U.S. Business: Personalities: Mar. 27, 1964

AS president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Jervis Langdon Jr., 59, is a realist as well as a third-generation railroader: he takes a train out on business trips but flies home to save time. To tempt other businessmen to ride the rails at least one way, Langdon's B. & O. last week announced a 31% cut in some first-class fares between Eastern cities and the Midwest. If the lure fails, the B. & O. will move to end its money-losing passenger service. This kind of pragmatism, coupled with assistance from the Chesapeake & Ohio that controls the B. & O., has helped to revive the nation's oldest railroad. Since Cornell-trained ('30) Lawyer Langdon became chief in 1961, the B. & O. has chopped coal-haul rates and renovated tunnels to accommodate piggybacks, has begun to eliminate unprofitable less-than-carload business. Last week Langdon also reported that his railroad, which lost $31 million in 1961, bounced back to earn $5,500,000 last year on revenues of $372 million, and this year should double those earnings.

AFTER quitting school in the eighth grade and bouncing around as a stunt pilot, semipro baseball player and riveter, Thomas Elliott Millsop landed a salesman's job at Weirton Steel in 1927. His first week there he astounded everyone by writing a $1,000,000 order. This persuasive salesman is now the chairman of Weirton's parent, National Steel, and has built it into the nation's fourth largest steelmaker, with 1963 sales of $846 million. Last week he announced that National will build the world's first mill containing all three of the industry's major new devices for producing more steel at lower cost: oxygen furnaces, continuous casting lines and vacuum degassers (for removing impurities). At 65, Tom Millsop drives himself like a youngster. Cigar-chomping, occasionally tobacco-chewing and always gregarious, he is Tom to most of his workers. Some years ago he moonlighted as mayor of Weirton, W. Va., defeating a former union organizer by a 5-to-l margin. "That was a helluva job," he grins. "All things considered, I'd rather build an eight-inch cold-strip mill."