Fink, A
NAME: Fink, Albert.
ACHIEVEMENT(S): Laid the foundations for modern railroad administration.
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None.
DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 27th October, 1827, at Lauterbach, Germany.
DATE/PLACE/AGE AT DEATH: 3rd April, 1897, Sing Sing, New York. Aged 69.
DISCIPLINE: Railway administrator.
FIELD: Engineering.
LANGUAGE: German and English.
PARENTS: Andrew S. Fink and Margaret Jacob.
SIBLINGS:
SPOUSE: First: details unknown. Second: Susan Hunt, married in 1869.
CHILDREN: one daughter.
EDUCATION: Polytechnikum, Darmstadt, Germany.
MAJOR WORK:
LIFE AND TIMES: Fink decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and study architecture, so he enrolled at the Darmstadt Polytechnikum in Germany. After graduating in 1848 he emigrated to Baltimore, MD where he first worked in the engineering department of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
Fink was soon promoted, and went on to became a consultant engineer for the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad. It was during this time that he developed and patented a new type of bridge truss.
In 1857 he moved west to work for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, where he soon became Chief Engineer, and in 1859, Superintendent. By 1865, he was General Superintendent and in 1869, Vice President.
At the time, the main public complaint was that the cost of rail travel differed from one railroad company to another. This also made financial planning difficult for the railroads themselves. Fink’s main aim became the rationalization of rail rates. He collected railroad operating statistics and came up with the notion that railroads would work more efficiently if different companies ‘pooled’ their resources. In 1874 he published a report, outlining his results, and adding suggestions on how to modernize the system.
He then helped set up the Atlanta-based Southern Railway and Steamship Association, which succeeded in introducing standard rates across the South. In 1877 he became Commissioner of the Eastern Trunk-line Association, which aimed at the same rate standardization on trunk lines between Atlanta and the east coast. Later the same year Fink became the Association’s Director and concentrated on settling disputes between members.
By now Fink’s “pooling” concept was facing opposition from public and Congress, whose main concern was that pooling would give railroad companies a monopoly on prices, reduce competition the incentive to improve services and rolling-stock. In 1882, Fink argued his case to Congress and lost. In 1887 Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act, which included a ban on pooling.
Two years later Fink retired due to ill health, but remained as one of the Directors of the L&N Railroad. He remained in Louisville for the next eight years, and died in a sanatorium in Sing Sing, New York.
ASSESSMENT: Fink’s pooling system to rationalize railroad pricing was opposed by Congress until 1920, when a part of the Interstate Commerce Act was rewritten as the Railroad Transportation Act.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: His work related to that of <work related to> J. E. Thomson*, <work related to> McCallum*, <work related to> Schumacher*.
ONELINER: Albert Fink, early railroad administrator
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
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