He deserves to have his own thread here, for many reasons as will eventually become quite clear - and as I can’t find one yet, so I shall. He was quite a character.
From Benjamin B. Bachman’s ‘‘Thoughts on the railway that made Canada whole’’ in the August 1980 issue of Trains, Vol. 40, No. 10, pp. 22 - 27, though almost the entire article is a tribute to Van Horne:
‘‘I have never worked and I never intend to. I don’t demand the right to work–because like those who do, I hate it. Building the CPR was fun–absolute enjoyment.’’ (pg. 27, col. 3, bottom) Bachman did not cite or reference where he got this from, but as this is the only place I could find it, I especially wanted to make it more accessible in the Internet age.
Some other Van Horne quotations, from other sources, in no particular order
Yes. From the biography that I cited and linked above:
“Van Horne’s work brought him into close contact with James Jerome Hill, Minnesota’s most aggressive railwayman. In 1880 Hill and his associates, among them George Stephen* of Montreal, signed a huge contract with the Canadian government to build the Pacific railway. . . . Hill then recommended that Van Horne be obtained to manage the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. “I have never met anyone,” Hill had written to Stephen a week before Stickney’s retirement was announced, “who is better informed in the various departments: Machinery, Cars, Operations, Train Service, Construction and general policy which with untiring energy and a good vigorous body should give us good results.” Luring Van Horne from the Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul had the added advantage of weakening one of Hill’s expansion-minded American rivals. Offered one of the highest salaries paid any railway manager, Van Horne accepted; he arrived in Winnipeg on 31 December and began work as general manager on 2 January.” [emphasis added - PDN]
There were, however, some differences between them. As Bachman noted, Van Horne was always an employee or official - never an entrepreneur in his own right, at least not on major North American railroad projects. I’ll leave it to you to read the biography to find out the circumstances and locations where Van Horne was more of the entrepreneur - and his penchant for practical jokes ! [:O]
