Phil Anderson’s railroad career began in 1957 while he attended Purdue University, when he was a laborer on a bridge and building maintenance gang of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad at Minturn, Pando, and the Upper Arkansas River valley in Colorado.

From 1960 to 1985 he was with Southern Pacific Transportation Company at San Francisco. In 1970 he was made assistant to vice president operations, and in 1983 he was made assistant to president.

During 1974-76, Southern Pacific offered his services as a consultant for the planning and restructuring of the Penn Central and other bankrupt northeastern railroads. For the United States Railway Association, he led the operating vice presidents’ overview study by Strong, Wishart and Associates. For the United States Secretary of Transportation, he led the study of the Penn Central Railroad’s track rehabilitation requirements made by the chief engineers of six United States railroads. Later, he was a consultant to Conrail during its start-up.

From 1989 to his retirement in 2000, he was a railway specialist at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and assisted the Bank’s railroad borrowers in China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia.

He lives in Tempe, Arizona. He is secretary-treasurer of the Arizona chapter of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society.