Penn Central Transportation Company. Office of the Trustees.

The Penn Central Transportation Company filed for Chapter 77 bankruptcy protection on June 21, 1970, the largest corporate bankruptcy to that date. Two days later, federal judge John P. Fullam was selected by lot to preside over the sprawling nine-year reorganization process. On July 22, 1970, Judge Fullam appointed four bankruptcy trustees to serve as intermediaries between the court and the company's management and assume the powers normally held by the Board of Directors elected by the stockholders. The leading trustee was Jervis Langdon, Jr., a respected railroad executive formerly with the Baltimore & Ohio and most recently CEO of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific. Of the four trustees, Langdon was to have hands-on management. W. Willard Wirtz, Secretary of Labor in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, represented the interests of the railroad unions. Richard C. Bond was the former head of the Wanamaker's department store chain, and an important figure in the Philadelphia business community. George P. Baker was Dean of the Harvard Business School. Robert W. Blanchette, who had been counsel to the New Haven railroad trustees, was named Counsel to the Trustees on July 29.

On January 2, 1974, President Nixon signed the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973, which created a special government corporation the United States Railway Association which was charged with preparing a plan to preserve the viable portions of the rail network. The USRA was governed by a board representing the various affected interest groups and staffed by a group of experts from the Department of Transportation who were free to work outside the existing regulatory structures of the Interstate Commerce Commission and state commissions.

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