Ira Silverman
Ira Silverman is a New York native whose first home overlooked the New Haven's freight line to Bay Ridge. His fate was sealed when his parents took him to Florida three times on the Atlantic Coast Line. Two overnight trips on camp specials to Maine didn't hurt either. At age 10 he discovered that there were others who shared his passion when he picked up a copy in a local candy store of Trains Magazine with DPM's famous article the Mohawk That Refused to Abdicate. He continued the purple tradition by going to NYU and then graduate school at the Transportation Center at Northwestern University in Evanston. During school he was lucky enough to hold summer jobs selling tickets on the Long Island and as a tower operator on the EJ&E. His first full time job was in the planning and finance department at the Illinois Central where he actually worked with three future Amtrak presidents: Reistrup, Boyd and Gunn. In 1975 he moved to Amtrak where most of his almost 20 years were spent as Manager, then Director, of Route Marketing, a dream job that involved him in almost all aspects of the corporation. In 1975 when Amtrak was ruptured into four parts he moved to MARC which is part of the Maryland MTA. For 12 years he was Chief Transportation Officer and following a brief return to Amtrak finished his career in planning for MARC and freight. He volunteers in the archives at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. He lives with his wife in West Grove PA within whistle shot of the East Penn Railroad. His wife his very tolerant of his passions and actually likes riding trains on vacations although passes on taking pictures.
Footnote: All but the first trip were on vacations. In November 1979 I was working in the Route Marketing Department at Amtrak. Steve Ditmeyer, Acting Director of the Alaska Railroad which was still a federal agency, came up with the idea of Amtrak taking over the passenger service of the Alaska Railroad. Three managers were dispatched to Alaska to review the proposal. At that time the only passenger service in the winter was once weekly between Anchorage and Fairbanks as a mixed train. They put the office car Denali on the train with the freight cars behind it. Southbound I got to ride in the cab through Denali Park. As dark fell we came up behind a moose who was walking on the tracks. He ignored our horn so the engineer crept up on him and gently shoved him aside with his plow. We also rode the train to Whittier as far as Portage. When the engines picked up the car carriers we detrained and rode a high rail sedan through the tunnel to Whittier and back to Anchorage. What an adventure! Thank goodness nothing changed. I don’t think Alaska would have the wonderful passenger service that it does today if Amtrak was running it. |
