National Railroad Hall of Fame

Horseshoe Curve in Altoona, PA is known as one of the great engineering marvels of the world. Prior to its construction in 1854, the Allegheny Mountains blocked westward expansion of rail lines. These 2,375 feet of track, completed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, were the solution to linking the East Coast to the Midwest.

Irish immigrants were hired for the work and put in long days. It took 3 years, working 12 hours days using nothing but “picks and shovels, horses and drags”. Laborers were hired to either dig or lay track and were paid about 25 cents a day.

The importance of Horseshoe Curve to the transportation industry cannot be underscored enough. In fact, N**i Germany thought it to be so critical in the U.S. war efforts that in June of 1942, four N**i military intelligence officers landed on Long Island with a list of targets to destroy which included Horseshoe Curve.
This engineering marvel, coupled with the incredible views of the landscape made it a tourist destination early on and an observation park was created in 1879.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "The Horseshoe Curve, Pennsylvania." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1907. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-a10b-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
LIbrary

By Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science, United States Geological Survey - Seamless Data Warehouse, United States Geological Survey, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12065597T

Builder of the 600-mile Virginian Railway, NRRHOF inductee, Henry Huttleston Rogers, whose industry-leading construction standards, efficient customer service, and high profit margins set a pace in modern railroading unmatched over its fifty-year life. Much of the Virginian Railway is still in service today under Norfolk Southern Railway.

Read more about Henry Huttleston Rogers and other NRRHOF inductees on our website, www.nrrhof.org, where you can also watch industry leader interviews under our Oral History Archive.

On this day in 1905 Jervis Langdon Jr. was born. Railroad Attorney, Chair of the Association of Southeastern Railroads, President of the Baltimore and Ohio, and President of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific; Langdon's efficient operations and talent management skills returned failing railroads to profitability.
You can read more about Langdon and other Hall of Fame inductees on our website, www.nrrhof.org.

On this day in 1796, William Washington Gordon was born. Lawyer, politician, soldier, and first President of the Central of Georgia Railroad, Gordon connected Georgia’s cotton trade to export markets through the port of Charleston.

In 1864, during the Savannah Campaign of the American Civil War, federal troops tore up the rails of the Central of Georgia Railroad and shaped them into "Sherman's neckties" so that they could not easily be reused. Central of Georgia was purchased by the Southern Railway in 1963, and subsequently became part of Norfolk Southern Railway in 1982.

Georgia Central Railway has no connection with the Central of Georgia Railway, despite the similarity between the two names.

Read more about Gordon and other NRRHOF inductees on our website, nrrhof.org where you can also watch interviews with railroad industry leaders through our Oral History Archive.
Photo: public domain

Scottish engineer and inventor, Sanford Fleming was born on this day in 1827. Fleming was the Chief Engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway and his universal system of standard time zones greatly facilitated transcontinental railroad operations worldwide. Read more about Fleming on our website www.nrrhof.org where you can also watch one of several Industry Leader Interviews in the Oral History Archive.
Photo: public domain

Today we celebrate the birthday of National Railroad Hall of Fame inductee, Henry M. Flagler. Born in 1830, Flagler was the founder of the Florida East Coast Railway and a real estate promoter whose vision and investment extended rail service from to Jacksonville to Key West and developed the east coast of Florida as a winter vacation destination. You can read more about Flagler on our website www.nrrhof.org.

Until the railways were built, travel was more difficult, so people just didn’t do it as much. But once railroads were built, travel became much easier, so when folks had time off --- or they wanted to go visit Grandma for the holidays – they often took a train. By the 19th century, going home for the holidays usually meant getting on a train.
By the 1920s and ‘30s, train travel in the US was high and that link between trains and Christmas travel had really solidified. And in the 1940s, railroads helped hundreds of thousands of GI's to be home for Christmas. So, that association between Christmas and trains goes back several generations.

Joshua Lionel Cowen (originally Cohen) was born in New York City in 1877, to Eastern European immigrant parents. As a child he was always curious about how mechanical things worked. Thus, when he was a young teenager his parents enrolled him in the Peter Cooper Institute High School—named after the inventor of the steam locomotive—where Cowen got a practical education in the mechanical arts and sciences. After high school, Cowen took a job as an apprentice at an early dry-cell battery manufacturer. He soon moved on to the Acme Electric Lamp Company in midtown Manhattan, where he assembled battery lamps.
By 1900 Cowen and a partner had earned enough money to set up a production facility in a Manhattan loft and incorporated as the Lionel Manufacturing Company for the purpose of, “the manufacture of electrical, mechanical and industrial appliances . . . and toys.”
Cowen developed an interest in store window displays, which at the time were simply static arrangements of merchandise. He envisioned movement, things propelled around the window that would attract the attention of passers-by. He designed a shallow wooden box on wheels that he propelled around a crude set of tracks with his electric fan motor. He named the product the “Electric Express” gondola, and sold the first one for four dollars to Robert Ingersoll’s novelty store in downtown Manhattan for a window display.
The new marketing tool sold quickly, although as it turned out most of the sales were made to people who bought the gondolas as a toy, rather than a marketing device. Taking his cue from the first crude electric train, invented in 1896, Cowen designed a realistic-looking electric trolley car, made entirely of metal, to replace the clunky wooden gondola boxes the company had been making. In 1902 Cowen published the first Lionel Electric Train catalog, a simple 16-page black-and-white booklet extolling the fun and adventure of model railroading. Today, 110 years later, the annual catalog is still published.

Today we are celebrating NRRHOF Inductee, John W. Barringer III, engineer, railroad president, scholar, historian, and collector whose 45,000-plus volumes are housed at the John Walker Barringer, III, National Railroad Library form one of the nation’s finest collections of railroad history. Read more about Barringer and other National Railroad Hall of Fame inductees at www.nrrhof.org.

From all of us at the National Railroad Hall of Fame, we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!
www.nrrhof.org

Today we honor NRRHOF Inductee Alfred E. Perlman (November 22, 1902 - April 30, 1983), former head of the Penn Central and an expert in railroad operations and reorganization whose emphasis on modernization and research as a means of solving managerial problems made his influence felt across the industry. You can read more about Alfred Perlman and other NRRHOF inductees on our website at www.nrrhof.org.

Today we celebrate the birthday of Raymond Lowey, a NRRHOF inductee. A streamline-era designer for the Pennsylvania Railroad, Loewy's work included locomotives, stations, passenger-car interiors, and advertising materials. Read more about Lowey and other NRRHOF inductees on our website at www.nrrhof.org.

All of us here at the National Railroad Hall of Fame are sad to note the passing of Bill Greenwood on Friday, September 22nd.

We first met Bill in June 2008, when he accepted a volunteer role as a senior advisor to this project. A widely respected industry executive, he was the singular force behind the creation of our Rail Industry Advisory Group, a blue-ribbon panel of scholars and railroad professionals whose credentials span all sectors and geographic regions of the industry. Bill served as the group's Chair from 2008 to 2018, when he was named Chair Emeritus.

It seems only natural that Bill would be drawn to an organization dedicated to honoring the stories of the men and women who shaped the industry he loved. He had a natural curiosity and concern for others, and that caring demeanor, in turn, drew people to him. In recognition of his dedication and service in advancing the Hall of Fame, Bill was awarded the Hall of Fame's 'Engines of Freedom' medallion in 2017.

It would take many more paragraphs to adequately sum up his kindness, sense of humor, generous hospitality, and the quality of his friendship. It has been a privilege to be among his many friends and colleagues. We send our sympathies to Falah and his family. Rest in peace, dear friend.

We were saddened to learn of the death of Hays T. Watkins last Friday. Our oral history team had the pleasure of meeting the 95-year-old Hays at his home in Virginia last year, and we were impressed by his keen mind and gracious manner. We are honored to have captured a firsthand account of his impressive life and career. May he rest in peace.

CSX CSX Retirees

Today, we celebrate National Railroad Hall of Fame inductee Michael R. Haverty. Born in Atchison, Kansas, on this date in 1944, this fourth-generation railroader got his start as a MoPac management trainee in 1944. He later moved to Santa Fe as a trainmaster and earned successive promotions through the operating department until being named President and CEO in 1989.

At Santa Fe, Haverty bucked industry norms by partnering with a trucking company, J.B. Hunt Transportation. Haverty invited Hunt company executives to ride with him in a business car attached to an intermodal train to demonstrate the feasibility of using rail to haul long-distance truck cargo between the West Coast and Chicago. Shortly afterwards, J.B. Hunt himself rode with Haverty from Chicago to Kansas City. As the train reached Galesburg, Illinois, Hunt and Haverty shook hands on a pioneering “truck-to-train” partnership that became a model for intermodal operations across the railroad industry.

After six years at the helm of the Santa Fe, Haverty moved to Kansas City Southern where he transformed the struggling line into a viable north-south railroad with connections to Canada and Mexico. Then, seeing a viable and efficient alternative to canal passage across the isthmus of Panama, Haverty invested in the 47-mile Panama Canal Railway. Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping line, became Haverty’s biggest customer on the PRC.

Michael Haverty believes in the power of determination. He gained a reputation as a maverick for repeatedly succeeding at what others said couldn’t be done. The results speak for themselves. Happy Birthday, Mike!

On this day in 1813, National Railroad Hall of Fame inductee Stephen A. Douglas was born in Brandon, Vermont. A man of enormous energy and an enthusiastic promoter of railroad construction, Douglas earned the nicknames “steam engine in breeches” and “little giant.”

Douglas rose from rural obscurity to political prominence. In 1843, he was elected to the US House of Representatives, and in 1847, he entered the US Senate. Douglas advocated for the creation of a national railroad network focused on Chicago. In 1850, he submitted a bill calling for a federal land grant to fund the proposed Illinois Central Railroad. The bill passed, giving the IC alternate sections, six to the mile, to be sold to the public to encourage settlement. Upon its completion in 1856, the IC was the longest railroad in the world, running from Cairo, Illinois, at the southern tip of the state, to Galena, in the northwest corner.



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Photo 1: Stephen A. Douglas, 1813 - 1861

Photo 2: The IC was granted a 300 foot right of way along Chicago’s lake shore, but with the provision that the railroad be built at least 400 feet from Michigan Avenue. For that reason, the track was constructed on piles part of the way. The station was built at the foot of Randolph Street, and was an imposing structure for those days, being 500 feet long and 180 feet wide. The building was destroyed in the great fire of 1871.

Photo 3: Upon completion, the IC was the longest railroad in the world.

Today we celebrate National Railroad Hall of Fame inductee Asa Philip Randolph, born on this date in 1889. Randolph became the leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the most widely known spokesperson for Black working-class interests in the country. His eloquence and persuasive style unionized the Pullman porter workforce and earned his stature as a commanding presence in the civil rights movement. He believed in the importance of education and believed that color was less important than a person’s character and conduct. In his speech at the 1963 March on Washington, Randolph declared, "We are the advanced guard of a massive, moral revolution for jobs and freedom."

NAACP Galesburg National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum

National Railroad Hall of Fame inductee Louis W. Menk was born on this date in 1918. He is best known for leading the merger of three railroads to create Burlington Northern.

The son of a trainman, Menk said he could never remember a time in his youth when he wanted to be anything but a railroader. While in college, he started as a telegrapher with the Union Pacific Railroad. After graduation in 1940, he took a dispatcher's job with the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, the ‘Frisco.’ By 1964, he was named Frisco’s President and Chairman.

The following year, Menk was drawn away to the presidency of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. The railroad thrived under his leadership. In October 1966, Menk became President of Northern Pacific, one of Burlington's parent companies.

In 1970, after working on the project for fifteen years, Menk oversaw the merger of the CB&Q, the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, and the Spokane Portland & Seattle Railway to form the Burlington Northern Railroad. Menk was named President, Chair, and CEO of the new company, retiring in 1981. Reflecting on his success, Menk insisted that luck played a big role, and “If you work harder than anyone else, even if you don’t aspire to much, the rest will all come.”

Menk was named ‘Man of the Year’ by Modern Railroads magazine in 1967. That same year, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. Menk died at his home in Phoenix on November 23, 1999.

BNSF Railway BNSF Alumni Association

National Railroad Hall of Fame inductee W. Graham Claytor, Jr., was born in Roanoke, Virginia, on this date in 1912. After graduating from the University of Virginia and Harvard Law School, Claytor worked as a Supreme Court clerk; practiced law in Washington, DC; and served in the Navy in WWII. He joined Southern Railway where and was later named president. In 1977, Claytor left the Southern to become Secretary of the Navy under President Carter.

Claytor’s greatest challenge, and perhaps his most impressive work, began in 1982 when he returned to railroading full time as president of Amtrak. With his political connections, his legal acumen, and his knowledge of and commitment to railroading, Claytor worked doggedly to preserve Amtrak from politicians who wanted to dismantle it. Its revenues doubled and its future secure from immediate threat, Claytor retired in 1993. He died in 1994 and is commemorated to this day by the W. Graham Claytor Award for Distinguished Service to Passenger Transportation.

PHOTOS:
1. W. Graham Claytor with Southern Railway excursion 2-8-0 No. 630. Photo by Jim Boyd.
2. W. Graham Claytor (1982)
3. Under Clayton's leadership, Amtrak restarted the popular Auto Train from Lorton, Virginia to Stanford, Florida. Photo courtesy of Amtrak.
4. Cars load onto the Auto Train. Photo courtesy of Amtrak.