Famous railroaders
Railroad tycoons and businessmen
- Erastus Corning – formed the nucleus of what would become the great New York Central Railroad
- Charles Crocker – one of the Big Four co-founders of the Central Pacific Railroad
- Eugene V. Debs – labor organizer, founding member of Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and participant in the infamous Pullman Strike
- Daniel Drew – robber baron involved in the stock manipulation of the Erie Railroad with Fisk and Gould
- James Fisk – robber baron involved in the stock manipulation of the Erie Railroad with Gould and Drew
- Jay Gould – robber baron involved in the stock manipulation of the Erie Railroad with Fisk and Drew
- Edward H. Harriman – president of the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific, and directed the unification of both railroads
- James J. Hill – founder of the Great Northern Railway, builder of first transcontinental railroad without federal subsidies or land grants
- Cyrus K. Holliday – founder of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
- Mark Hopkins – one of the Big Four co-founders of the Central Pacific Railroad
- Collis P. Huntington – one of the Big Four co-founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, founder of Huntington, West Virginia while helping construct the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
- George Pullman – inventor of the Pullman sleeper (a luxury sleeping car) and founder of the Pullman Company
- Leland Stanford – one of the Big Four co-founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, president of the Southern Pacific Railroad, governor of California, and founder of Stanford University
- Arthur Stilwell – founder of the Kansas City Southern Railway, as well as several cities, among them Port Arthur, Texas, which is named after Stilwell
- Cornelius Vanderbilt – after spending the first 70 years of his life building a successful ferry business, controlled and expanded the New York Central Railroad into an empire and ordered construction of the first Grand Central Terminal
See also
Inventors and innovators
Others