From the editor: In memoriam: Jim Foote, 1953-2024

By Pat Foran, Editor-in-Chief

I first talked with Jim Foote while he was at CN in the late 1990s, not long after the Class I had acquired the Illinois Central Railroad, which had been helmed by Hunter Harrison.

Hunter had just joined CN as EVP and COO. Jim was already there, having joined the Class I pre-privatization in 1995. He was EVP of sales and marketing.

From the get-go, Jim was great to talk with; interviews were conversations. Jim was exceedingly quick and exceptionally candid. He was blunt, always. Himself. Always.

The past couple weeks, I've been thinking about the leadership team Hunter built at CN, a team whose influence continues to grow. A group Jim referred to as “The Dream Team.”

And I've been thinking a lot about Jim, whose storied career culminated in a nearly five-year stint as president and CEO of CSX.

Jim died on April 16. He was 70.

Born in Superior, Wisconsin, Foote came from a railroad family. His father and grandfather worked for the Soo Line Railroad. Jim did, too, signing on at the age of 18. A half-dozen years later, while attending law school, Jim joined the Chicago and North Western Railroad, where he held senior positions in finance, law, labor relations and corporate communications.

In 1995, Foote came to CN. He was serving as EVP of sales and marketing in 2003, when CN named Harrison CEO and began implementing scheduled/precision railroading (PSR).

Nobody broke down PSR better than Jim. He kept it real, always: “Scheduled railroading is really just running the railroad to a plan,” he told me in a 2020 interview for a story I was writing about him as the recipient of our annual Railroad Innovator Award. Run it correctly, you improve service, he said.

Jim stayed the candor course in part, I think, because Jim, being Jim, had no choice: Once he knew something, he knew it, and he had to stay true to it. One result: Jim “knew when to take a risk, and when not to,” as his friend and former CN colleague and current Anacostia Rail Holdings exec Eric Jakubowski told me in 2020. Foote, he said, had the “broadest strategic perspective of any of the Class I CEOs out there.”

After joining CSX as EVP and COO in 2017, Foote aligned the Class I's operations and sales and marketing departments to advance the PSR model Harrison — who died in late 2017 — introduced. After being named CEO following Harrison's death in December 2017, Foote transitioned CSX into the next PSR phase. He retired in September 2022.

As word spread of Jim's passing the night of April 16 via an email string I was privileged to be on, the outpouring was something to behold. Many of Jim's closest friends, including a few Dream Teamers, shared emotional responses and tributes. I think the-ever-candid Jim would've appreciated their candor.

Jim is survived by two sons and four grandchildren. My thoughts are with his family and many friends.