John W. Barriger III

H. Roger Grant

Description

In John W. Barriger III: Railroad Legend, historian H. Roger Grant details the fascinating life and impact of a transportation tycoon and "doctor of sick railroads."

After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, John W. Barriger III (1899–1976) started his career on the Pennsylvania Railroad as a rodman, shop hand, and then assistant yardmaster. His enthusiasm, tenacity, and lifelong passion for the industry propelled him professionally, culminating in leadership roles at Monon Railroad, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad and the Boston and Maine Railroad. His legendary capability to save railroad corporations in peril earned him the nickname "doctor of sick railroads," and his impact was also felt far from the train tracks, as he successfully guided New Deal relief efforts for the Railroad Division of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation during the Depression and served in the Office of Defense Transportation during World War II. Featuring numerous personal photographs and interviews, John W. Barriger III is an intimate account of a railroad magnate and his role in transforming the transportation industry.

Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Early Life and Career
2. Government Man
3. Monon
4. Transition Years
5. Pittsburgh and Lake Erie
6. Missouri, Kansas and Texas
7. More Retirements
Epilogue

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• Railroads
• Transportation
• List of EastEnders characters (2008)
• Biography
• Memoir
• General officer
• Rail transport
• General
• History
• Pennsylvania Railroad
• Wall Street
• New Deal

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 14 mars 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253032911
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

JOHN W. BARRIGER III
RAILROADS PAST AND PRESENT
George M. Smerk and H. Roger Grant, editors
John W. Barriger III
RAILROAD LEGEND
H. Roger Grant
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2018 by H. Roger Grant
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences - Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Grant, H. Roger, [date]- author.
Title: John W. Barriger III : railroad legend / H. Roger Grant.
Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, [2018] |
Series: Railroads past and present | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018004499 (print) | LCCN 2018003176 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253032898 (e-book) | ISBN 9780253032881 (cl : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH : Barriger, John W. (John Walker), 1899-1976. | Railroads-United States-Biography. | Railroads-United States-Employees-Biography. | Railroads-Management-United States-History-20th century. | Railroads and state-United States-History-20th century.
Classification: LCC HE 2754. B 37 (print) | LCC HE 2754. B 37 G 73 2018 (ebook) | DDC 385.092 [ B ] -dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004499
1 2 3 4 5 23 22 21 20 19 18
For
JOHN W. BARRIGER IV
Jack made this book possible
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Early Life and Career
2 Government Man
3 Monon
4 Transition Years
5 Pittsburgh Lake Erie
6 Missouri-Kansas-Texas
7 More Retirements
Epilogue
Notes
Index
Preface
IN DECEMBER 1976 THE AMERICAN RAILROAD INDUSTRY mourned the death of John W. Barriger III, one of its best known, most talented, and most beloved figures. He was viewed by many as selfless, scholarly, and dedicated. Said a coworker, If you asked me to name the most giving (especially to newly minted railroaders), knowledgeable, bright, interesting guy, it would be very easy, JWB III. Hardly surprising - Barriger had received numerous awards during his nearly sixty-year professional career, including the prestigious Railroad Man of the Year in 1968 from the popular trade journal Modern Railroads . 1
After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1921, this St. Louis, Missouri (technically Dallas, Texas), native wore many hats, and in the process he became an executive boomer. Barriger had been a rising employee of the Pennsylvania Railroad; a Wall Street financial analyst; architect of the Prince Plan for railroad consolidation; head of the Railroad Division of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation; associate director of the Division of Railway Transport for the Office of Defense Transportation; manager of the Diesel Locomotive Division of Fairbanks-Morse Corporation; president of the Chicago, Indianapolis Louisville (Monon), Pittsburgh Lake Erie, Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy), and Boston Maine railroads; vice president of the New York, New Haven Hartford (New Haven) and Chicago, Rock Island Pacific (Rock Island) railroads; and associated with the Federal Railroad Administration. Since the 1930s he had gained a national reputation as a public speaker on railroad and regulatory topics, and his 1956 book, Super-Railroads for a Dynamic American Economy , became widely discussed among railroaders, government officials, business leaders, and others. Critics agreed that this study, which spelled out a course of action for the industry s future focused on upgrading properties and prompting traffic, presented a well-reasoned package of advice for the railroad industry.
Writing a biography is a challenge. Subjects who are worthy of such attention may take an author to places that the author might not wish to go in research. No matter the vastness of primary and secondary materials, a biography is ultimately never definitive. Yet there is this positive feature of examining an individual who has died: no life can be justly judged until it has been completed. In this book-length account of railroad legend John W. Barriger III the task of exploring his event-filled life is somewhat less difficult than with some subjects. First of all, Barriger was an organized packrat, saving and organizing a multitude of professional papers, newspaper clippings, press releases, and diaries, and a plethora of photographs, railroad-oriented books, reports, and even his massive Christmas card lists. Toward the end of his life he began to write his autobiography, although he failed to get beyond his teenage years. But for the biographer, finding personal information from subjects formative years can prove invaluable in learning what made them tick. Without question much of Barriger s worldview had been firmly established before he matriculated at MIT in 1917.
Additional attractive aspects of this project are that the body of primary materials is readily accessible in a single location, the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, a unit of the St. Louis Mercantile Library, located on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and that his sole surviving child, John (Jack) W. Barriger IV, possesses a remarkable memory and has vivid recollections of his father, his family, and the railroad industry for much of his father s life.
Every life has a pattern. Sometimes it is clear and sometimes hidden, and for John W. Barriger III it is the former. His ongoing professional desire was to modernize the railroad industry, making it more efficient and profitable. This involved consolidating scores of competing companies, allowing them the financial means to upgrade their physical plants and rolling stock in order to provide the best possible service for the shipping and traveling public. He hoped that unfair and needless regulatory controls - what he called super-regulation - could be reduced or eliminated. As far back as his teenage years Barriger was consistently conservative in his personal outlook, living by a code of honor and loyalty that made for lasting and rewarding friendships. Politically, he was a staunch, pro-business Republican. Always there was Barriger s deep love of railroads - trains, stations, interlocking plants, yards, and the like - beginning with his earliest memories. His hobby became his life s work. Barriger was an incredible railroader, opined Rush Loving Jr., a former associate editor of Fortune magazine. Although warm of heart, he was an intense man, totally absorbed in the subject of railroads, and his dark eyes, peering steadily at you through rimless glasses, made him look all the more mirthless and venerable. Few, if any, people who knew him (or knew about him) would say that John W. Barriger III had not succeeded in becoming a twentieth-century American railroad legend. 2
Acknowledgments
AN HISTORIAN IS ALWAYS FLATTERED AT BEING ASKED TO study a particular subject, in this case to write a biography of twentieth-century railroad executive John W. Barriger III. His son, John (Jack) W. Barriger IV, contacted me about such an undertaking. He had read my biography of his father s contemporary, Jervis Langdon Jr., published in 2008 by Indiana University Press, and he liked the book. Moreover, Jack is the last surviving child of John and Elizabeth Barriger, and only he can supply certain details about the family s life. Jack has a remarkable memory, and my numerous interviews with him and my frequent email requests generated information that often could not have been obtained elsewhere. Moreover, he gave the manuscript multiple readings, correcting errors and making suggestions. And Jack provided the financial support needed to conduct the required research. Fortunately, his father amassed an amazing library of railroad materials, and he retained an enormous number of his own personal papers, including childhood diaries and an unfinished autobiography.
The Barriger railroad collection has not been scattered to the winds. It is housed in the St. Louis Mercantile Library on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and appropriately in the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library. The head of the Barriger library, Nick Fry, not only possesses a thorough grasp of these research materials, but he kindly aided me in various ways, making my research much easier than for any previous railroad-oriented book. Nick, too, made thoughtful comments about an early draft of my completed manuscript.
Although John W. Barriger III died in 1976, there remain individuals who knew him. With one exception, they have all willingly provided me with their memories about this well-known and respected railroader. These include Ed Burkhardt, Dave DeBoer, Alan (Dusty) Dustin, Herb Harwood, Dick Hasselman, Bill Howes, the late Jim McClellan, and Bill McKnight.
Others also have contributed. They include Alden Dryer, Geoff Doughty, Ron Goldfeder, John Hoover, Jim Howarth, Scott Lothes, and Guus Veenendaal. Don Hofsommer kindly reviewed the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) chapter, enhancing coverage and analysis. As with previous book projects, I am indebted to the helpful staff of R. M. Cooper Library at Clemson University, and, as always, to my wife of more than fifty