baton and we're picking up speed. I grew up as a kid who had my parents teach me that you can have faith and be in command of something powerful, that you can serve and lead, that what you carry matters AND how you carry it matters. 

I am raising a daughter who already knows, at eight years old, that trains carry hope. She already sees the work we do as important. She is watching to see how we run our leg and I am standing in a room full of women who are, right now, in the middle of one of the most important relay legs this industry has ever seen.  

So, a few thoughts that I want to leave you with: 

Run your leg hard. Wherever you are in your career, run it like your teammate's next 
stride depends on you because it does. 

• Tell your story. Not when you're ready, not when it's polished. Tell it now, honestly, to someone who needs to hear it. That is how we strengthen what we're building here. 
• Reach back. As you accelerate, extend your hand. Make sure the woman behind you doesn't have to slow down to catch what you're carrying. 
• Look forward. The track ahead of us is longer than what's behind. This is not the end of the story. This is not even the best part yet.  

Most sermons end with an altar call, an invitation for something to begin. 

So consider this mine: 
If you are willing to run hard, tell the truth, pass the baton with everything you've got, 
and show up for the woman running next to you then you are exactly who this industry, 
this moment, and this movement needs. 

The signal is clear. The train is solid. It's time to move. 
Thank you.