Brooke Sutherland, Columnist

A Railroad Legend’s Vision for Streamlining Trains Is Finally Vindicated

Hunter Harrison spent the final years of his life trying to boost the industry’s efficiency and reliability.

January 22, 2019 at 5:00 PM UTC

Brooke Sutherland is Bloomberg News' Boston bureau chief and writes the Industrial Strength Newsletter. She was previously a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and industrial companies and an M&A reporter for Bloomberg News.

Illustration: George Wylesol for Bloomberg Businessweek

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This article is part of the January 28, 2019 issue of businessweek.

Hunter Harrison, a legend of the modern railroad industry, spent some of the final years of his life trying to boost the industry’s efficiency and reliability with one last megamerger. He failed, but today his vision for streamlining train operations is being vindicated—without megamergers.

As chief executive officer of Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., Harrison approached CSX Corp. in 2014 about a possible takeover, but the deal never got off the ground. A year later he was back at it, beginning a hostile pursuit of CSX’s East Coast rival Norfolk Southern Corp. That fell apart five months later.