Benjamin W. Heineman was an attorney and American railroad executive. Heineman first attended the University of Michigan, and later attended Northwestern's school of law. He first gained attention in the railroad industry in 1954, when he orchestrated a successful proxy battle for control of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway. He became president of the Chicago and North Western Railway in 1956, leading the railroad through a series of difficult cost-cutting measures that returned the railroad to solvency. One of the measures he instituted was to sell shares in the railroad to the railroad's own employees, prompting the "Employee Owned" inscription in the railroad's logo. This process was consummated in 1972, at which time Larry Provo succeeded Heineman as president of the company. Heineman remained in charge of the holding company Northwest Industries until 1985. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2011.
Heineman is noted in the history of Chicago, Illinois, for replacing all the steam locomotives which brought passenger trains into North Western Station with diesel locomotives, in one day in 1956, in response to a complaint by Mayor Richard J.