08 April 1970: John Palmer Fishwick (1916-) is elected to serve as the tenth president of the Norfolk & Western Railway.
Fishwick succeeded Herman H. Pevler as president. Pevler, a former senior officer of the Wabash (leased by the N&W on 16 October 1964), is most famous to me as being responsible for the introduction of the blue livery with Dulux lettering. Mr. Fishwick is famous also for introducing the overall black livery with white "NW" lettering.
A Pennsylvania Railroad history site notes that Fishwick engineered a coup against Pevler, after Pevler suggested that a Chesapeake & Ohio man would become head of the combined C&O/N&W. Fishwick, having engineered the merger in the first place---check this with Richard Saunders' Merging Lines ---was not impressed, and thus got Pevler booted to the position of "Chairman", supposedly a meaningless promotion.
Of course, with the debacle occurring in the Northeast with the Penn Central, the C&O/N&W merger would be called off by the respective companies. C&O President Gregory S. Devine and Fishwick would announce this on 19 March 1971. Interestingly enough, Devine would retire as President within two weeks, replaced by the man who would make the Chessie System (and later CSX) a reality, Hays T. Watkins, Jr.
Fishwick would serve as President of the Norfolk & Western throughout the tumultuous 1970s, being replaced by Robert B. Claytor in September of 1981. Claytor would be the last president of the N&W and the first president of the newly-created Norfolk Southern.
Congratulations (albeit 34 years later) to J.P. Fishwick, and thank you for your service.
Posted by Country Pundit at April 8, 2004 11:54 PM