Ross E. Rowland Jr., a Driver of Steam-Train Preservation, Dies at 85
His wife, Karen Bendix, said the cause of death, in a hospital, was lung cancer. He lived in nearby Sackets Harbor, on Lake Ontario.
The son — and grandson, and great-grandson — of railroad workers, Mr. Rowland had been in love with steam trains for as long as he could remember. He dreamed of getting to drive a locomotive of his own, and after founding one of the largest commodities brokerages in New York, he had the wherewithal to fulfill that wish.
In 1966, he started the High Iron Co., which offered trips around the Mid-Atlantic States in authentic rail cars pulled by vintage locomotives — including, eventually, Mr. Rowland's pride and joy, the C&O No. 614, a 112-foot, 239-ton colossus that he bought and refurbished in 1979.
Mr. Rowland was the prime mover behind the Golden Spike Centennial Limited, which in 1969 carried passengers from Grand Central Terminal in New York City to Promontory, Utah, to mark the 100th anniversary of the first transcontinental railroad.
A few years later, he created the American Freedom Train, a traveling museum stocked with choice items from the Smithsonian Institution — George Washington's copy of the Constitution, Joe Louis's boxing trunks — that cruised through all 48 contiguous states in 1975 and 1976 in celebration of the country's bicentennial.
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