McClellan was a life-long rail enthusiast who leveraged his passions for the benefit of the industry in the bankruptcy-riddled 1970s. Executives and planners relied on his knowledge of railroading and interpretations of maps and rail traffic during the creation of Conrail and Amtrak. In the 1990s, when CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern vied for control of Conrail, McClellan is credited with NS’s “go crazy” strategy to prevent then CSX executives from purchasing the entire Northeastern railroad.
McClellan’s work is the focus of several chapters in Rush Loving Jr.’s 2006 book, “The Men Who Loved Trains: The Story of Men Who Battled Greed to Save an Ailing Industry.” He was also honored as one of “75 People You Should Know” in the November 2015 issue of Trains. The railroader’s own book, “My Life with Trains: Memoir of a Railroader” was slated for a May 2017 release according to Amazon.com.
McClellan is a 1961 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and was employed at various times by New York Central, PennCentral, and Southern, the U.S. Railway Association, the Association of American Railroads, and Norfolk Southern, from which he retired as senior vice-president of planning in 2003.
In 2004, he joined Woodside Consulting in Palo Alto, Calif., where he was a vice president.
Funeral arrangements will be announced by the family.
