Fred W. Frailey's Twilight of the Great Trains Burlington Chapter has
a small bio on Menk. Son of a UP Trainman, he worked for UP as a
telegraph messenger while attending the University of Denver (correct
name, not Denver University as Frailey states). Then, after being
laid off by the UP, he went to work for the Frisco, rising in rank
from telegrapher to President. In the latter job, he made the
railroad freight only. He was President of the Burlington for only a
year, 1966, but, in the process, destroyed the Passenger Department,
in part by transferring Herbert C. Wallace, the driving force behind
the success of the Q passenger trains, to freight sales, where
Wallace resigned. Menk, wanting to be in a position to remain in a
position of power when the BN Merger took place, moved to the
Presidency of the Northern Pacific Railroad and became President of
the merged Burlington Northern Railroad with John Budd, the President
of the GN, becoming the Chairman of the Board of the BN. I believe
that Menk may have been on the Amtrak board at one point.
sjl
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, okt@j... wrote:
> From Railspot.
> Terry
>
> In a message dated 2/20/2004 7:36:56 PM Central Standard Time,
> jimbarlow@w... writes:
>
> > ...Then today I realized that
> > BNSF's hq address is 2650 Lou Menk Dr. in Ft. Worth. Mr. Menk
was prez
> > of BN wasn't he? Does anyone know his complete rail "pedigree"?
> >
> > Know of any other streets that carry the names of rail
_personalities_
> > (real or fictitious)?
>
>
>
> Jimmy,
>
> "Lou Menk" and "pedigrees"?! You shouldn't give me straight lines
like
> that! The temptation's mighty hard to withstand!
>
> So, enough about dog metaphors...
>
> Lou Menk didn't get his "Fink" nickname for nothing! The man HATED
> passenger trains. He loathed them so much that he was willing to do
> ANYTHING within his power to destroy them! Profoundly enough, he
> was given a seat on the original Amtrak Board of Directors (until
> 1974...or [to look at it another way] until it became obvious that
Amtrak
> was NOT going to live down to his original timetable, which called
for it
> to be dead and gone within three years).
>
> Look back at his Presidential tenures with various roads and compare
> those dates to the period in which their passenger services were
> decimated. It ain't coincidental!
>
> His primary claim to fame was being one of the original Kings of
> Merger-mania. He was given a great deal of credit for the success
of
> the Burlington Northern marriage. What he actually did to aid the
> combination of four historically associated lines and their existing
> subsidiaries is subject to debate. The addition one decade later
of the
> Frisco wasn't surprising either, considering his background.
>
> Speaking of his background:
>
> He followed in his father's footsteps and began working for our
industry
> as a teenager, shortly out of High School. His first job was with
the UP
> as a Messenger Boy. To his credit, he learned telegraphy in his
spare
> time while under their employ, eventually becoming qualified as an
> Operator before leaving Uncle Pete for the Frisco (not too long
before
> the
> beginning of World War II).
>
> He worked for the SL-SF a quarter of a century, eventually being
named
> President and Chairman in 1962. Yes, that's right...he honestly
worked
> his way up from the bottom - and, to give the Devil his due, a man
just
> doesn't go from Telegrapher to President in one score years with
nothin'
> on the ball! [N.B. His story was a real rags-to-riches tale - so
much
> so
> that one of the honours he received later in life was the famed
> Horatio Alger award.]
>
> At the time he was named President of the Frisco, he was the
youngest
> ever to hold such a position (although that distinction was short-
lived,
> since Ben Heineman took over the C&NW shortly thereafter).
>
> He definitely helped to recreate the role of Railroad President for
the
> 1960s through 1980s era: that of a bean counter, who was always in
> search of the elusive Holy Grail - in the railroad's case, a
panacea for
> all that ails 'em. It might be called the "If Only We Could Get
Rid Of
> It"
> Blues. If only we weren't saddled with those bad ol' passenger
trains
> anymore. If only we didn't have so many branch lines. If only we
could
> eliminate the Fireman's position. If only, if only, if only...
>
> It can be argued, perhaps even successfully, that such an approach
was
> required in the generation prior to deregulation. The main problem
today
> is that his type of leader has now become a discredited model, yet
we
> haven't really seen a new presidential archetype come forth. Every
time
> I hear a road publicly state (for example) that they wish to trim
their
> route mileage by a certain fixed percentage every year in order to
> reduce costs (thereby increasing profits), then turn right around
and
> complain of insufficient capacity, I consider his legacy.
>
> He penned a semi-autobiographical tome called "A Railroad Man Looks
> at America" after his retirement. I'm afraid I've never seen a
single
> copy,
> but the book ostensibly reviews his beliefs concerning railroad
> operations
> and the free enterprise system (among other things).
>
> At any rate, I digress. During the mid-60s, he was asked by the
> Burlington Route's owners (GN and NP) to come over and run the Q.
> After doing unforgettable things to the Zephyr fleet, he took the
NP's
> helm. He sat on the NP/GN managerial merger committee from day
> one. Once the "Great Northern Pacific and Burlington Lines"
> combination was consummated, he was given the title of President and
> C.O.O. of the fledgeling BN. The Great Northern's John Budd became
> the new company's Chairman / C.E.O. and, once he retired on the day
> of Amtrak's birth, Lou Menk took his position, too.
>
> He finally retired to his ranch in Montana about a year after BN's
> takeover of the Frisco.
>
> I trust there were some who mourned his death - at least his family
> (and perhaps some of the charities to which he was
characteristically
> generous, including the Boy Scouts of America); yet, I know there
> were also many others - including your's truly - who considered
> Mr. Menk just one step above Ol' Scratch, himself...and who
> understood that the man's demise didn't somehow endow him with
> any new virtues.
>
> To put it bluntly, my official "Wall of Shame" in my home office
has had
> several inductees over the years; but the original image was that
of a
> certain Louis Wilson Menk - "The Fink," the man with the bloody
hands.
>
> Garl
>
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