John S. Reed
1917-2008

When he was four years old, John S. Reed decided he wanted to become a locomotive engineer. It was a common ambition for a boy of his times, but Reed was the scion of a successful family. His grandfather was John G. Shedd, benefactor of Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium and president of retailer Marshall Field & Co. Kersey Coates was a great-grandfather; he owned the Coates House hotel, once Kansas City’s finest, which still stands at 10th and Broadway.


Reed was persistent in his ambition. After receiving a college degree, he applied to be an Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway engineman, only to be rejected. He was told that “a Yale man couldn’t shovel enough coal to get a train to its destination.” Undaunted, he signed on with Santa Fe’s test department at Topeka instead, rose to become a division superintendent at Marceline, Mo., and was named company president in 1967 – a position he held for 16 years. He was later named as the company’s chairman, too.

One of the greatest railroad executives of his time, he never lost his love of trains. His early ambition was rooted in boyhood trips to California – on Santa Fe trains pulled by locomotives like the one now in display at Union Station.

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