Eugene K. Garfield

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Eugene K. Garfield (Born 1936 ) was the founder of Auto-Train Corporation. The successful venture was launched in 1971. After completing the initial financing that raised approximately $7 million dollars, Mr. Garfield purchased 12 unique stainless steel doomed Budd cars in a deal he struck with John S. Reed, President of what was then the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. These cars would become the Company's first rolling stock. With Garfield's vision and creativity, the company placed a full page advertisement in the New York Times, which created a near frenzy of ticket sales almost immediately. The service was initially so successful, that tickets were sold out for nearly 1 year in advance. However, high crew costs, several spectacular accidents, and an unprofitable expansion put Garfield's company into bankruptcy. Auto-Train Corporation was forced to end its services in late April, 1981. Amtrak subsequently instituted a very similar service, which it calls Auto Train.

In the 1990s, Garfield was one of the founders of First American Railways, Inc. First American Railways developed and operated the Florida Fun-Train service, an entertainment train that shuttled tourists between Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the attraction area in Orlando. First American Railways also acquired the Durango and Silverton Railroad Company in 1996 and operated that railroad until it was later acquired by Alan Harper of Miami.

In 1997, Garfield founded the Bee Line Monorail System, Inc. The proposed route would shuttle tourists back and forth from the Cocoa Beach area, the central Florida attraction area and the Orlando International Airport along the SR 528 - Bee Line Expressway (now called the Beachline). Garfield had selected the German-made Transrapid maglev train as the technology for the system. He secured resource commitments from Enron Corporation, Lockheed, Parsons Transportation and The Walt Disney Company, just to name a few. The plan was derailed when shareholders went into a panic over possible changes in the route, and timetable. However, the terrorist attacks in 2001 dashed hopes for reviving the company. The Company's ridership numbers were based upon passenger traffic at the Orlando International Airport, and visitors to the Florida attractions which had fallen off by millions in the wake of the attacks.

More recently, Garfield founded another enterprise, The North American Maglev Corporation.