Former Smithsonian rail curator William Withuhn dies NEWSWIRE

BURSON, Calif. – Any account of railroading in the past four decades would be incomplete without including the formidable contributions of William L. Withuhn, whose work as a historian, museum professional, journalist, author, shortline executive, preservationist, and engineering consultant is without precedent. He is best known for his nearly 30-year career at the Smithsonians’s National Museum of American History, where he was curator of transportation.

Withuhn died June 29, 2017, surrounded by family at his home in Burson, after a long illness. He was 75.

Born in Portland, Ore., in 1941, Withuhn grew up mostly around Modesto, Calif., where he fell under the influence of the trains of Santa Fe and Southern Pacific, especially SP’s streamlined Daylight 4-8-4s. He also developed a love of cars and aviation.

After graduating from University of California – Berkeley in 1963, he joined the Air Force as an officer, working as a navigator on C-133 turboprops and C-141 jets and serving in Vietnam, Europe, and Antarctica. He rose to the rank of major and garnered a number of military honors, including two Distinguished Flying Crosses.

Upon discharge from the Air Force in 1972, Withuhn resumed his academic career, earning separate master’s degrees in business and the history of science, both at Cornell. His success at Cornell led to a staff position with Congressman Jim Hastings of upstate New York, a position that included work on the Regional Rail Reorganization Act, which led to the creation of Conrail in 1976.

Through his widening contacts in the nascent regional and shortline movement, Withuhn got involved in a shortline holding company with properties in the Delmarva Peninsula and upstate New York. He also came to the attention of John H. White Jr., the longtime transportation curator at the Smithsonian, who encouraged Withuhn to apply for a Smithsonian fellowship. Withuhn won the fellowship and when White retired in 1983, he tapped Withuhn as his successor.

His wife of 52 years, Gail, this week reflected on her husband’s fortuitous transition to a museum career. “It was as if Bill was figuring out how his love of trains could be an avocation,” she says. “But an evolution ensued in which he ultimately realized he could earn a living the realm of railroad history.”

Withuhn’s work at the Smithsonian was hugely successful. In addition to overseeing the creation of several major and minor exhibits – including the expansive, permanent “America On the Move” – he was an effective fundraiser for the museum, leading to $31 million in contributions from various corporations and individuals. Throughout his tenure he was a frequent consultant on film and television projects, as well as a frequent expert on railroading for the Wall Street Journal.

Always an evangelist for responsible preservation, Withuhn consulted for most of the leading U.S. railroad museums, including the B&O Railroad Museum, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, the California State Railroad Museum, and the Steamtown National Historic Site. He created a novel affiliate program that allowed several museums to share resources with the Smithsonian.

After retiring from the Smithsonian in 2010, Withuhn became the lead consultant to the National Museum of African American History and Culture on a project to preserve and restore a segregated Jim Crow coach, a car built by Pullman in 1922 for the Southern Railway.

Throughout his career, Withuhn stayed close to steam. In the 1970s, while stationed with the Air Force in Dover, Del., he learned how to run 2-8-0 No. 60 and 4-6-2 No. 148 at New Jersey’s Black River & Western tourist line. In 1966 he earned certification as a locomotive engineer. His qualification card, issued by a Pennsylvania Railroad examiner, was something he treasured the rest of his life. In later years he lent his expertise to the operation of a number of mainline engines, including Pennsylvania K4s 4-6-2 No. 1361, Steamtown’s various locomotives, and his professed favorite, Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 No. 261.

Withuhn is known to two generations of readers for several landmark articles in the magazine, usually about high-performance steam. Among them are “Did We Scrap Steam Too Soon” from June 1974, in which Withuhn posited a provocative answer; “1218: Home to Roanoke,” from September 1987, a report from the field on the revival of N&W 2-6-6-4 No. 1218; and “Steel, Steam & Safety,” from May 2000, a manifesto for overhauling steam regulations, written as part of his role as co-chair of the Federal Railroad Administration’s Steam Standards Task Force.

In perhaps his most audacious article, from the February 1978 issue, Withuhn reported on the August 1977 dynamometer test of Texas & Pacific 2-10-4 No. 610, then operating under lease to Southern’s steam program. Withuhn and Editor David P. Morgan dreamed up the concept and Withuhn supervised the test on SR’s mainline in northern Virginia.

In addition to his many bylines in Trains, Withuhn wrote for many other publications, and authored two books, “Rails Across America” (Smithmark, 1993) and “Spirit of Steam” (Smithmark, 1995). In the last months of his life, he was continuing to work on a massive history of steam locomotive technology from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, a companion to White’s landmark “American Locomotives: An Engineering History, 1830-1880” (Johns Hopkins, 1997). Associates of Withuhn are working to secure publication of the book at some point in the future.

A memorial service for Bill Withuhn was held July 2 in Murphys, Calif. He is survived by his wife, Gail, and two sons, Harold and Tom. The family says his ashes will be interred in the Columbarium at Arlington National Cemetery.

In a lengthy profile in the November 2009 issue of Trains, writer Peter A. Hansen caught the essence of Withuhn’s astonishingly wide-ranging, action-oriented career. “I’m not very good at just watching stuff,” Withuhn told Hansen. “I want to do.”