(erielack) Railroad presidents then and now

[MDelvec952_@_aol.com]

In a message dated 10/4/04 4:18:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Edward.Montgomery_@_fcps.edu writes:

> THIS IS AN EXCELLENT RECOLLECTION OF HOW RAILROAD MANAGEMENT ONCE WAS
>  WHEN NUMEROUS INDEPENDENT COMPANIES EXISTED. I HEARD THAT GREGORY
>  MAXWELL ALSO WAS INTERESTED IN THE COMPANY TRAVELLING EXTENSIVELY IN THE
>  BUSINESS CAR TRAIN MEETING PEOPLE.  I DON'T THINK ANYTHING CLOSE TO THAT
>  HAPPENS TODAY WITH NS, CSX, OR BNSF.  MAYBE UP STILL DOES IT TO A
>  DEGREE.

Thanks for the note, Ed, and such things still happen to a degree, but rail 
execs do far more flying to events than taking their own railcars.  Every big 
railroad has business cars, few are "president's cars," and only UP and KCS 
have executive locomotives.  Union Pacific uses its biz train more than most 
roads, and we here in the East almost got to see it close up.  UP had spent more 
than a million dollars planning to bring it to the Republican National 
Convention last month, plans that included running it here with the E-units, putting 
it on the New York Cross Harbor and floating the entire train to Manhattan.  
The NYCH was going to get a lot of cash and two diesel switchers for its 
troubles.  Due to the terrorist threat, the plan was dropped and UP's presence was 
felt with displays and parties.

Today there are far fewer class one railroads than in the '40s and '50s, the 
corporate headquarters are so far apart, unlike the days when so many 
railroads had executives in New York City.  The Lehigh Valley and Jersey Central were 
at 143 Liberty Street; Wabash and Ann Arbor were at 44 Wall Street, the D&H 
and NYC were at 230 Park Avenue, Santa Fe, Frisco and UP were at 120 Broadway, 
SP at 165 Broadway, WP was up on Fifth Avenue and so on.  When I worked in New 
York I tried to find these edifices -- some of the buildings existed, some had 
been replaced with modern glass towers.  By far the most grand of the old 
downtown offices was 140 Cedar Street, today known as 90 West Street.  It is a 
magnificent building and I encourage all to visit the place.  It was badly 
damaged by the Twin Tower collapse, but survived and is still in use.  Lackawanna 
occupied the lower three of the top four floors, Perry's office being the two 
windows in the southwest corner. It's a very ornate masonry building with a 
copper roof that's elegantly and creatively lit at night.

But all railroad CEOs answer to Wall Street, they always have.  Delaware, 
Lackawanna & Western was one of the very first nine companies that made up what 
was not yet called the Dow Jones industrial average, reported in the newsletter 
that would become the Wall Street Journal, in the mid-1800s.  Today the Class 
1s have their quarterly stock analyst's meetings in Manhattan where the execs 
answer questions and discuss performance versus forcasts.  I used to attend 
these meetings when I worked for Railway Age, and by 1997 I had met each of the 
Class 1 CEOs.  Flattering it was that most of them knew me.  Most are 
railfans, too, and had paid some attention to Railfan & Railroad to know my name. 
They're all regular people, and in that social environment they were very 
approachable and cordial.  NS' David Goode and I had our friendship with Winston Link 
in common (Goode owns more than a hundred Link prints, I own two), and he 
talked freely about his aspirations for the former Conrail / EL territory.  Mike 
Haverty of KCS, former Santa Fe, leaned over and asked, "hey, Mike, you gonna 
nominate me to the railfan hall of fame for bringing back the Warbonnet?"  You 
bet!  Haverty's successor Rob Krebs had found that the Super Fleet campaign 
and the warbonnet paint was so tied to Haverty's Santa Fe that he had to make a 
change to make the railroad his.  In his own way Krebs let the railfans in on 
the decision as he was painting various versions on engines and collecting 
feedback from employees.  He was also watching the railfan press.

Walking in those circles I remember wondering and trying to relate it all to 
what things were like in the days when there were so many Class 1s, all of 
whom had to make some presentation to Wall Street analysts, observers and 
stockholders, quarterly. It was a far different railroad world on Wall Street, yet 
just as intense as it was along the main lines and in the yards.   KCS's Mike 
Haverty is probably the closest thing we have today to the Brosnan's and 
Barriger's of old, and of course Shoemaker, White and Davis.

We historians don't give enough credit to the executives. They did the big 
picture thinking and delegated the details. Perry couldn't tell me why the 
boxcars in the Phoebe Snow consist didn't say "Route of Pheobe Snow," but he still 
had finance and strategies in his mind.  When asked about ever recovering the 
cost of that trainset, "The Phoebe NEVER made money,"  was his instant and 
very stern reply (none of the streamliners on any road made money).  Perry was a 
visionary, insisting that the State pay for commuter trains and that the 
railroad shouldn't be so heavily taxed on commuter trackage. He pushed that point 
even into his CNJ days, and that led toward NJDOT philosophies and eventually 
NJ Transit.  It was radical then and criticized by the press, some responding 
to municipal governments who relied on that revenue while accusing him of 
hurting commuters (this from my own reading of contemporary reports, not from 
anything Perry said).  Perry was trying to help the commuter.    Today, Perry's 
vision is reality across the country. We can quibble about schedules and service, 
but commuter railroading is at its healthiest since the days when commuter 
service was profitable.

Mike Del Vecchio

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End of EL List Daily V3 #1427
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