RAILROADS: Santa Fe’s New President

This week a new president takes over the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Co.

The job is no sinecure; 55-year-old Fred Gurley will earn every cent of his $60,000-a-year salary. The Santa Fe has a tough year ahead. Its Western divisions are snowed under by a record wheat crop.

Its big Mikados and 5,400 h.p. diesels are dragging ever-increasing loads of war materials westward over the mountain passes while the services call for more & more. Passenger traffic has rocketed 577% over 1939. And labor is so scarce that women and young girls are handling mail and express on the passenger trains.

But Fred Gurley is as used to trouble as a railroad man can be. He started at the bottom; his first job (1906) was as a clerk in the superintendent’s office on the Burlington, at Sheridan, Wyo. Gurley stayed with the Burlington for 33 years, moving up through the operating department to become assistant vice president in 1936; he was a prime mover in Burlington’s pioneer work with streamlined diesel trains.

The retiring president of the Santa Fe, genial, spry Edward J. Engel, 70, lured Gurley from the Burlington in 1939, made him executive vice president of the Santa Fe. Since then Engel & Gurley have spent over $200 million for new rolling stock, better signals and improvements to Santa Fe’s 13,500 miles of track. Both became diesel enthusiasts; the Santa Fe owns more diesels than any other railroad. With the new equipment, Santa Fe has been able to keep pace with the traffic boom that shot gross revenue from $160 million in 1939 to $471 million last year.

The Corridor. Retiring president Engel did not like to retire. Toting his brief case, he looked back at his old office last week, said wistfully, “I’ve been walking up that corridor for 45 years, and I’m going to miss it.” But as a Santa Fe director, Engel will cast his eye down Gurley’s corridor for some time. President Gurley will need lots of help on postwar operations.

Gurley expects relentless competition from airlines, but he is betting heavily on the comforts of superdeluxe coach and sleeper trains. And Gurley knows the history of the Santa Fe.

The first rickety tracks followed the old Santa Fe wagon and cattle trail, west from Topeka through Council Grove, Dodge City, across the muddy Arkansas River and into New Mexico. There were few passengers and not much freight until the West grew. But the West grew. And the West is still growing. Railroader Gur ley expects the Santa Fe to keep up with it.