William N. Deramus Jr.
William Neal Deramus Jr. (March 25, 1888 – December 2, 1965) was an American railroad executive. He was the longest-serving president of the Kansas City Southern Railway, from 1941 to 1961. He helped the company survive the Great Depression by encouraging industry to move to the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas. He also helped the railroad avoid bankruptcy in the 1930s and refinanced $67 million in bonded debt due in the late 1940s.
Deramus was born in Coopers, Alabama, the son of William N. Deramus and Josephine Flynn Deramus. He left school after the eighth grade. Before he was 14, he tended switch lamps for $4 a month and learned Morse code. Within a year he was promoted to relief operator and quickly rose through the ranks. He worked for the Louisville & Nashville, then the Atlantic Coast Line, and the Southern Railway, where at age 20 he became a dispatcher in Memphis. The Memphis chief, who later left for Kansas City Southern in Pittsburg, Kansas, gave Deramus a recommendation that opened the door to KCS.
He rose to the top and was elected president and chairman in 1945, after serving as president from 1941. He spent a lot of time on the railroad, and it is said he knew the 1,647 miles of track between Kansas City and the Gulf of Mexico so well he could tell where he was by the sound of the wheels.
Under his leadership, Kansas City Southern’s net income was twice the industry average. He was a major figure in Kansas City's civic life. In 1957 his family donated the Deramus Field Station to MRIGlobal to support its growing contract research work.
Deramus married Lucille Ione. He died in 1965 in Kansas City at age 77. His son William N. Deramus III also worked in the railroad industry.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:50 (CET).