Rush Loving - The Well-Dressed Hobo: The Many Wondrous Adventures of a Man Who Loves Trains

THE WELL-DRESSED HOBO

RAILROADS PAST AND PRESENT

George M. Smerk, Editor

A list of books in the series appears at the end of this volume.

THE WELL-DRESSED HOBO

The Many Wondrous Adventures of a Man Who Loves Trains

RUSH LOVING JR.

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESSBloomington & Indianapolis

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

2016 by Rush Loving, Jr.

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 Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481992.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Loving, Rush, author.

Title: The well-dressed hobo : the many wondrous adventures of a man who loves trains / Rush Loving Jr.

Description: Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2016] | Series: Railroads past and present | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015043481 (print) | LCCN 2015047701 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253020635 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253020727 (eb)

Subjects: LCSH: Loving, Rush. | RailroadsUnited StatesHistory. | RailroadsUnited StatesBiography.

Classification: LCC HE2751 .L69 2016 (print) | LCC HE2751 (ebook) | DDC 385.0973dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043481

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To our children, Kennon Whittle, Kate Loving, John Whittle, Borden Loving, and Leslie Loving

And as always to my one and only Jane

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

MANY MEN AND WOMEN CONTRIBUTED TO THE CREATION OF The Well-Dressed Hobo. I am indebted especially to those who over the decades provided much of the information in this book. Most are gone now, and the information and advice they gave is their legacy. I came to value them over the course of my career, and I appreciate the rich lode of knowledge they provided.

A number of the people who helped directly with the writing of this book asked that what they told me not be attributed to them; thus I must refrain from citing them by name, despite the fact their help often was crucial. Among the others special thanks go to John Rebensdorf of the Union Pacific for his insights into John Kenefick and the merger movement of the 1990s; Norfolk and Westerns Jack Fishwick, who provided behind-the-scenes details of the Dereco venture; Mike Haverty of the Kansas City Southern, an invaluable source on the railroads great breakthrough in intermodal transportation; my friends Hays Watkins of CSX, who patiently kept providing essential details, and Baldy Baldwin, who let his fountain of knowledge pour out for the enrichment of these pages.

It is impossible to single out everyone but special thanks do go to Earle Dunford and Beverly Orndorff, retirees from the Times-Dispatch, for keeping my facts straight and adding to the colorful story of newspapers in their glory days. Thanks to an alert from Fortunes Carol Loomis I was able to correct errors in my account of the magazines momentous transition to a biweekly. To Carol I am especially grateful. Another Fortune colleague, Jo Thomson, provided colorful details that enhanced the description of the magazines research and checking process. I also want to thank my old friend and colleague Tom Hoppin for pushing me to get all the details and corroborating scenes from his years at Penn Central.

An old colleague, Jim Hanscomb, helped solve the mystery of the three banks that Fishwick wooed for their crucial votes. Mort Fuller, David Brown, and Henry Posner provided insights into regional railroads. Darius Gaskins was helpful with an insiders view of a landmark decision by the Interstate Commerce Commission and life at the Burlington Northern after deregulation. Bill Greenwood of the BN added considerable grist about the deregulation days, too. Norfolk Southerns Jim McClellan provided valuable insights into the state of todays railroads.

Bill Howes and Paul Goodwin, both CSX alumni, and Eric Beshers in Washington all made crucial contributions to the chapter on the proposal to sell the CSX railroad. Jim Hagen, who ran marketing at CSX and later was chairman of Conrail, provided invaluable knowledge about both the proposed sale of CSX and the industrys slow change to an open market.

Others whom I wish to thank include Courtney Wilson and Ryan McPherson of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum, Nick Fry of the Barriger Library, Jim Wrinn of Trains magazine, Ed Greenberg of the Association of American Railroads, and Richard and Preston Claytor. Representatives of various railroads were helpful as well. They included Frank Brown and Katie Buchanan of Norfolk Southern, Zak Andersen and Julie Herrick of BNSF, Mark Davis and Abigail Cape of Union Pacific, and Gary Sease of CSX.

At Indiana University Press my editors, Sarah Jacobi and Nancy Lightfoot, supported the project from start to finish, ensuring that we got the book out on time. I especially owe my gratitude to my copy editor, Carol Kennedy, who did a highly professional job of correcting misspelled names and keeping me accurate.

My colleague Fred Frailey and my agent Tom Wallace both gave me needed encouragement as I struggled to master an unfamiliar style of writing. I particularly appreciate their help. And, of course, as always I owe the books success to my wife, Jane, for her patience and constant support as we lived through seemingly endless deadlines.

THE WELL-DRESSED HOBO

INTRODUCTION

A Mix of Love and Luck

ONE FIRST-CLASS PASSAGE

PROBABLY I WOULD NOT HAVE BECOME A SUCCESSFUL WRITER if my parents had not brought me up on Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible. The Bible is a wonderful collection of great stories. And it pictures a lot of chaos, stories of people slaying each other and begetting everybody.

But it also has some parts that inspire order out of the chaos, much like the rulebook of a railroad: the Ten Commandments, for one thing. They can be very useful to anyone who tries to establish any order in a chaotic world. After all, the Ten Commandments have been the mainstay of Western civilization.

My friend Walter Wells recently told me an interesting story about the Ten Commandments. Walter, who retired not too many years ago as executive editor of the International Herald-Tribune to oversee his world-class vineyard in Provence, is a vestryman at an Anglican church in Paris. He said that the senior warden at St. Cuthberts, somewhere in England, came across their vicar and found the man to be most distraught. It seems his bicycle had disappeared, and he could only conclude that it had been stolen by someone in his congregation. The vicar had only recently arrived in that parish and felt he was at a disadvantage.