John Joseph Bernet

John Joseph Bernet (February 9, 1868 – July 5, 1935) was president of the Nickel Plate Road, Erie Railroad, Chesapeake and Ohio Railway and Pere Marquette Railroad in the United States. He was known for bringing railroad companies back from bankruptcy to solvency, earning him the nickname "Doctor of Sick Railroads".

Youth and education Bernet was born in Brant, New York, on February 9, 1868, to Bernard and Emma Greene Bernet. John's father, Bernard, had emigrated from Switzerland and had taken up the blacksmithing trade. Bernet was succeeded at the Nickel Plate by Walter L. Ross at the end of 1926. His presidency of the Erie was characterized by a series of cost-cutting measures that included replacing much of the railroad's by then outdated rolling stock with new, more efficient equipment such as the Erie's Berkshire 2-8-4 steam locomotives, which were larger and more powerful than Lima's then current L-1 model Berkshires. Erie's Berkshires were of a design that included drivers, larger boilers and full-length locomotive frames; these locomotives helped change the Erie from a drag-freight railroad to a fast-freight railroad. After leaving the Erie Railroad, Bernet became president of Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.

The Van Sweringen brothers had gained control of the C&O and its then subsidiary Pere Marquette Railroad in the 1920s, so Bernet was already familiar to the rest of the management team there. Under Bernet's guidance, the C&O was one of the very few profitable railroad companies during the Great Depression, even going so far as earning and paying dividends in 1932. In 1933, he returned to the Nickel Plate Road's presidency. In that position he ordered the Nickel Plate's first 80 Berkshire locomotives. Bernet was succeeded at the Nickel Plate by W. J. Harahan who served until 1937 before himself being succeeded by Brooke.

He was greatly admired by his peers for his business acumen and after his death a privately printed biography, with an Appreciation by the Van Sweringens, was brought out.

Legacy Bernet very strongly encouraged John Carroll University to build a dormitory rather than a gymnasium and when the first dormitory on the university campus was completed in 1935, Bernet Hall was named in his honor. The residence hall still carries his name.

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