MILW William Quinn passes

r_i_straw · Nov 20, 2015

Wow this guy sure hung on long after his railroad vanished.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-william-quinn-obituary-met-20151118-story.html

gcav17 · Nov 20, 2015

r_i_straw said: ↑

Wow this guy sure hung on long after his railroad vanished.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-william-quinn-obituary-met-20151118-story.html
Click to expand...

I would like to read this but I wont subscribe to the tribune.

FriscoCharlie · Nov 20, 2015

Same here.

Hytec · Nov 20, 2015

This obituary is accessible.....

r_i_straw · Nov 20, 2015

William J. Quinn was the chairman and CEO of Chicago-based Milwaukee Road railroad in the 1970s and also held top executive posts at two other rail lines.

Quinn, 104, died of complications from leukemia Oct. 24 at the Vi at the Glen care center in Glenview, said his daughter, Floy Laverty. He had lived at Vi at the Glen for the past seven years after many years in Winnetka and Wilmette.

Born in St. Paul, Minn., Quinn received an undergraduate degree in 1933 from what is now the University of St. Thomas in his hometown. Quinn played on St. Thomas' hockey team and also developed a reputation as an expert debater. One of his debate partners was future Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Sheran, according to his family.

After earning a law degree from the University of Minnesota in 1935, Quinn worked in private practice and as an assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota.

He had a number of relatives in the railroad industry, and in 1940 was asked by a former colleague in the U.S. attorney's office to join him with the Soo Line.

"I didn't want to change jobs at the time, but I decided to give it a try," Quinn told the Tribune in 1960. "I've never regretted the decision."

During World War II, Quinn went on a leave of absence from the Soo Line to work for the FBI as a counterespionage agent, according to his family. Based first in Louisville, Ky., and then in New York City, Quinn handled counterespionage cases involving Germans and Russians, his family said.

After the war, Quinn returned to the Soo Line as assistant commerce counsel, then became the railroad's general counsel. In 1954, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad — better known simply as the Milwaukee Road — recruited Quinn to move to Chicago and become the railroad's general solicitor.

The job appealed to Quinn, he told the Tribune in 1960, because while it was "down one notch," it offered "a bigger challenge."

In 1958, Quinn, then 46, became the youngest president the Milwaukee Road's 107-yearhistory. Over the next decade-plus, Quinn considered several merger partners, including the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad and the Chicago & North Western Railway, but couldn't get a deal.

In 1966, Quinn left the Milwaukee Road to become president of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. In 1970, the railroad merged with three other lines based in the Pacific Northwest to form the Burlington Northern Railroad, and Quinn was named the Burlington Northern's vice chairman.

Quinn returned in 1970 to his former employer, the Milwaukee Road, as its chairman. One of his noteworthy actions was his 1972 decision to discontinue the electrification of the Milwaukee Road's lines in the Pacific Northwest and to sell the copper wires above those tracks and shift to diesel locomotives on those lines. The move was a costly one for the Milwaukee Road, coming right before the 1973 oil crisis.

Quinn also championed combining Midwestern railroads as a way to eliminate duplicate tracks and facilities between Chicago and the West Coast. In the mid-1970s, he advocated merging the Milwaukee Road with the Burlington Northern.

Ultimately, however, the Milwaukee Road — like most Midwestern freight railroads — struggled in the 1970s from weak rail traffic, and under his leadership the railroad filed for bankruptcy in December 1977.

"The size of our (rail network) cannot be supported by the revenues it generates," Quinn told members of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington in January 1978.

In February 1978, he stepped down as the chairman and chief executive of the Milwaukee Road's parent holding company, Chicago Milwaukee Corp., but remained the Milwaukee Road's chairman and CEO in order to focus solely on the future of the railroad. In October 1978, Quinn retired from the Milwaukee Road as well.

Quinn was a board member of the College of St. Thomas from 1963 until 1994. After retiring, Quinn served on the board of Loyola University Chicago from 1979 until 1992.

Quinn's wife of 65 years, Floy, died in 2007. In addition to his daughter, he is survived by sons, William, George, Patrick and Richard; three other daughters, Maureen Moore, Michaele Hall and Shannon Norton; 13 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

Services were held.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

Copyright © 2015, Chicago Tribune

Obituaries

Loyola University Chicago

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BoxcabE50 · Nov 20, 2015

Whatever you do, don't look to Wikipedia for accurate info. Whoever wrote the page on Quinn botched it very nicely, plus forwarding the same old rumors, instead of doing some research. for example it states Quinn was the "last leader" of the MILW. Which is false. He was succeeded by Worthington Smith, who led the downfall..... That site is a source of so much misinformation it is really sad.

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