The winter of 1982 was one the most brutal in in Midwestern history, with temperatures reaching record lows and snowfalls record highs in many places. So it may not be surprising that snow is featured in five of the photos in this calendar, instead of the usual two or three. One of the photos is even titled “Brutal Winter.”
Click image to download a 33.0-MB PDF of this calendar.
Tucked into the first page inside was a note signed by BN’s president, Walter Drexel, and marketing vice president, Darius Gaskins, wishing recipients a happy holiday and crassly asking them for “recommendations to friends about our transportation services.” Curiously, neither Drexel nor Gaskins (who would succeed Drexel as president) had any railroad experience before they came to work for BN. Drexel had worked for Atlantic Richfield while Gaskins was a federal bureaucrat.
The calendar has only one train photo, plus there is a photo of an ancient desk that was once occupied by a railroad telegrapher or stationmaster in Moorcroft, Wyoming, on the former Burlington route from Alliance, Nebraska and Billings, Montana. The rest are scenery.