An old saw in the railroad industry holds that persons in management best hide their avocational interest in the business, lest they damage their careers. Fortunately, there have been plenty of enlightened railroaders who put the lie to that assumption, among them Louis M. Newton, former Norfolk & Western and Norfolk Southern executive, frequent N&W historian, and all-around preservation advocate.
Newton died Friday, Aug. 13, in Charlotte, N.C., where he was living in retirement. He was 94.
Newton was a leading expert on N&W steam locomotives and wrote frequently on that and other topics, often for the N&W Historical Society and perhaps most prominently in a series of self-published and widely admired books called “Rails Remembered.”
Newton was born in Chattanooga on May 3, 1927. His grandfather was a Railway Post Office clerk and his father an electrical and mechanical engineer in the power and transit industries, both of which influenced the young man. Newton served in the U.S. Army’s 88th Infantry Division during the closing months of World War II and into the occupation of Italy. Following the war he attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, graduating in 1949 with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Newton’s N&W career began immediately thereafter. Various management positions took him to Cleveland and Portsmouth, Ohio; Bluefield, W.Va.; and Crewe and Roanoke, Va. He retired from Norfolk Southern as an assistant vice president-transportation planning in 1987, and later served in various capacities with several railroad historical organizations.
It was as a transportation planner that Newton made significant contributions, spearheading the 1976 creation of N&W’s New Castle District, in which the acquisition and upgrading of an ex-Pennsylvania Railroad line between Cincinnati and New Castle, Ind., dramatically improved service from Roanoke to Decatur, Ill. Later, on the eve of the 1982 merger between N&W and Southern, Newton envisioned the 1982 upgrading of a Fort Wayne-Muncie (Ind.) line that provided the merged NS with a key link between Chicago and the Southeast.
Former NS strategic planning executive Bill Schafer remembers Newton as a deeply knowledgeable railroader who earned wide respect across the company.
“I first met Louis Newton in 1982 when I was transferred from Washington to Roanoke in connection with the Southern-N&W merger,” recalls Schafer. “Although I was a Southern guy in N&W land, I soon found a number of enthusiasts working for the company (mostly under the radar) with whom I also dealt on a day-to-day basis. All of them revered Newton for his knowledge and his progressive thinking. Among his duties were performing operating and financial studies that were intended to make the railroad more efficient. I got the sense he was considered an in-house consultant, given his breadth of knowledge and experience.”
As a writer, Newton will be best remembered for his four-volume “Rails Remembered” series, a somewhat autobiographical romp through a wide range of topics, from his wartime experiences in Italy to his passion for various railroads in the South (other than N&W) to streetcars and interurbans to stories of railroaders at work. These rare titles continue to command fairly high prices on collectible-book websites.
“Louis was an incredible diarist,” recalls N&W historian Ken Miller. “He kept detailed diaries of his work and day-to-day experiences, detailed maps and diagrams. I honestly don’t know if he kept it up throughout his career or not, but he used his diary for writing those four books.” Volume 4 was the “Tale of the Turbine,” the only detailed history of N&W No. 2300, the huge Jawn Henry steam turbine, for which Newton was involved in design and testing.
“Louis was a true Southern gentleman,” Miller adds. “He had been having health issues going back about four years now and he did keep up on the N&WHS mailing list as long as he was able. He donated a large portion of his collection, including the detailed correspondence files on the Jawn Henry, to the Society.”
Newton is survived by his wife of 66 years, Sibyl Woodford Newton; daughters Alice Newton Harris of Fayetteville, Ga., Ellen Newton Auten of Mooresville, N.C., Julia Newton Buie of Charlotte; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial gifts be made to the Rescue Mission of Roanoke, P.O. Box 11525, Roanoke, VA 24022.
This is sad news. I had a couple of opportunities to meet Louis Newton, once at a book signing, and he was a very gracious gentlemen. The four-volume set of books he left us is wonderful, and a real treasure to current and future historians of the N&W. The world of southern railroad history lost a giant on Friday.
Condolences to his friends and family.
David C. Lester