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Enron Type Mentality in Today's Railroading

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I really do enjoy this Forum! One reason is the delicious irony so often evident. For example, this thread asserts that what the industry really needs in leadership are "railroaders who KNOW THE BUSINESS." Yet the most consistently vilified leader on this Forum seems, IMHO, to be a quintessential "railroader." His official biographical material from his railroad's web site follows. (I couldn't readily find the biography of a certain "railroader" who runs a system based in Omaha, but if my memory serves me, he came up through the ranks too.) I'm scratching my head, trying to think of the Class I CEO's who are "Wall sTreeters now in charge." E. Hunter Harrison President and Chief Executive Officer E. Hunter Harrison became President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian National Railway Company on January 1, 2003. Before assuming that position, he had served as CN’s Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer during the previous five years. He was appointed to the Company’s Board of Directors on December 6, 1999. Prior to joining CN, Mr. Harrison had been President and Chief Executive Officer of the Illinois Central Corporation (IC) and the Illinois Central Railroad Company (ICRR), as well as a director of both IC and ICRR, from 1993 to 1998. Mr. Harrison’s railroad career began in 1964 when he joined the Frisco (St. Louis-San Francisco) Railroad as a carman-oiler in Memphis while still attending school. He advanced through positions of increasing responsibility in the operations function, first with the Frisco, then with Burlington Northern (BN) after BN acquired the Frisco in 1980. Before moving to IC and ICRR in 1989, he served as BN’s Vice-President – Transportation and Vice-President – Services Design. With IC and ICRR, Mr. Harrison first held the position of Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, becoming Senior Vice-President – Transportation in 1991, Senior Vice-President – Operations in 1992, and President and Chief Executive Officer the following year. During his career with Illinois Central, he initiated the concept of scheduled service for freight shipments, maintaining a sharp focus on operational efficiency and asset utilization. By 1996, he had succeeded in driving the railroad’s operating ratio down by some 30 points to the low 60s – the best in the entire North American rail industry. As CN’s Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, he applied the same philosophy and methods, implementing an aggressive operating plan and refining the railroad’s scheduled service to produce industry-leading operations ratio and on-time performance results. Mr. Harrison was named North America’s Railroader of the Year by Railway Age magazine in 2002.
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