If you think of railroads as Lionel sets, "Petticoat Junction", and Grateful Dead songs, President Bush's nominee for Treasury Secretary won't make much sense to you.

Even if you do have an appreciation for transportation in this country -- and after the recent West Coast port mess you should -- the possible appointment could seem like a mistake. Aren't you just swapping one industrial guy -- Paul O'Neill of Alcoa (AA: Research, Estimates) -- for another industrial guy -- John Snow of CSX (CSX: Research, Estimates)? A metal man for a railroader. Big change, huh?

Nevertheless, John Snow isn't a bad choice for Treasury Secretary. In fact, it's a pretty canny one.

A railroad is a business that relies on many other businesses. If the coal biz stinks, your business is going to stink. Same for farming. If no one is buying wheat, you won't be hauling it. Same thing for chemicals. And minerals. And just about every other base commodity you can think of.

Railroads haul it all. And so they pay attention to it all.

And it's not all industrial basics, either. Plenty of retail merchandise moves by rail. So the fits and starts of the consumer are of intense interest to railroad executives as well.

So if you are looking for someone who has an understanding of lots of U.S.-based businesses, a railroad guy is a good candidate.

John Snow, because of his work leading the Business Roundtable, is even better in this regard. The roundtable is a vehicle for Corporate America to come up with a common voice on various issues eyeballed by Washington -- most recently corporate governance. To you and me, it manifests itself as the business elite hobnobbing at the posh Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia once a year and CEOs doing 3 minute interviews before tee time.

But hey, a lot of times what you know depends on who you know. And so John Snow gets good grades.

OK. So you're thinking "he's still a railroad guy" -- knowledgeable and well-connected, but still a get-stuff-from-point-A-to-point-B thinker.

Think again. Railroads are pretty complicated operations and as such have been on the cutting edge of information technology. But instead of getting babies to dance on computer screens or figuring out how to pirate the latest Harry Potter flick, they've been working on how to coordinate thousands of shipments to hundreds of delivery points in the quickest time with the fewest trains possible. Applied tech -- not sexy, but useful.

This isn't to say CSX has been brilliant at information technology. It hasn't. Three years ago, it had some major congestion problems, owing to the absorption of a new railroad system into its network. But you better believe John Snow has plenty of tech exposure.

And finally, there's the subject of foreign markets -- a pretty important subject for a Treasury Secretary. Port traffic is a staple of the railroad business -- after all, lots of a railroad's customers rely on overseas business. And, at one time, CSX owned a major ship line -- collecting revenue not only in U.S. dollars, but in yen and pounds and francs and what not.

On top of all this, John Snow has government experience in his resume and is, well, a well-spoken, smart guy.

I used to cover him in another life -- as a reporter for transport trade rags. He was one of those executives you hated. You had to cover him, because he was important and would say things people would pay attention to -- business outlooks and such. And he was nice and civil.

But he wouldn't make news. At least, not the kind of foot-in-mouth, buck-the-trend type of news reporters savor.

From the White House's point of view, that may be the best qualification of all.  

Allen Wastler is Managing Editor of CNN/Money and a commentator on CNNfn. He can be e-mailed here.