Although his career was cut short when he was killed in a train wreck in Virginia in 1906, Samuel Spencer is best remembered as the Father of the Southern Railway System.

He became superintendent of the Long Island Rail Road in 1878[2][3] and was president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad during 1887–1888, following Robert Garrett.

According to the New York Times, "It was said of him that there was no man in the country so thoroughly well posted on every detail of a railroad from the cost of a car brake to the estimate for a new terminal.

[1] He had homes in New York City and Washington, D.C.[1] Spencer's career was cut short when he was killed at the age of 59 in a train collision in Virginia before dawn on Thanksgiving morning, November 29, 1906.

The Spencer party were in his private car, at the rear of the train, en route to his hunting lodge near Friendship, NC.

After his untimely death, 30,000 Southern Railway employees contributed to pay for a statue of him by sculptor Daniel Chester French, which was dedicated in 1910 and stood for many years at Atlanta's Terminal Station.

Following the station's demolition in 1970, the statue was moved multiple times, first to Peachtree station, then in 1996 to Hardy Ivy Park, and finally to its current resting place in front of the Norfolk Southern building at the intersection of Peachtree Street and 15th Street in Midtown Atlanta.