Samuel Rea was an American engineer and the 9th president of the Pennsylvania Railroad

Pennsylvania Railroad

The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

 (1913–25). He was awarded the Franklin Medal

Franklin Medal

The Franklin Medal was a science and engineering award presented by the Franklin Institute, of Philadelphia, PA, USA.-Laureates:*1915 - Thomas Alva Edison *1915 - Heike Kamerlingh Onnes *1916 - John J...

 in 1926.

Early life and career

Samuel Rea was born in 1855 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania

Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania

Hollidaysburg is a borough in Blair County, Pennsylvania, on the Juniata River, south of Altoona. It is the county seat of Blair County. It is part of the Altoona, Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Statistical Area and is one of the communities that comprises the Altoona Urban Area...

. His parents were James D. Rea and Ruth Blair Moore. His paternal grandfather General John Rea was in the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 from Bedford

Bedford, Pennsylvania

Bedford is a borough in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, west of the State Capital, Harrisburg. It is the county seat of Bedford County. Bedford was established in the mid-18th century. Population counts follow: 1890, 2,242; 1900, 2,167; 1910, 2,385. The population was 3,141 at the 2000...

 and Franklin, Pennsylvania, during the terms of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

 and James Madison

James Madison

James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...

. Through the marriage of his father's siblings he was related to the Asa Childs and the Henry Clay Frick

Henry Clay Frick

Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel steel manufacturing concern...

 families. Samuel's father died when Samuel was 13.

He began his vocational life as a clerk in a country store. In 1871, Rea began his connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) at 16. Except for an intermission from 1875 to 1879 (when he worked for the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad

Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad

The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad , also known as the "Little Giant", was formed on May 11, 1875. Company headquarters were located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The line connected Pittsburgh in the east with Youngstown, Ohio at nearby Haselton, Ohio in the west and Connellsville, ...

), he served continuously on the PRR until his retirement from office as President in 1925.

Samuel Rea married Mary Black, the daughter of Jane Black. In 1880, Samuel and Mary lived with her widowed mother and family in Allegheny, Pennsylvania

Allegheny, Pennsylvania

Allegheny City was a Pennsylvania municipality located on the north side of the junction of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, across from downtown Pittsburgh. It was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907...

. Their children, born after 1880, include George Rea and Ruth Rea.

By age 31, Rea was assistant engineer in the construction of chain suspension bridges over the Monongahela River

Monongahela River

The Monongahela River is a river on the Allegheny Plateau in north-central West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States...

 at Pittsburgh. He began as a rodman (surveyor

Surveying

See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...

's assistant) in 1871, at a time when the PRR had hardly outgrown its original (1846) charter, which provided that it should extend from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 49,528, making it the ninth largest city in Pennsylvania...

 to Pittsburgh. Not only did he see the road pass through the greater part of the expansion which has made it a 12,000-mile system, but it was directly through his efforts that the Pennsylvania secured access to Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

. He planned a bridge across the Hudson from Jersey City to Manhattan. When other roads refused to cooperate, he went under instead of over the water and built the New York Tunnel Extension. Later he made an arrangement with the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad

New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad

The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , was a railroad that operated in the northeast United States from 1872 to 1968 which served the states of Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts...

 and built the Hell Gate Bridge

Hell Gate Bridge

The Hell Gate Bridge or Hell's Gate Bridge is a steel through arch railroad bridge between Astoria in the borough of Queens and Randall's and Wards Islands in New York City, over a portion of the East River known...

, and still later got control of the Long Island Rail Road

Long Island Rail Road

The Long Island Rail Road or LIRR is a commuter rail system serving the length of Long Island, New York. It is the busiest commuter railroad in North America, serving about 81.5 million passengers each year. Established in 1834 and having operated continuously since then, it is the oldest US...

 and connected it to the Penn with tunnels under the East River

East River

The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...

.

In 1886, Samuel Rea became a member of the New York Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...

—being the first seat held in the city of Pittsburgh. He remained a member for 12 years. In 1888, he published a book called “The Railways Terminating in London: With a Description of the Terminating Stations”.

President of the Pennsylvania Railroad

Rea became President of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1913. As head of the 12,000-mile PRR system employing 250,000 men, he became one of the three or four dominating powers in American transportation. Rea was considered largely responsible for many features of the Esch-Cummins Act

Esch-Cummins Act

The Esch–Cummins Act of 1920, or Railroad Transportation Act, was a United States federal law that returned railroads to private operation after World War I, with much regulation...

, whereby the railroads were returned to private control in 1920.

Samuel Rea was a member of the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club

South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club

The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a Pennsylvania corporation which operated an exclusive and secretive retreat at a mountain lake near South Fork, Pennsylvania for more than fifty extremely wealthy men and their families...

, whose earthen dam failed in May 1889, causing the Johnstown Flood

Johnstown Flood

The Johnstown Flood occurred on May 31, 1889. It was the result of the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam situated upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA, made worse by several days of extremely heavy rainfall...

. After the Flood, Rea removed to Bryn Mawr

Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

Bryn Mawr from Welsh for "big hill") is a census-designated place in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia along Lancaster Avenue and the border with Delaware County...

, PA, to an estate called "Waverly Heights" designed by architect Addison Hutton

Addison Hutton

Addison Hutton was a Philadelphia architect who designed prominent residences in Philadelphia and its suburbs, plus courthouses, hospitals, and libraries, including the Ridgway Library and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania...

; it now serves as Waverly Heights, a lifecare community in Gladwyne.

Rea was reared in the Presbyterian faith and said he preferred reading Prof. Moffet’s translation of the Bible. Samuel Rea retired as President of the Pennsylvania Railroad system in 1925 at the age of 70, having served as President from 1913 to 1925. Rea died in March 1929.

Pennsylvania Station

Under PRR president Alexander Cassatt

Alexander Cassatt

Alexander Johnston Cassatt was the 7th president of the Pennsylvania Railroad , serving from June 9, 1899 to December 28, 1906. Frequently referred to as A. J. Cassatt, the great accomplishment under his stewardship was the planning and construction of tunnels under the Hudson River to finally...

 in 1903, the PRR began tunnelling under the Hudson River

Hudson River

The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

 to bring its trains into New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 for the first time. The project was completed under PRR president James McCrea

James McCrea

James McCrea was the 8th president of the Pennsylvania Railroad . He completed the construction of Pennsylvania Station in 1910, bringing the PRR lines under the Hudson River and, for the first time, into New York City....

, and Pennsylvania Station (New York) opened in 1910. It was built to accommodate as many as half a million daily passengers, and Samuel Rea, who became PRR president in 1913, found himself defending against charges that the station had been wastefully overbuilt. Time was to prove him right. By 1919 the station was accommodating almost thirty-five million a year, eclipsing Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...

 as the busiest New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

station. Less than a decade later more than sixty million used it annually, enough to make it the most heavily used railroad station in all North America. By 1939 its yearly traffic had reached a then record level of almost sixty-six million passengers.

External links

• "Samuel Rea as the New Prometheus" - millinerd.com (blog)