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42 2 william wilgus achieved meteoric success with the New York Central Railroad. In June of 1893 he joined the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg Railroad in upstate New York, a subsidiary of the Central. Wilgus reorganized the company’s engineering records and undertook a careful examination of the tracks, bridges, and culverts in need of immediate repair. His hard work impressed Charles Russell, superintendent of the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg ; and he came to the attention of Colonel Walter Katte, the chief engineer of the entire New York Central system based in New York City. As his work responsibilities expanded, Wilgus achieved a measure of professional stature, always important to his sense of self. In 1896, the American Society of Civil Engineers elected him to full membership at thirty years of age, the earliest age possible. He proudly remained a member of the ASCE for the rest of his life. THE BRILLIANCE OF GRAND CENTRAL His first opportunity to work directly for the senior management of the Central involved an inspection of the Ogdensburg & Lake Champlain Railroad, a railroad running from Ogdensburg to Lake Champlain, soon to be purchased by the Central.1 After just four years in upstate New York, he received an offer of the position of resident engineer of the eastern division of the New York Central. He immediately accepted and moved to New York City to work out of the corporate offices at Grand Central Depot at 42nd Street. Just thirty-four years old, William Wilgus now held a senior engineering position with the second largest railroad in the United States, a singular achievement for a young, self-taught engineer. Wilgus’s first major assignment involved the planning for the Terminal Railway of Buffalo, which was to bypass the congested rail lines in downtown Buffalo and provide a speedy link for trains running from the Midwest on the main line of the New York Central across upstate New York. With the successful completion of Terminal Railway, in just six months, another promotion awaited: chief assistant engineer of the entire New York Central system. In his autobiography Wilgus notes that a careful inspection revealed the main line tracks across upstate New York to be “seriously suffering from dry rot. . . . the bones of the corpus were decaying,” conditions that were, in his opinion, “out of sight [and] out of mind to those aloft who were blind to what was going on beneath.”2 Further advancement followed, and in 1898, the new president of the Central, THE BRILLIANCE OF GRAND CENTRAL 43 William H. Newman, moved Wilgus into the newly created position of chief of maintenance of right-of-way, responsible for all of the system’s tracks. He set out to professionalize his department, replacing older railroad veterans with younger, professionally trained engineers. Wilgus did not hesitate to force out long-serving employees, “bringing sorrow to many who had been long in the service.” His goal: to hire men who would become “pioneers in the newly established organization in which engineering talent has a wider sway than of old.” He assembled a top-notch engineering department to overhaul the railroad and, in the not-too-distant future, plan for a new Grand Central. Wilgus’s initiatives pleased senior management, including the grandsons of Commodore Vanderbilt, William K. and Cornelius III, who remained very active in all major decision making. In his autobiography Wilgus commented on his increasing responsibility and the costs involved: “For the first time in my life I was learning the truth of the old saying—uneasy rests the head that wears the crown.”3 Just a year later on April 15, 1899, President Newman promoted Wilgus to chief engineer of the entire New York Central & Hudson River Railroad. In the space of six years with the New York Central, he had advanced from a minor position with a subsidiary in Watertown, New York, to the very heart of the railroad , working at corporate headquarters at Grand Central Depot in midtown Manhattan. Challenges in New York Wilgus recognized that the Central’s major challenges in New York City involved both the railroad’s passenger and freight service. A never-ending conflict pitted local residents, politicians, and the general public against the railroad. Grand Central Depot, the railroad’s passenger terminal at 42nd Street, which had opened with such fanfare in 1871, had reached capacity and could no longer handle the volume of passengers. On the west side of Manhattan, the railroad’s extensive freight tracks and rail...

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