Artrain Goes Offrail

Today we had our monthly meeting of the graduates of the Leadership Ann Arbor class of 2007. One of the members of this group is my buddy, Brian Tolle. Brian is not only the President of the Tolle Group, an organizational leadership consulting firm in Ann Arbor, but also a board member for Artrain. Today he had some sad news for us.

Artrain is leaving the tracks.

For many years now, the cars which house the Artrain exhibit have been transported to far-flung communities by attaching them to the ends of freight trains. Unfortunately for the exhibit, the railroad tracks in the United States are over capacity and, as a result, it's become more and more difficult to travel to distant areas reliably.

That being the case, the board finally made the difficult decision to stop the train. Artrain will finish up the year and then the cars will be sold off. An era will end.

Don't worry too much, though, as Artrain will be reborn as a fleet of specially designed semi-trucks. This will not only allow the exhibit to carry on, but will also give it access to the 60% of the country which doesn't have rail service.

So, if you find that Artrain will be showing up in a town near you, I recommend you stop in and see it. If you can't, be sure to catch it the next time it rolls into town in its new incarnation.

I guess that just like any other business, even a mobile art museum has to roll with the times and adjust to the changing scenery.

So, when was the last time you had to adjust your business because the world had changed?