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A. S. Ray
Conductor
Biography
A.S. Ray was the conductor of the last Tennessee Central freight train through Clarksville, Tennessee.
Samuel Rea
President
Biography
Samuel Rea (September 21, 1855-March 24, 1929) first joined the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1871. One of his most significant accomplishments may be helping to bring the railroad into New York City.
On January 1, 1907, Rea laid the cornerstone of the new station at the corner of 7th Avenue and 33rd Street. On March 1, 1909, the railroad officially named its new Manhattan station Pennsylvania Station. The station opened in 1910, serving both the Long Island and the Pennsylvania railroads.
Rea went on to serve as the Pennsylvania Railroad’s ninth president from 1913 to 1925.
Paul Reistrup
President
Biography
Paul Reistrup was the second president of Amtrak from 1975 to 1978.
Before joining Amtrak, he had extensive passenger rail service experience with the Baltimore & Ohio and Illinois Central railroads.
Reistrup’s accomplishments at Amtrak include purchasing the Beech Grove, Indiana, heavy maintenance facility from Penn Central, introducing new single-level Amfleet cars into revenue service and gaining control of most of the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston. He also ordered bi-level Superliner cars for long-distance services, experimented with converting older equipment to head-end power, and initiated a rebuilding of the Chicago rail yards.
Joseph F. Renard
Engineer
Biography
Joseph F. “Uncle Joe” Renard was born on April 1, 1837, in Charleston, South Carolina, and he always wanted to be a train engineer. He was a “pioneer engineer” on the Western & Atlantic and served as an engineer on the State Road for more than 40 years.
He was at the throttle of the Catoosa locomotive on April 12, 1862, during the Great Locomotive Chase.
In September 1894, Renard was oiling his locomotive in Atlanta in preparation for the run to Chattanooga when he was “dangerously stabbed” by a man fleeing from police.
On February 4, 1901, Renard suffered a broken leg in a train collision in Bartow, a siding between Emerson and Acworth. Renard broke his leg while his fireman, James Linsey, was “slightly injured.”
When he died in 1905 at 68 years old, he was said to be among the best-known railroad men in the state. He was interred in Oakland Cemetery.
John F. Reynolds
Conductor
Biography
John F. Reynolds (unknown-August 20, 1891) was one of the first Western & Atlantic Railroad conductors, beginning service on September 11, 1848. He was the conductor of the first Western & Atlantic train to operate in Dalton, Georgia, in the 1840s.
In 1855, he was the conductor of the first train to cross the new bridge over the Etowah River. By July 1888, he was the railroad agent in Dalton, where he died on August 20, 1891.
John Vinson Reynolds
Motorman
Eugene Riley
Engineer
Biography
Eugene Riley was the engineer on the No. 2 express train on July 28, 1869, when it crashed at Budds Creek near Clarksville, Tennessee.
In the locomotive, steam escaping from the damaged boiler claimed the lives of Riley and the fireman.
Riley, a Bowling Green resident, left behind a wife and a child. The engineer “was regarded as one of the most discreet engineers on the road he served and stood high in the estimation of all who knew him.”
He “was scrupulously circumspect with his locomotive, always complying with the rules by which engine-drivers are governed, especially as to slow running over bridges and trestles.”