General Motors had 18 Railway Age cover ads in 1951, 17 of which appear to have been done by Hill. The eighteenth cover featured a photograph purporting to show the construction of the 10,000th Diesel locomotive manufactured by General Motors.
Great Northern’s Empire Builder follows a river somewhere in the Northwest. Click image to download a 2.6-MB PDF of this magazine cover. All images on this page are from Greg Palumbo’s collection. Click here for an 11.2-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.
The A-B-A locomotives in Hill’s first entry in 1951 have the paint scheme of Great Northern’s E-7s, but GN didn’t own any E-7 B units. Nevertheless, GN liked this painting so much that it used it on the cover of a booklet advertising the Mid-Century Empire Builder, which was introduced a few months after this ad appeared. That train was pulled by F-3s instead of E-7s, and GN took the trouble to touch up the painting so that the paint scheme matched the Fs, for which it did own B units. This is the most prominent instance of a railroad borrowing a Hill painting from GM. Hill’s signature is barely visible in the lower left corner of the painting.
Illinois Central celebrated its centennial in 1951, which was acknowledged with this painting of the City of Miami crossing a bridge. Click image to download a 2.3-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for a 9.4-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.
For once, a locomotive in a Bern Hill painting dominates the image. Yet Hill remained unconventional, cropping almost half the front of the Diesel out of the picture. Hill’s signature is visible near the lower right corner.
A Soo Line train crosses the St. Croix River Bridge on its way to Minneapolis. Click image to download a 2.7-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for an 11.1-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.
Just one week after the Illinois Central cover, GM placed this ad showing the Soo Line High Bridge across the St. Croix River. The bridge is a half-mile long and 184 feet above the river. I don’t see a signature on this cover, but it is undoubtedly by Hill, who typically exaggerated the apparent height of the bridge in this painting.
Bird’s-eye view of a Chicago & Eastern Illinois freight year with three Diesels in view. Click image to download a 2.8-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for an 11.1-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.
Back to overhead views with a large freight yard full of box cars but only three locomotives: two F units pulling a train on the left and a switch engine at the bottom edge of the yard. The top half of Hill’s signature is visible in the lower left.
An Erie Railroad train crosses the Starrucca Viaduct in Pennsylvania. Click image to download a 5.1-MB PDF of this poster.
Like the Illinois Central, the Erie Railroad celebrated a centennial in 1951 and in recognition this image shows an Erie train crossing the famous Starrucca Viaduct, which was actually 103 years old at the time. Unfortunately, I don’t have a good image of this Railway Age cover, so I’m giving a preview of one of the posters that I’ll cover in more detail in a few days. The painting leaves plenty of room in the sky for the magazine masthead.
Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac locomotives pull a passenger train, possibly the Champion or Silver Star, across the Rappahannock River. Click image to download a 2.1-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for an 8.9-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.
The shadow of the multiple arches of this bridge is the real star of this illustration showing an RF&P train crossing the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg. Local photographers know that the bridge and its reflection in the water form almost perfect circles, but that was too trite for Hill, whose signature is near the lower left corner.
I’ll present more 1951 covers tomorrow.