Casey Jones Is Dead

"Lou Menk says railroads should get out of the railroad business," cried an ad in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers this week. "Who does he think he is?" Who, indeed, but the president of the 14,000-mile Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. Louis Wilson Menk obviously had more on his mind than his catchy headlines seemed to say. "We're not in the railroad business," continued the ad. "We're in the distribution business. Mere semantics?

No ... It's an attitude that forces us to think of this railroad as an extension of the shipper's total distribution system ... It compels us to use the very latest tools at our command . . . Gone are the days of Casey Jones. This rail road is changing."

It sure is. In the eight months since Menk, 48, took over the 117-year-old Burlington, he has even shifted advertising agencies for the first time in 40 years, redesigned timetables (the covers now show a comely girl with an above-the-knee hem line), and started redecorating the line's 54-year-old headquarters in Chicago to discard what he calls the creaky "railroad look." Lou Menk has also reshuffled management, introduced a human-relations course that executives call "the charm school," figures that by emphasizing such small changes, he will get his employees to think seriously about the big changes that he has in mind. "Railroads are the greatest growth industry there is," he says, "because there is more to be done in this business than any other."

Don't Chase Hobos. Menk is a railroader's son who began 30 years ago as a telegrapher, rose to head the Frisco line and become the most sought-after executive in the industry. He was recruited for the Burlington with a bigger job in mind: the railroad's stock is 97% owned by the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern and, in a merger that the ICC unexpectedly turned down last month, he was slated to become operating head of the three roads. With the merger outlook now cloudy, he is concentrating on bettering the Burlington. Among the measures so far: >The Burlington bought a turboprop executive plane, flies potential customers to inspect 10,000 acres of industrial sites scattered along its right of way. >Menk cut paper work by ordering 419 forms discontinued, including one that took five hours to prepare and was then promptly filed and forgotten, has also trimmed 1,200 employees from the payroll, shifted others. >To regulate freight-car movements more efficiently, the Burlington is leasing an IBM 360 computer, is also building a $6,500,000 private microwave system to speed computer data between Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul.

> Menk ordered the Burlington's railroad police to forget about chasing hobos, concentrate instead on reducing freight damage; monthly damage claims have since dropped 27% .

Poetry of the Rails. The Burlington's greatest goal is to write more of what Menk calls "the poetry of the railroad --a nice long freight train." Of the $40 million that the road will spend this year on equipment, 80% is earmarked for new freight cars and for renovating 8,888 old ones, or 22% of the Burlington's fleet. By buying lightweight coal cars and putting them in 70-car unit trains, the Burlington recently won a 20-year coal-hauling contract from Missouri's Union Electric Co. that might have gone to competing barge lines.

As for passenger service, the Burlington makes money on its Chicago commuter service, also has 80% occupancy on the long-haul Zephyrs. Menk wants to abandon other passenger service, which accounts for 40% of the Burlington's train miles but only 14% of its revenue. Riding a train from Denver to Fort Worth recently, he took a nose count, discovered that there were as many crewmen as coach passengers (twelve). "This is not only amazing," says Menk. "It's tragic."

Battered by floods and landslides that accounted for the worst damage on the Burlington since the Civil War, the railroad last year showed an 18% drop in net revenue. This year profits have almost doubled, and freight revenues are up 7.2%. The Burlington's No. 1 wheel seems to be rolling.

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