I have just completed reading and would like to recommend the book “Invisible Giants; The Empires of Cleveland’s Van Sweringen Brothers”. The topics covered include the building of the Cleveland Terminal Tower, the development of Shaker Heights and its rapid transit system, and the history of the railroad system the brothers put together in the 1920’ to 30’s. The author Herbert H. Harwood, Jr. has written several other railroad books and uses his skills to present an interesting read. He gives historical background on each railroad encountered in the story. The Van Sweringens controlled the 4th or 5th largest rail system in the US by 1930. Included in their realm were the Chesapeak & Ohio, Nickle Plate, Erie, Pere Marquette, Wheeling & Lake Erie, Missouri Pacific and Chicago & Eastern Illinois. The brothers actually got started in the railroad world with the help of Alfred Smith from the NYC while trying to solve some right-of-way issues relating to their Shaker Heights rapid. This history includes some good guys and some less than good guys and the fall out of the crash of 1929, which the brothers actually survived, albeit in poor shape… but no so for the following several years. If you are from Cleveland or the northern Ohio region you might enjoy the book for the interesting facts and some of the photos presented. This book is published by the Indiana University Press. You might scope them out as they have numerous railroad books in their catalog. I work at IU but have nothing to do with the press.
Interesting. I’ll have to look for that book. From your reading, what opinion do you get of the brothers? Most times, it seems like they are portrayed as a couple of real estate men who knew nothing of railroading. One depiction I saw had them described as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum from Alice in Wonderland. Were they good operators?
They weren’t Operating types, but they had good people to run their railroads for them. Things got better for their empire once they realized that the Erie was not the best railroad to be the centerpiece of it. They pulled their best operating man John J. Bernet from the Nickle Plate and sent him to the Erie, he eventually convinced them that the Nickle Plate had better prospects.
beaulieu has it in that the Vans hired good people and let them run the railroads. While they were out buying more they had the professional railroaders run the system. They supported new larger locomotives on several of the lines they took over which turned out to be a very good plan. These two were really pretty unique people. Some of their plans, like for Shaker Heights and the rapid were very long term in nature. Within their organization, mostly based in Cleveland, there were very few “titles”. According to the author no one ever found any sort of partnership paper work, they were just brothers working together…The C&O was the most profitable of their lines.