that have ramifications to the present. As chairman of the board of the C&O, Young launched a well-publicized campaign for the modernization of railroad passenger service. He was one of the first railroad executives to introduce lightweight, high-speed diesel passenger trains. He served as a delegate from Rhode Island to the Republican National Convention in 1944. In 1945, Young and Cyrus S. Eaton assembled $43,000,000 in a bid to purchase the Pullman Company operating pool, in the wake of a court decision that forced Pullman to divest that portion of its business. Their bid ultimately failed when a Philadelphia court, acting on recommendations from the ICC, awarded the railcar operations to a consortium of the large railroads. Young changed the C&O's herald (logo) to "C&O for Progress" to embody his ideas that C&O would lead the industry to a new day. He installed a well-staffed research and development department, which came up with ideas for passenger service that are thought to be futuristic even now, and for freight service that would challenge the growth of trucking. Fortune magazine wrote, "Young has an almost endless inventory of ideas, some pneumatic and some substantial, about passenger service. He believes that the railroads could double any previous passenger revenues if they put out a good product and merchandised it well..." During the Young era and subsequently, C&O was headed by Cyrus S. Eaton and Walter J. Tuohy, under whose control the "For Progress" theme continued, though in a more muted way after the departure of Young. During that time, C&O installed the first large computer system in railroading, developed larger and better freight cars of all types, switched (reluctantly) from steam to diesel motive power, and diversified its traffic, which had already occurred in 1947 when it merged Pere Marquette, of Michigan and Ontario, Canada, which had been controlled by the C&O since Van Sweringen days, into the system. The PM's huge automotive industry traffic, taking raw materials in and finished vehicles out, gave C&O some protection from the swings in the coal trade, making merchandise traffic 50% of the company's haulage. Mr. Young was jointly awarded the inaugural Horatio Alger Award for initiative and excellence in 1947. New York Central In the early 1950s, Young turned his attention to the New York Central Railroad. In 1954, after a long proxy struggle and with the aid of Clint Murchison, Sr. and Sid Williams