Harold Winthrop Clapp
Sir Harold Winthrop Clapp KBE (7 May 1875 – 21 October 1952) was a transport administrator who over the course of thirty years had a profound effect on Australia's railway network. In two decades as its Chairman of Commissioners, he revolutionised Victorian Railways, with unprecedented attention to customer service and innovations such as more powerful locomotives, air-conditioned carriages, and faster services culminating in the introduction of the flagship Spirit of Progress express train.
Born in St Kilda, Victoria, Harold Clapp was the son of Cobb and Co coach operator and future Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Company owner Francis Boardman Clapp and wife Isabella Pinnock, née Pierce. He was educated at Brighton Grammar and Melbourne Church of England Grammar schools, before serving an apprenticeship at the Austral Otis Enigineering Co. and later taking charge of motive power his father's Brisbane Tramway Co. Ltd.
1900 Left for the United States of America, first obtaining work at the General Electric Co. He was then engaged by the Interborough Rapid Transit Co., and among other work was in charge of electrification of the West Jersey and Seashore division of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
On 19 September 1906 at Providence, Rhode Island, he married Gertrude Vivien, daughter of Judge Arthur Noel of Brisbane.
In 1908 he moved to Columbus, Ohio and joined the Southern Pacific Railroad. By 1920, he was a Vice President of the Southern Pacific, as well as the Columbus Railway Power and Light Co and Illinois' East St. Louis and Suburban Railway.
1920 Appointed Chairman of the Commissioners of Victorian Railways on the recommendation of former Chairman Sir Thomas James Tait, who had known him prior to his move to the United States. With an annual salary of £5,000, he was Australia's highest-paid public servant at the time.
Clapp arrived in September 1920, and began an extraordinary period of reform of Victorian Railways. During his tenure, timetables were improved, larger and more powerful locomotives were built, services were improved, and the VR expanded operations into everything from motor coach services, a ski chalet, and creches to bakeries and raisin bread marketing.