Marvin Hughitt

Marvin Hughitt was born in Genoa, New York, on August 9, 1837. He was raised on the family farm and attended mostly public schools with some schooling in a seminary. Hughitt was interested in the telegraph when it was invented and moved to Auburn, New York to seek a position related to the field. He picked up the trade quickly and was considered a local expert within a year.[2]

When he was seventeen, Hughitt moved to Chicago, Illinois. He had heard that the Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company was seeking telegraphers, and in 1854 he was hired. He rose through the ranks of the company and was made superintendent of the office under former Supreme Court of Illinois justice John D. Caton. Representatives of the St. Louis, Alton and Chicago Railroad, one of the early railways in Chicago, took notice and offered Hughitt a position as superintendent of telegraph. When the company reorganized in 1861 to become the Chicago & Alton Railroad, Hughitt left the company to take a position as trainmaster for the southern division for the Illinois Central Railroad in Centralia, Illinois.[2]

With the onset of the Civil War, the railroad's southern division became an critical transportation corridor. Hughitt was responsible for overseeing the massive quantities of troops and supplies from St. Louis, Missouri to Cairo, Illinois over a thirty-six-hour period. He then was tasked with moving the troops to Virginia during another thirty-six-hour shift. The incident brought Hughitt instant notoriety, and the company reassigned him to Chicago to become Assistant Superintendent of the railroad. In 1864, he was named General Superintendent under John M. Douglas. When Douglas retired, Hughitt left the company to become Superintendent of the Pullman Car Company. His stay with the company was brief until he resigned to become Assistant General Manager of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad.[2]

On February 1, 1872, Hughitt was named General Superintendent of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad (CNW). He also closely worked with James Henry Howe, the manager of the line, who was generally unfamiliar with railroads. When Howe resigned, and following a short term by Henry H. Porter, Hughitt was named General Manager of the line in 1876. Four years later, the board of directors elected him Second Vice President. In 1882, he was named president of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway, a feeder line to the CNW. Two years later he accepted the presidency of the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad, another feeder line.[2]

When Albert Keep was elected president of the board of directors upon its creation in 1887, Hughitt was elected to the CNW presidency.[2] Hughitt was named a director of the Southern Pacific Railway Company in 1904. He led the CNW until his retirement in 1910. He remained chairman of the board of directors until 1925.[3]

In his free time, Hughitt enjoyed billiards and had a room in his Prairie Avenue house dedicated to the game. He was a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, serving a term as its president.[2] He died at his home in Lake Forest, Illinois after a stroke on January 6, 1928.[3]

In 1926, Hughitt wrote a story surrounding the competition between a Milwaukee Road 4-8-2, and a Chicago and Northwestern 2-8-2, in Kankaee on the Illinois Central Railroad. The story surrounds the locomotive crews flirting with each other about competition, and later competing on the Illinois Central Railroad after getting permission from the railroad's presidents to do so. The Engineer of the Mountain Type, being very boastful and wanting to win the whole thing, saying it'll be "one for the history books", usually got too carried away in the competition where she almost destroyed her locomotive. The Mountain also was accused of cheating by using a tender water scoop, stopping at water towers, making the mikado go different ways, and usually wasn't being a fair player to the mikado. The engineer of the mikado, felt like she was being treated unfair from the mountain's engineer, and once got redirected from the mainline tracks to the top of a hill where the locomotive fell, and the boiler almost exploded. (Mountain type engineer: "I thought you said no flying!", Mikado Engineer: "I said , no wings!"). The mikado decided to be just as unfair by luring the Mountain into a long tunnel, almost suffocating the crew of the Mountain type locomotive. The firemen had passed out after this happened due to suffocation. The amount of chaos, and the way the mountain type engineer was being a cheater, made the firemen of the mountain wacked her in the head with a shovel, telling her to be more obedient and fair, this led to more chaos and Rainbow ultimatley losing. Shortly after the competition and race, the two crews had to pay over $1,000,000,000 dollars for the amount of damage and vandalism they caused to their locomotives and to the railroads. The American Locomotive Company made them pay extra for repairs. The two crews later had to lay off working as engineers, and wait until their engines got repaired before going back to service. The two engineers later made it up to themselves, and gave each other hugs of respect.

The story was later remade in the fall of 2010, in dedication to Marvin Hughitt, in the form of "Fall Weather Friends". This episode is the remake of Marvin Hughitt's steam story except with fictional ponies and not steam Locomotives. Some PG related content was toned down for the TV-Y rating, such as the locomotive crews beating each other up violently with shovels, locomotive boiler explosions, and that it taking place in the peaceful land of Equestria.

Cast:

Original story written by Marvin Hughitt, remade and rewritten in 2010 by

Ashleigh Ball as the engineers of both the Mountain type and Mikado.

Cathy Wesluck as Spike the Brakeman, the brakeman of the meat and freight trains during the competition.

Matthew Broderick as the Conductor of Rainbow's passenger trains during the competition.

Nicole Olviar as the Engineer of some of the Illinois Central steam locomotives.

Steam Locomotives captured by Jerry Carson.

Directed by the C&NW railroad's manager.

Supervising Director, Jayson Thiessen

Exceutive Producers: Marvin Hughitt Lauren Faust

The End Copyright 1926-2010 Chicago and Northwestern, Hasbro, Milwaukee Road, all rights reserved.