(erielack) NYTimes: Edward Jordan, Chief of Conrail, Dies at 72

["Gary R. Kazin" <gkazin_@_yahoo.com>]

Edward Jordan, Chief of Conrail, Dies at 72
December 29, 2001 
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 - Edward G. Jordan, who helped to lift
the remnants of several railroad freight lines out of
bankruptcy as the first chairman and chief executive of
Conrail, died on Wednesday at his vacation home in Bend,
Ore. He was 72. 

Mr. Jordan, who also had a home in the San Francisco area,
had suffered from esophageal cancer, his family said. 

A native of Oakland, Calif., Mr. Jordan graduated from the
University of California at Berkeley in 1951 and earned a
master's in business administration from Stanford
University. He worked for several corporations, including
the Ford Motor Company and Procter & Gamble. 

He was a Los Angeles insurance executive when President
Gerald R. Ford selected him in 1974 to be president of the
United States Railway Association, the federal agency
formed to develop a plan to take over most properties of
ailing freight carriers in the Northeast and the Midwest. 

After he had been president of the association for 17
months, its board picked him in mid-1975 to head the new
line created by the association: the Consolidated Rail
Corporation, known as Conrail. Although he had no
experience with railroads, Mr. Jordan was confident he
could do what earlier train executives could not. His credo
was, the fewer managers, the better. 

"One of the real problems with American industry, in large
organizations such as the railroads," he said at the time,
"is that you get such incredible depth in management that
the nature of a real problem and the man dealing with it
never gets to the decision maker." 

But Mr. Jordan was battling more than management problems,
however intractable they may have been; he was also up
against the tide of history. For much of the 19th century,
there were scores of thriving railroad freight lines. But
by the middle of the 20th century, there were only six: the
Penn Central, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Erie
Lackawanna, the Lehigh and Hudson River, the Lehigh Valley
and the Reading. 

Buffeted by competition from trucks using the Interstate
highway system, hobbled by federal requirements to run
money-losing passenger service, the six railroads deferred
maintenance on trains and tracks. As their service
deteriorated, more freight business went to the trucks in
what seemed to be a death spiral for the rail lines. 

One by one, the six lines entered bankruptcy in the early
1970's, weakening a national economy already in recession.
The federal government responded by creating Conrail and
appropriating money to rebuild tracks, locomotives and
freight cars. Congress also loosened some regulations,
making it easier for trains to compete with trucks, and
created Amtrak to take over intercity passenger service
from the freight railroads. 

Mr. Jordan confidently predicted a quick turnaround, with
engines in mint condition hauling more freight for more
customers on smoother tracks. But despite his efforts to
modernize the operation and bring costs under control,
Conrail ran at a loss and was troubled by problems and
complaints for many months. Mr. Jordan and other Conrail
executives said that the equipment they had inherited was
even worse than they had expected and that harsh winter
weather and a prolonged coal strike had made things worse. 

In 1980, after Conrail had finally recorded two
consecutive profitable quarters, Mr. Jordan resigned. He
was dean of the Cornell University business school for nine
months, then for several years was president of the
American College, in Bryn Mawr, Pa., which provides
instruction to insurance and financial services
professionals. He also sat on the boards of several
corporations. 

He is survived by his wife of 47 years, Nancy; two
daughters, Susan Thomas of Accra, Ghana, and Kathryn Ragan
of Fair Oaks, Calif.; two sons, Jonathan, of Rohnert Park,
Calif., and Christopher, of Lake Oswego, Ore.; and 11
grandchildren. 

In 1981, Conrail had its first profitable year and no
longer required federal subsidies. On March 26, 1987, the
government's 85 percent share of the corporation was sold
to private investors for $1.65 billion, then the largest
stock offering in Wall Street history, a transaction that
completed one of the more successful federal bailouts. (The
remaining 15 percent of the railroad was owned by
concurrent and former Conrail employees.) 

In 1997, Conrail was bought by the CSX Corporation and the
Norfolk Southern Corporation in a deal worth more than $10
billion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/29/obituaries/29JORD.html?ex=1010921686&ei=1&en=f3cf54e5839c009b

> Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company


=====
Gary R. Kazin
DL&W Milepost R35.7
Rockaway, New Jersey

http://www.geocities.com/gkazin/index.html

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