A. Robinson, was an American civil engineer who rose through the ranks of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to eventually become the railroad's vice president and general manager.

His mother moved the family, after his father's death, to Wisconsin, where Robinson worked as a clerk in his stepfather's store until 1861.

In 1865 he enrolled at the University of Michigan where one of his older brothers, Stillman W. Robinson, was a faculty member.

But it was Joseph Reinhart, whose connections in the financial industry played a more important role, who became the Santa Fe's president.

This move may have been the best for Robinson after all as the Santa Fe struggled to regain solvency for the next year and as the press placed the blame for the railroad's collapse squarely on Reinhart.