STRASBURG, Pa. — Strasburg Rail Road has named Eric Hoerner, a Lancaster, Pa., business executive, as its board chairman and interim president, following the Feb. 26 resignation of the steam tourist line’s president and general manager, Jim Hager.
Hoerner becomes the fifth person since 2018 to lead the 192-year-old short line. He is founder, partner, and CEO of Greenleaf Investment Management LLC, a firm that invests in community banks nationwide. He joined the Strasburg board in October.
A Lancaster Newspapers reporter described him as a “turnaround specialist, banking and private investment expert.” He has led business-revival efforts at banks in various states and at a local seminary. In time, Hoerner intends to open a search for a full-time president.
Previous board chairman Andrew Hallock and finance committee chairman Greg Lefever have resigned but remain on the board.
The 4½-mile-long railroad, which advertises itself as America’s oldest short line, ranks among the earliest of the nation’s tourist railroads, having started in 1959 after a group of local business leaders and railfans bought it from its previous owner, an on-line shipper. It carries about 300,000 passengers a year through Amish farmland.
In addition, it hauls about 500 cars a year of freight, usually with its SW8 diesel unit. Also, it operates a contract machine shop that has performed steam-related repair and maintenance work for Union Pacific, Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, East Broad Top, and others. Strasburg employs about 60 people full time, with 100 part-timers added during tourist season.
Hager had held the post for 19 months [see “New Strasburg GM packs experience, skills,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 23, 2022]. He was hired in the wake of the departure of Tony Gebbia, a former Walt Disney World event planner who tried to implement some of that organization’s theme-park style at Strasburg. Gebbia’s unorthodox administration brought both mass layoffs and mass resignations, with employees departing to take posts at, for example, Reading & Northern, East Broad Top, Amtrak, and others.
Hager will remain as general manager until March 28. He has accepted a post at another railroad, but declined to identify it pending that company’s announcement. With experience in both the railroad and bus-transportation industries, he is a licensed locomotive engineer who previously worked for the Black River & Western, Southern Railroad of New Jersey and Morristown & Erie.
Hager told News Wire that “I can leave there happy, with my head up. I fixed the place, and I made them money. I loved the job, I love railroads, but it’s not the place I really want to stay with. It’s a really cool place to work.”
During his term at Strasburg, the railroad completed the $3.3 million expansion of a freight yard at its Leaman Place Junction interchange with Amtrak. Hager also stabilized the company’s finances in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. The road also served as host for the visiting Norfolk & Western J-class 4-8-4 engine No. 611 (N&W Roanoke Shops, 1950).
Hager told the Lancaster newspaper, “My 19 months at the helm have not been easy, but successful, working through a parade of challenges, with positive end results. We have improved the way we do business internally with a return to Business 101-type procedures, technology advancements, smart purchasing, getting the right people in the right seats and increasing business in our passenger, group sales, freight and contract repair business units. . . . Moving on is somewhat bittersweet, but I am proud of my team, proud of our many accomplishments . . . and proud to be a part of strengthening this gem of history.”
In a letter to employees, he wrote: “We all did one hell of a job in 2023 and set the stage for 2024. I am proud of the milestone we achieved and the efforts you put into accomplishing it.”
Until 2018, Strasburg had been led by President and Chief Mechanical Officer Linn Moedinger for 18 years until he retired. His planned successor, longtime employee Craig Lefever, died of cancer at age 52 when he was only six months into his term. Lefever was followed in late 2019 by Gebbia.
— Updated at 5:55 p.m. CT with comment from Hager and additional details.
Likely a “cut and paste” error, but in paragraph 4 you state, “Previous board chairman Andrew Hallock and finance committee chairman Greg Lefever have resigned but remain on the board”, while in the last paragraph, “longtime employee Craig Lefever, died of cancer at age 52” sometime before Tony Gebbia took over in 2019.
At this point I would not expect significant support from the finance committee chairman.
The Lefevers mentioned are two different people. — David Lassen, senior editor, Trains
Someone should have asked Hager to reconcile his statement to News Wire. How is Strasburg a “really cool place to work” but not a place “I really want to stay with?”
When I hear such a combination, usually it’s a place with a cool work vibe but terrible pay–an indie bookstore/coffeehouse, for example.
The Strasburg Rail Road is 4.5 miles long, not 3.5 miles. See https://www.trains.com/trn/railroads/tourist/visiting-the-strasburg-rail-road-2/
Did any of the employees who were laid off or resigned during Gebbia’s time at SRR return after he left?