Henry Haines

Henry Haines was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts. However, he grew up in Savannah, Georgia. At age 21, he married Elizabeth J. Owens from Charleston, South Carolina. They had four children together. After his first wife died from yellow fever, Haines married Anna H. Davies, daughter of a prominent Episcopalian bishop from Michigan. They had two sons together. Haines continued to work actively on the railroad until age 58. After retiring, he spent several years traveling around Europe. Haines died shortly before his 87th birthday, having lived to an unusually old age for that time. ==Business career==

During the 1850s, Haines worked as a railroad superintendent in South Carolina. After the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederate Army, and was given the rank of colonel. He served as a logistical officer, maintaining military transport and supply lines in the Carolinas. His work during the war mostly focused on the railroad system. By the end of the war, he was an expert on railroad construction and management. He was said to be able to "lay track, run an engine, mend a boiler, issue payroll, and balance the books - all in the same morning". Haines worked for Henry Plant until his retirement in 1894. Even though Haines was not college educated, he was widely considered one of the leading experts in the world on railroad construction and operation. He wrote several important academic treatises about railroads during his retirement years. His works include, "American Railway Management" published in 1897, and "Problems In RailRoad Regulation" published in 1911. ==Sanford-Tampa Line==

Haines' most notable achievement was the construction of Sanford-Tampa Line in 1883-1884. In 1883, Henry Plant acquired a charter from the state of Florida to connect Sanford, Florida and Tampa, Florida by railroad. However, because of political wrangling in the state, Plant's charter was only good for seven months, from June 1883 until the end of January 1884. In order to succeed with the Sanford-Tampa Charter, Plant had to lay over of new railroad through thick sub-tropical forests, wetlands, and swamps of central Florida before his charter expired. Plant called on Haines to oversee the entire operation in the field. Crews of blacksmiths and wheelwrights were at work 24 hours a day to stay on schedule. ==References==