Anthony J. Bottalico spent forty years on the railroad and two decades leading the Metro-North union local that took on entrenched corruption from inside and won. As General Chairman, he negotiated the 1995 contract that pulled his members back from a strike that would have stripped them of federal protections, helped found the Association of Commuter Rail Employees (ACRE) in 2000, an independent union uniting conductors and engineers that had spent generations fighting each other, and built a culture of loyalty and accountability that still holds today.

He is the author of TRAINMAN, the firsthand account of how ordinary working people refused to stay silent and changed the course of their own history. Born and raised in the Bronx and shaped by a father who taught him independence was non-negotiable, Bottalico writes for anyone who has ever watched something go wrong and stayed seated. He is at work on a second book and continues to advocate for the men and women who move the world.