Benjamin W. Heineman

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Benjamin W. Heineman (b. 1914) was an attorney and American railroad executive. Heineman first gained attention in the railroad industry in 1954, when he orchestrated a successful proxy battle for control of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway. He became president of the Chicago and North Western Railway (CNW) in 1956, leading the railroad through a series of difficult cost-cutting measures that returned the railroad to solvency. One of the measures he instituted was to sell shares in the railroad to the railroad's own employees, prompting the "Employee Owned" inscription in the railroad's logo.

Heineman is noted in the history of Chicago, Illinois, for replacing all steam locomotives bringing passenger trains into North Western Station with diesel locomotives, in one day in 1956, in response to a complaint by Mayor Richard J. Daley about smoke and fumes eminating from the station. Heineman also replaced the North Western's entire passenger rolling stock used for commuter services with double deck "commuter streamliners".

[edit] References

• Chicago and North Western Historical Society, Chicago & North Western - A Capsule History. Retrieved March 15, 2005.
• White, John H., Jr. (Spring 1986). "America's most noteworthy railroaders". Railroad History 154: pp. 9-15. ISSN 0090-7847. OCLC 1785797.