Robert P. 'Bob' Fetter, a career railroad worker whose lifelong love of railroads led him to marketing jobs at C&O/B&O and Norfolk Southern, is living in the Broad, Cockeysville retirement community. He died of cancer on January 22nd in Mead. The former Roland Park resident was 91 years old.
“Bob was smart, educated, hard-working and a devout Quaker,” said E. Ray Lichti, a former CSX executive and longtime friend. “And while he was a clerk for the Baltimore and Ohio team and then the Norfolk Southern team, he was also a knowledgeable operations person.”
Robert Pollard Fetter was the son of Princeton University economics professor Frank Fetter and musician Elizabeth Fetter.
Due to his father's academic background, Mr. Fetter grew up in Princeton, England, Washington, and Illinois, where he graduated from high school.
His love of trains and railroads began as a child watching Pennsylvania Railroad passenger and freight trains roll through Princeton on what is now Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.
“When he was about 9 years old, he became more obsessed with train schedules than with comic books, and he became quite obsessed with collecting, reading, and memorizing schedules,” said his son, Allen Hutchinson Fetter, who lives in Takoma Park. “I spent a lot of time,” he wrote in his biography. of his father.
“And he spent much of his youth traveling on trains and trolleys, and took lots of photographs as a teenager. He became interested in logistics, both freight and passenger transport. ” he wrote.
While in high school, Mr. Fetter worked during the summers as a truckman in the yards of the Chicago North Western Transportation Company in Chicago and as a baggage handler for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad.
From 1949 to 1953, he attended Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, worked as a trackman laying new rail for the Algoma Central Railway in Ontario, Canada, and then traveled to Alaska, where he worked as a railroad engineer. I was also involved in work. .
“Transportation and travel during his youth included hitchhiking some 55,000 miles through the lower 48 states and Alaska, and taking at least one secret overnight ride on top of a coal hopper truck.” My son is writing.
From 1953 to 1955, he served as an Army postal clerk at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, and was discharged from Fort Tacoma, Washington.
After earning a master's degree from Harvard Business School in 1957, he began his career in the railroad industry at the former Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Baltimore, where he was tasked with developing the railroad's first computer, the Honeywell Datamatic 1000.
Mr. Fetter subsequently held positions in industrial engineering, marketing, and corporate planning. In 1972, he was hired as Director of Market Research at Southern Railway Headquarters in Washington, leaving his then-C&O/B&O position.
An avid cyclist, he would ride his bike from his home in Roland Park to Penn Station, catch a commuter train to Washington, hop on his hidden bike and ride to the office, reversing the whole process in the evening. did. His son said in a phone interview.
After Southern Railway merged with Norfolk & Western Railroad in 1982, Mr. Fetter moved to the company's headquarters in Roanoke, Virginia, where he worked in market research until his retirement in 1987.
“He wanted to reduce stress and was a senior marketing analyst when he retired,” his son said.
“Bob was an academic, an intellectual type that you don’t see very often in the railroad industry,” laughs William “Bill” Schaefer, who worked with Mr. Fetter at both Southern and Norfolk Southern Railways. Told.
A railroad career was important to Mr. Fetter, but it was only made possible by his Quaker faith and involvement in various volunteer activities.
He worked with numerous Quaker committees, including Haikyuu of the Stony Run Friends Meeting, and led hiking trips on the Appalachian Trail.
A Broadmead resident since 2007, he maintains an interest in genealogy and family trips often include exploring abandoned railway sites and visiting railway yards and railway museums. said the son.
In 1960, he taught biology at Roland Park Country School and received a master's degree in special education from Loyola University in Maryland before joining Elizabeth Ann, who taught children with special needs. Married “Susie” Hutchison. She passed away in 2019.
A memorial service will be held on March 2 at 2 p.m. at the Friends of Gunpowder Society, 14934 Priceville Road, Sparks.
In addition to his son, he is survived by a daughter, Elizabeth Fetter of Fairfield, Pennsylvania; a brother, Thomas Whitson Fetter of Bedford Center, Vermont; a sister, Ellen Fetter Gill of Boulder, Colorado; four grandchildren; and his companion, Gene Wilson of Broadmead.
