Six More 1950 Bern Hill Covers

Posted on by April 29, 2024
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Bernard Hill was born in Toronto in 1911. After studying art in Toronto and London, England, Hill worked for a variety of printing and advertising companies. In 1940, he moved to New York where he soon went to work for the Kudner Agency. Founded by Art Kudner in 1935, Kudner’s clients included General Motors and Goodyear Tires, growing to be the eighth-largest advertising company in the nation.

The second Railway Age cover signed by Bern Hill shows a Twin Zephyr meandering south along the Mississippi River. Click image to download a 3.4-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for a 33.2-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF. Unless otherwise noted, all images on this page are from Greg Palumbo’s collection of Kudner Agency ad proofs.

Art Kudner died in 1944, after which the company was headed by James Ellis, who had been with the company since its founding. Ellis was a good friend of Harlow Curtice, who headed General Motors’ Buick Division in the 1930s, became its executive vice-president in 1948 and its president in 1953. Through that friendship, Kudner gained the business of several General Motors divisions including Buick and EMD. Continue reading →

1950: Bern Hill’s First Year

Posted on by October 2, 2024
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In 1950, General Motors stunned the advertising world by issuing a series of Railway Age cover ads that portrayed trains as simply part of the landscape, not a dominant feature. The gritty railroad world of cinders, smoke, grease, and gravel ballast was replaced by gorgeous scenes of rivers, mountains, and man-made towers traversed by sleek trains led by bright, colorful streamlined locomotives.

The first Railway Age cover signed by Bern Hill is this magnificent view of the California Zephyr. Click image to download a 1.7-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for a 9.3-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.

The first cover signed by Bern Hill is completely unrealistic. Nowhere is there a mountain like that looming over the Western Pacific’s main line. Where the Western Pacific does cross the mountains, nowhere is there a red barn high on a ridge top above the Feather River Canyon. Continue reading →

More on Bern Hill

Posted on by April 29, 2024
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In 2013, I did a series of three posts (one, two, and three) on Bern Hill, an artist who made dozens of memorable paintings used by General Motors on the covers of Railway Age magazine. Perhaps the greatest living expert on Bern Hill is Greg Palumbo, whose collection of posters and original artworks by Hill was featured on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow a few years ago. A former EMD employee himself, Palumbo has written several magazine articles about Hill and other EMD artists and he graciously shared with me images of his collection of paintings, posters, and magazine covers.

There are many mysteries about Bern Hill’s work. How many of his paintings were used on Railway Age covers? One of Palumbo’s articles says 65, but he admits that’s just an estimate. Only some of the covers have signatures; in many others, the signatures are cropped out. Continue reading →

Norfolk & Western April 1958 Timetable

Posted on by July 3, 2024
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In the 1950s, Norfolk & Western was a highly profitable coal hauler, but it didn’t serve enough big cities to be a major passenger carrier. Its main passenger line was from Norfolk to Cincinnati, served by two passenger trains, the Powhatan Arrow and the Pocahontas. A third train, the Cavalier, followed the same route but for some reason it terminated at Portsmouth, Ohio.

Click image to download a 11.7-MB PDF of this 24-page timetable.

N&W’s other long-distance trains, including the Pelican, the Tennessean, and the Birmingham Special started and ended on other railroads and N&W just provided a bridge over part of the route. The Pelican, for example, went from New York to New Orleans, a trip of about 1,300 miles, but only 200 miles of that were on Norfolk & Western.

The same 200 miles form part of the Tennessean‘s New York-Memphis trip and the Birmingham Special‘s New York-Birmingham trip. Most of the miles on all three trains were over the Southern Railway, which had its own alternative route but must have sent some trains over the N&W either because that route was shorter or to serve cities not on the Southern route.

Seaboard Air Line June 1951 Timetable

Posted on by July 3, 2024
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Unlike its rival, the Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard didn’t have financial ties with railroads that connected to the Midwest. As a result, most of its passenger trains were concentrated in the New York-Florida market. This also meant its timetables were shorter: only 28 pages in 1951 compared with ACL’s 36 pages several years later.

Click image to download a 14.9-MB PDF of this 28-page timetable.

Fortunately for Seaboard, New York-Florida was the most profitable long-distance passenger-train market in the country and there was room for both ACL and SAL. Seaboard actually had an advantage in this market as its lines went down both coasts of Florida, while ACL’s only went on the West Coast and had to depend on Florida East Coast Railway to get its passengers to Miami. Continue reading →

Illinois Central December 1957 Timetable

Posted on by July 3, 2024
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The all-Pullman Panama Limited, Illinois Central’s premiere train, took 16-1/2 hours between Chicago and New Orleans for an average speed of nearly 56 miles per hour. It probably could have been a little faster if it didn’t have cars added and taken off from it at various points along the way.

Click image to download a 16.8-MB PDF of this timetable.

Two cars from St. Louis were added to the southbound train at Carbondale. At Memphis a car was added while a car from Chicago was taken off the train at Jackson, Mississippi. Since the train had an observation car, the cars couldn’t just be added or taken off the rear of the train so all of these required multiple switching moves and probably added close to 30 minutes to the train’s schedule. Continue reading →

Paul Proehl Posters for Illinois Central

Posted on by September 27, 2024
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Paul Proehl, who did the cover art for yesterday’s 1931 booklet about Chicago and a 1926 booklet about the Mississippi Gulf Coast, also did a number of posters for the Illinois Central. Not coincidentally, all of the posters I’ve found are about Chicago or the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Click image for a larger view. Click here to download a 6.9-MB PDF of all of the posters shown in this post.

In 1910, Proehl (1887-1965) earned a degree in architecture from the University of Illinois. While working as a draftsman for Chicago architecture firms, he became interested in commercial art and attended the Art Institute to learn more about it. In 1918, he began working in the advertising business and in 1924 he was hired by Palenske-Young, a Chicago illustration studio. Continue reading →

Chicago: The Vacation City

Posted on by July 3, 2024
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In these post-COVID years I rarely think of a big city as a place to take a vacation. But I remember visiting Chicago many times in the past and going to places like the Field Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Art Institute, and lunch at Marshall Fields. I can imagine that, just as a visit to New Orleans would be exotic for Midwesterners, a visit to Chicago would be a thrill for people from Birmingham, Memphis, Sioux City, and other places served by Illinois Central lines.

Click image to download a 20.9-MB PDF of this 52-page booklet.

Although this 1931 booklet is almost a century old, it is striking how much of Chicago then remains today. The booklet includes numerous photographs of museums, parks, skyscrapers, and universities, most of which look about the same today as hey did then. Of course, there are more and bigger skyscrapers today, but the biggest change from the photos shown in the booklet is the demolition of the Illinois Central train station. Continue reading →

To Florida via the Seminole Limited

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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With a pink flamingo on the back representing Florida and a Native American on the front representing the Seminoles (and therefore the train), this booklet describes Illinois Central’s entry into the competition for Midwest-Florida traffic in the early 1920s. IC was the original carrier of the Dixie Flyer from Chicago, but in 1908 Louisville & Nashville switched to the Chicago & Eastern Illinois. In response, IC inaugurated the Seminole Limited in 1909 and put it on a schedule that was three hours faster than the Flyer.

Click image to download a 13.1-MB PDF of this 36-page booklet.

The competition quickly caught up, which would have been easy as their routes were almost exactly the same length: 1,128 miles via the Illinois Central vs. 1,130 miles on the Dixie Flyer. The Seminole left Chicago at 8:15 pm and arrived in Jacksonville at 7:45 am two mornings later, while the Dixie Flyer left Chicago 50 minutes after the Seminole but arrived in Jacksonville just 40 minutes after. On the return trip the Dixie Flyer left Jacksonville an hour before the Seminole and arrived in Chicago an hour before. Continue reading →

Atlantic Coast Line June 1957 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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In 1957, the Atlantic Coast Line operated four trains a day between New York (via the PRR to Washington and RF&P to Richmond) and Florida, a fifth train that went as far as Savannah, Georgia, and a sixth train that operated only on the weekends. It also participated in three daily trains between Chicago and Florida plus three more streamlined trains that each operated every third day. It also had, with L&N, a train from Cincinnati to Florida and partnered with PRR and other railroads to run trains from New York to Atlanta, Norfolk, and Wilmington, North Carolina.

Click image to download a 20.6-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

Since before the war, ACL’s premiere train was the streamlined Champion, which was really three trains in 1957. The East Coast Champion left New York at 2:25 pm and arrived in Miami at 3:40 pm the next day while the West Coast Champion left New York at 3:40 pm and arrived in Tampa at 2:40 pm, Sarasota at 4:25 pm, and St. Petersburg at 4:20 pm. The third train, the Advance East Coast Champion left New York on Saturdays and Sundays at 11:00 am, arriving Miami at 11:45 the next day, while its northbound counterpart, the Weekend Champion, left Miami for New York on Fridays and Saturdays. Continue reading →