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Ed Lewis
Biographical Info
Like many lifelong railroaders, Edward “Ed” Lewis’s love affair with trains and railroads began as a child. Growing up in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, he would explore, often by bicycle, rail lines and stations in his home state and in New York.
Lewis began his career in the railroad industry in 1963 at the Long Island Rail Road, where he served as a clerk. He was assistant to the president and general manager of the Arcade and Attica Railroad in New York; auditor of freight revenue at the Providence & Worcester Railroad in Rhode Island; vice president of the Strasburg Rail Road in Pennsylvania; and secretary-treasurer and general manager of the Lamoille Valley Railroad Company in Vermont.
In 1987, Lewis was the first company outsider hired as president of the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad (A&R) in North Carolina. He held that position for 20 years until 2007. In a 2017 article about the A&R in the News & Observer, Lewis was credited with bringing about much of the railroad’s most recent successes.
Lewis’s interest in railroads extended beyond his work managing them. He wrote several books about railroads that often featured photographs he took himself. In 1971, he published his first book, the Wellsville, Addison and Galeton Railroad: Sole Leather Line, which told the history of the WAG, as the railroad was affectionately known.
Lewis’s most famous book remains his American Shortline Railway Guide, a directory of small railroads, featuring “facts, figures, and detailed locomotive rosters” of hundreds of U.S. short lines. Copies of Lewis’s railway guide can still be found in ASLRRA’s Washington, D.C. office and the Association has called this book the original gold standard of statistical and historical information for short lines.
Lewis, remembered by many as “Mr. Short Line,” was an avid collector of railroad ephemera, including historic railroad passes, timetables, maps, and tickets. At one time, he maintained arguably the most comprehensive collection of railroad timetables and historic stock certificates in North America.
Ed Lewis passed away on Nov. 11, 2015, after battling Parkinson’s disease.