Robert R. Young
Young's most famous advertising slogan was "A hog can cross the country without changing trains – but you can't."
Despite his vocal criticisms, at the railroads he led, Young inaugurated many forward-looking advances in technology that have ramifications to the present.
Early in 1929 Raskob vehemently disagreed with Young's predictions of a stock market crash, and the two men parted company.
He expanded his film interest into laboratory work, as an affiliate of DuPont, national distribution and financing productions.
By the end of World War II, C&O was poised to help America during its great growth during the following decades, and at mid-century was truly a line of national importance.
It became more so, at least in the public eye through Young, who became "the gadfly of the rails" as he challenged old methods of financing and operating railroads, and inaugurated many forward-looking advances in technology that have ramifications to the present.
Their bid ultimately failed when a Philadelphia court, acting on recommendations from the ICC, awarded the railcar operations to a consortium of the large railroads.
Fortune magazine wrote, "Young has an almost endless inventory of ideas, some pneumatic and some substantial, about passenger service.
During that time, C&O installed the first large computer system in railroading, developed larger and better freight cars of all types, switched (reluctantly) from steam to diesel motive power, and diversified its traffic, which had already occurred in 1947 when it merged Pere Marquette, of Michigan and Ontario, Canada, which had been controlled by the C&O since Van Sweringen days, into the system.
In 1954, after a long proxy struggle and with the aid of Clint Murchison Sr. and Sid Williams Richardson, Young gained control of the NYC and became the chairman of its board.
[10] Robert and Anita had one daughter who became one of the much-publicized "Glamour Debutantes" of the Great Depression-era:[11] Among his circle of friends were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal.
[18] On January 25, 1958, Young, who had suffered from depression for more than fifteen years, took his own life with a shotgun at The Towers, his winter mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.
