Lawrence R. Townsend Jr.
Career CSX railroad employee who worked in computer operations loved music, organized BSO’s schools program
Lawrence R. Townsend Jr., a CSX computer expert whose career with the railroad spanned 50 years, died Dec. 3 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at Sunrise of Annapolis. The former longtime Lutherville resident was 82.
Lawrence Raymond Townsend Jr., son of Lawrence R. Townsend Sr., a Baltimore County public schools principal, and Dolores Fahey Townsend, a Hampton Elementary School secretary, was born in Baltimore. He spent his early years in Carney until moving with his parents in 1947 to Oakway Road in Timonium.
A 1959 Towson High School graduate, Mr. Townsend attended the University of Maryland, College Park, and then in 1960, took a job as an engineering aide for Baltimore County government.
He attended Baltimore Institute, a computer training school, which led to a job offer in 1962 from the old Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, a predecessor to the Chessie System and finally CSX.
“As a kid, Larry always loved this stuff, and when he was 14, built an electric organ,” said his brother, David L. Townsend, of Annapolis. “He was always a computer wizard.”
“Interested in data processing,” according to a biographical profile in the RABO Club, a railroad retirement organization’s newsletter, he began his career with the B&O’s data processing department in 1962.
An Army reservist, he left the railroad when he was called to active duty where he attained the rank of specialist 5 before returning to the railroad in 1966 as a programmer.
He worked on the Univac 3, an early computer.
“While working on the RCA 3301, he was promoted to system designer and worked with a team which began the automation of car and train movement on Chessie and worked on the design and implementation of systems at Queensgate Yard in Cincinnati,” according to the RABO profile. “There, he instructed yardmasters in use of the new system which in turn led to the position of Assistant-Manager Training,” where he spent six months at The Greenbrier, the railroad’s famous resort, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
Mr. Townsend was promoted to operations planning and assigned to Michigan, where he worked on numerous projects with state and regional officials.
When CSX moved its Transportation Department to its new headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida, Mr. Townsend remained behind in Baltimore in car management, where he oversaw a project that led to the purchase of 2,000 covered hopper cars, or enclosed units.
When that department closed and moved to Jacksonville, Mr. Townsend rejoined the Transportation Department, and commuted for four years between Baltimore and Florida.
“Between 1962 and 2012, Larry managed and developed computer systems from the beginning as computer technology grew from three floors of the railroad’s Baltimore and Charles streets headquarters to a laptop which could do a 100 times that tasks of the old 3rd floor tube-based system,” his brother wrote in an email.
“During Larry’s railroad career, he had many accomplishments most of which involved computers, data processing, setting up programs and training,” according to the RABO profile.
Mr. Townsend, a baritone, was attending the Peabody Conservatory of Music where he sang with the Peabody Choir, when he met and fell in love with another member, Jean Elaine Bennett, an alto. They married in 1963.
For decades, Mr. Townsend organized the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s schools program, which allowed thousands of schoolchildren to attend free performances of the orchestra.
A former school teacher, his wife returned to school and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in veterinary medicine before establishing a house call practice with him as her bookkeeper.
Mr. Townsend was for years a member of the Baltimore County Zoning Appeals Board and a firefighter and EMT with the Lutherville Volunteer Fire Department.
He and his wife, who died in 2021, rescued stray cats and traveled annually to Maryland’s Smith Island to spay feral cats, his brother said.
In addition to the RABO Club, of which he had been president, Mr. Townsend was a member of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, the National Railway Historical Society and the Baltimore Passenger Association.
At Mr. Townsend’s request, no services will be held.
In addition to his brother, he is survived by nieces and nephews.