Passenger Trains > Death of Alan Boyd

First Sec. of Transportation and a former Amtrak prez.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/alan-boyd-dead.html

As a Boy Scout in the early 70's I placed 2nd in an essay writing contest (Why are railroads important to America?) sponsered by the Railway Progress Institute. Three of us winners were invited to visit Chicago and the RPI convention.  During the visit we were able to meet Mr Boyd in his office as President / CEO of the Illinois Central. A memory I will always cherish. 

It was interesting to follow his career working with different forms of transportation.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/20 11:37 by SPMW5771.

Despite Reagan, David Stockman and Drew Lewis, he added the Portland section to the Empire Builder. That was back in the day when Amtrak was run by professionals, knew their corporate responsibilities, and remembered they answered to Congress. 

I met Alan Boyd once when he spent the afternoon at my station, he seemed like a decent guy. He instituted a safety hotline where employees could safely report safety issues without fear of harassment. I used the hotline to report such an issue. Afterwards, I received a call from an Amtrak safety supervisor who said that my name as "sh*t at Amtrak HQ for making the call. Fortunately, I was on speaker phone and my Union Shop Steward heard the call and took over from there and told me the Union would protect me. The hotline was soon dropped. Nice guy Boyd, but I don't think he knew was was really going down at Amtrak. 

Interesting NYT article- seemed thorough and fair. Mr. Boyd was my first "Big Boss" when I hired to Amtk.
I met hm once when he was doing a visit to the West Coast Crew Bases and riding some of the Trains.
He seemed to be the consummate gentleman and a general all around good guy. I liked Tom Downs too.

Graham Claytor. Not so much.

I briefly knew Tom Downs on a personal basis, a decent guy way in over his head. Graham Claytor, a war hero for turning his ship around in dangerous waters to save the survivors of the USS Indianapolis sinking, could rub lazy people the wrong way just like Gen. George P*A*T*T*O*N. But just like "Georgie", he got things done. Best president Amtrak and Southern Railway ever had. He was incorruptible and put the fear of god in bureaucrats. On his off-time he collected toy trains. Claytor was an "Old-School" 24/7 railroader! 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/20 14:36 by RRBaron.

Appreciate the reply about Graham C. Hope this thread doesn't fall into a flame war. For sure GC did many good things for NRPC.
His WWII era exploits were admirable, and solid. Amtk was a tough company to manage; every President had his own challlenges
and good and bad points. Some of us who worked at NRPC certainly disagreed about the various administrations.  A normal thing in
any big Company. Forgot to mention=  I really liked Mr. Gunn too. Met him personally, while on the Job back then.

Claytor, Gunn, Reistrup, Boyd were all excellent or very good.  The airline folks have always been the worst.

Charlie Rice

Charles Rice
Saint Louis, MO

Its bad when you get people hired who don't know the craft, how come for example how Southern Pacific hired those guys from Stanford and screwed over good railroad people every chance they get from what I read in Life as a locomotive engineer, same in general, put someone up top who don't know jack crap about a company and things go downhill quick!

RRBaron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I met Alan Boyd once when he spent the afternoon
> at my station, he seemed like a decent guy. He
> instituted a safety hotline where employees could
> safely report safety issues without fear of
> harassment. I used the hotline to report such an
> issue. Afterwards, I received a call from an
> Amtrak safety supervisor who said that my name as
> "sh*t at Amtrak HQ for making the call.
> Fortunately, I was on speaker phone and my Union
> Shop Steward heard the call and took over from
> there and told me the Union would protect me. The
> hotline was soon dropped. Nice guy Boyd, but I
> don't think he knew was was really going down at
> Amtrak. 

That's cooperate for ya!

Would be nice to have someone like Boyd back at the helm of Amtrak...

I'd rather see someone who's like Claytor and good managers!

Posted from Android

Anybody is better than the current p.o.s.* who like the bus executive VIA employed is destroying almost all the reasons for even riding AMTRAK!

Correction to my last comment if the p.o.s. has recently been superceded!