Lifelong railroader Ferryman in 'listening and learning mode' as Anacostia's first COO
7/25/2023
By Grace Renderman, Associate Editor
David Ferryman has spent his entire life in and around the rail industry. In 2018, he left a 29-year career with roles at BNSF Railway Co. and CN to become vice president of sales at EVRAZ North America, a global steel manufacturing and mining company and the largest supplier of steel rail to Class I railroads. Three years later, he was promoted to senior VP of the Pueblo, Colorado, business unit.
Last month, Ferryman returned to the rails proper as chief operating officer of Anacostia Rail Holdings Co., the first person to hold the position in company history.
“There's really not a roadmap for it, which actually excites me,” Ferryman says. “I've been in listening and learning mode — getting out and seeing the property, meeting the people, understanding the issues and seeing where I can enhance value.”
A life in rail
Ferryman is a fourth-generation railroader whose father, William, was a chief engineer at BNSF’s Denver operations. His grandfather Henri and great-grandfather John both worked for the Great Northern Railway in Wenatchee, Washington, a BNSF predecessor road.
Ferryman's father instilled in him at an early age that the railroad industry is a community, he says. At age 6, Ferryman would go out to the Powder River Basin rail lines in Wyoming; before that, he and his father would visit the nearby coal mines before the tracks were even built there in the late 1970s, he says.
“Growing up in a railway family, I haven't just worked a career — I've lived a lifetime in the railway industry,” Ferryman says.
While studying civil engineering at Colorado State University in 1989, Ferryman signed on as an intern with the BN, first working as a surveyor in southern Colorado. He later served an engineering internship in North Dakota, which led to a full-time position in Lincoln, Nebraska, as a project manager overseeing a yard construction project. He later became a roadmaster in Alliance, Nebraska.
In 1997, Ferryman got what he terms “a heck of an opportunity” to go work for the Illinois Central Railroad (IC) as a superintendent in Jackson, Mississippi. While it was a difficult decision to leave BN given his family’s history there, he believes it was the best move of his career.
“A friend of mine had gone to work for them the year prior. His name was Keith Creel,” Ferryman says. “[The job] provided a wealth of opportunities there working for Hunter Harrison and his team.”
Harrison, then IC’s leader and later CEO of CN and other Class Is, would become one of Ferryman’s mentors.
Following IC’s merger with CN in 2000, Harrison — who’d been named CN’s executive VP and COO — appointed Ferryman to the Class I’s operations team as assistant general manager of the Michigan division under Creel, who later became president and CEO of Canadian Pacific and its successor, Canadian Pacific Kansas City. Ferryman himself would rise to the executive level by becoming CN’s VP of engineering in 2005. He spent 12 years at CN.
Getting back to his roots
While he wouldn’t “trade his Class I experience for anything,” Ferryman is excited to work in a short-line environment. The industry is imbued with an entrepreneurial spirit that drives deep partnerships with other industry stakeholders, he says.
“I'm getting back to my roots in railroading, but also being part of a smaller … collection of railroads where the things you do have an impact, day in and day out,” he says.
Many short-line railroaders also tend to have a passion for rail history; the spirit of revitalization also is a deeply held sentiment that could help short liners find business in places where rail hasn’t operated for decades, he adds.
“[Our] relationships should be symbiotic,” Ferryman says. “If we collectively do our part as railroads — Class I and short line — it's good for all, it's good for the customer. And it bodes well for growth.”
As a short line holding company, Anacostia operates much like a Class I, albeit on a smaller scale, he says. While short lines don’t have the capital to invest in new equipment the way larger railroads do, they focus on maintaining older equipment and making strategic investments.
Having worked for many leaders, including Harrison and Creel, Ferryman hopes to combine the best parts of each leader he’s learned from to create his own leadership and management style. He also says he hopes to help make Anacostia’s railroads more efficient through advancing technology and recruiting the next generation of railroaders.
“I think this generation really wants to be a part of the evolution of technology and see how that can improve an old industry like the railroad industry,” Ferryman says. “We need to create a quality of life that maybe wasn't there for my generation, or my dad's generation, or his dad's generation.”
