That ability helped him gain the notice of Thomas A. Scott, a superintendent for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

FORBES: To Be Born Poor Doesn't Mean You'll Always Be Poor

After studying at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Mr. Johnson became assistant general counsel at the Pennsylvania Railroad.

WSJ: Johnson Helped Turn Railroad Into Conglomerate

Or will it go off the rails, like the notorious 1968 merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad?

FORBES: American + U.S. Airways: A match made in heaven?

American accounts usually give the start of the oil age as 1859, the year that a former railroad conductor named Edwin L. Drake drilled his first successful well, near Titusville, Pennsylvania.

NEWYORKER: Unconventional Crude