My wife and I saw Atlas Shrugged last night. It was a very good movie and I recommend it to everyone although most railroaders will chuckle at the technical inaccuracies concerning railroads. There is some really great railroad photography although it’s about as detailed as the heading of this page. Great mood pix but that’s about it.
The main characters of this movie, a brother and sister, James and Dagny Taggart, called Taggart Transcontinental. This prompted me to wonder: Were any non-fictional railroads named for people? I know several railroads had nicknames that referred to their builders (e.g., “The Flagler Line” or “George Washington’s Railroad”) but did any carry a person’s name in their official corporate name?
WOW! Did I mess up this post! That’s what happens when you try to do three things at once and one of them is writing on a forum that doesn’t allow editing a post. Let me try that second paragraph again. With corrections in italics, it should read:
The main characters of this movie, a brother and sister, James and Dagny Taggart, run a railroad called Taggart Transcontinental. This prompted me to wonder: Were any non-fictional railroads named for people? I know several railroads had nicknames that referred to people (e.g., “The Flagler Line” or “George Washington’s Railroad”) but did any carry a person’s name in their official corporate name?
There are also numerous railroads named after a city, region, etc, some of which were named after someone. San Joaquin Valley Railroad (formerly owned by Kyle Railways) is an example.
RJ Corman Railroad … is named after it’s owner … RJ Corman.
On the C&O having the monicker ‘George Washington’s Road’. Parts of the C&O’s route were laid out on the routing of the C&O Canal…George Washington was one of the surveyors that laid out the route for the C&O Canal.
Balt, the C&O Canal is along the B&O main line. The canal that George Washington surveyed was the James River & Kanawha canal, which was superseded by the Richmond & Alleghany Railroad (I believe the spelling is correct in this case), which had become the C&O’s James River line before the turn of the last century.
Paul, one of the PM’s predecessors was the Flint & Pere Marquette, named for its end points. Pere Marquette was actually the name for the city now known as Ludington (as well as the lake and the river). Pere (Father) Jacques Marquette’s tomb is on a bluff south of the outlet, overlooking Lake Michigan.
The Minneapolis St.Paul Rochester and Dubuque Electric Traction Co. was called the “Dan Patch Line”, it’s oil-electric (c.1910) engines were lettered for the “Dan Patch Line” (or “Dan Patch Electric Line”) and that’s what it was commonly called.
Of course technically Dan Patch wasn’t a person, although he did have his own private car…[;)]
Probably several short-line or logging railroads were named after their primary customer, which bore the name of the business’ founder or owner, though I can’t think of any specific ones right now. As a fictional example, the “Jones Railroad” might serve the “Jones Company”, which is named for Mr. Jones.
Could be. I can think of several similar scenarios that might have resulted in a railroad bearing a person’s name, but I can’t think of any examples.
The closest I can get is the Central of Georgia but that’s indirect at best. Wasn’t the State of Georgia named for King George? There are probably other examples of railroads having the name of a geographic landmark as part of the corporate name and that geographic landmark was named for a person. The Virginian also comes to mind in this category. But I’m wondering about railroads named directly for a person as in Taggart Transcontinental.
RJ Corman is very much like Nathanial Taggart in Rand’s book. He’s one of those people who gets things done…very capable…I believe Rand modelled Nathanial Taggart after JJ Hill…but Rick Corman would fit nicely as well…
Ah, yes! Actually, Henry, that was a short-lived name of the company that resulted from the merger of the McCloud River (MR) and the Mississippian Railway (MISS). The latter was renamed the Manufacturers Railway (MRS) right after the merger, but as the two components became more closely associated they were known first as the Ma and Pa. Of course, they eventually became the Family Lines…