Sanborn on Friday was named regional vice president of transportation for UP’s Western Region. She will move into the new role on Feb. 16, replacing the retiring Richard Castagna, UP says.
“Cindy is a rail pioneer with an excellent performance track record that aligns with Union Pacific’s focus on teamwork, high ethical standards and passion for performance,” CEO Lance Fritz says. “She will build upon our Western Region’s successes in world-class safety, service and efficiency.”
Sanborn was one of the first women in the industry to hold an executive-level operations position. She spent her entire career at CSX, where she rose through the ranks.
UP’s Western Region, based in Roseville, Calif., includes 10,000 miles of track in eight states.
CSX on Oct. 25 announced that its top operations, marketing, and legal officers would depart the railroad in November. E. Hunter Harrison, then CSX’s chief executive, brought in former Canadian National colleague Jim Foote to head both operations and the sales and marketing teams.
Such a one-day sweep of top executives was unprecedented, rail historians say.
Harrison, who implemented broad changes at CSX, died in December after a little more than eight months on the job. Foote was named to succeed him.
Big loss for Norfolk Southern
Ms. Sanborn comes from a Family with a long history in railroading. When she first showed up to work Seaboard, she was wearing steel toed boots so she was ready for whatever work she needed to perform. Watched her career advance up through Transportation as Asst. Trainmaster and up..As a 4th generation railroader myself,( all family in Transportation-Conductors and Engineers), i knew she was genuine, honest and hard working individual with railroading in her heart. In my 38 years on the road and staff before i retired i was proud to know her and knew she would succeed. UP is fortunate to have her and will be good asset to a great Railroad. She listens, offers suggestions, and will help solve problems. In my experience she is a Railroaders Railroader.
Cindy i knew you would land on your feet somewhere. UP is a GREAT RR. Your skills will be a benefit
to them. Good luck to you; and fella’s she used to play pretty good Softball on our team.
CSX will not need all the management teams now that they want to sell off 1/3 of the tracks they have , have shut down multiple rail yards , dumped business , idled locomotives and eliminated personnel. All of that plus a cut back in maintenance but then do a 1.5 billion dollar buy back of stock to jack up the stock price. Wall street will be happy but not the customers of CSX.
Congratulations to Ms. Sanborn. You will now be part of a storied and powerful railroad. On the flip side, I wonder what will become of CSX, now that so much damage has been done to the company. Its current customers must be looking seriously at alternative transportation companies. No amount of share buy-backs can cover significant losses of markets and reach, if a company wants to stay in business. The CSX Board of Directors has a lot to answer for.
Norfolk Southern looks like a smart company now for fending off the Harrison overtures a few years ago.
Just a random thought. What happens if there is one more round of mergers. If Mantle Ridge ends up selling CSX to UP Ms Sanborn could end up in charge of it all.
I wish her all the best. Anything would be an improvement after leaving the mess at CSX that Harrison created.
We who are still stuck under Foote wish you well Cindy.
Cindy best of luck. It’s nice to see you move some place where your work and frankness will be appreciated. Best wishes.
Another victim of Hurricane Harrison. Soon after his death, current and former CPR employees forwarded this email hundreds of times — “Hunter is dead. Best Xmas ever.”
Best to Ms. Sanborn. As for Harrison having died after just eight months at CSX, I wonder if the railroad’s stock holders will claw back that $90-something million from his estate that he extorted from them as a condition of his hiring.
She is a good hire for the UP and will become the EVP – Operations at some point.
I guess we will have to wait for her book.
Good for her! But if I were employed by UP I’d be very nice to her, remember that photo of Ms. Sanborn with Hunter Harrison where it looks like she’s giving him the “Look of Death?” A few months later guess what happened?
Ms. Sanborn has powers…
Sanborn has big shoes to fill. Rich Castagna is a railroader and a rail fan. I knew of him when he was a manager in UP St Louis Terminal and have enjoyed his articles about the history of St Louis’ railroads.
Where have you been Al? UP took a page out of the CSX playbook and started running variable schedule manifests not long after CSX and they are still doing it.
AL DiCenso – 28-hour freights turned out to be a half-baked idea, but I give Sanborn credit for trying. With her new position, evidently she hasn’t been judged by one mistake. Anyway, this reminds me of another Florida story, Miami native the late Ray Charles got on a bus to get as far away from Florida as the bus could take him, ended up in Seattle. That’s how I remember the story, anyway, maybe I got it garbled. maybe it was someone else. With this move, Ms. Sanborn gets as far away from Florida as she can get as CSX goes down the toilet. Years ago, I was a big New York Central fan (historically – by then it was part of Penn Central or Conrail). It pains me half to death to see what the Florida mob has done to the Central. For Cindy Sanborn, a chance to shine on a real railroad. UPRR isn’t my favorite line by a long shot, but any railroad that can still move a train beats CSX hands down. DENNIS JEFFRIES – I don’t know if EHH was a mysoginist, but I do know this, he was a four-square jerk with no judgment. Anyone with an independent brain (like Ms. Sanborn) was sure to be gotten rid of.
CSX’s loss will be UP’s gain! Ms. Sanborn has an excellent record and could have been a great asset to EHH, but his misogynist short sighted ways wouldn’t allow it.
Hey, she’d be a good fit. When UP ends up with CSX trackage from Chicago to the east coast, she would be in the best position to whip it back in shape!
No 28-hour freight schedules, PLEASE!