It is worth noting that, not only did Railway Age allow GM to extend its ads behind the magazine’s masthead, it apparently allowed Bern Hill to select the colors of that masthead. The colors not only made the lettering visible, they often reflected one of the principal colors in the painting.

An engineer’s view of the Atlantic Coast Line’s Champion passing through Florida orange groves. Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Unless otherwise noted, all images on this page are from Greg Palumbo’s collection. Click here for a 9.6-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.

Atlantic Coast Line was one of the few if not the only railroad to paint its Diesel locomotives purple. In this scene, not only is the locomotive of the on-coming train purple, the interior of the cab is purple. To affirm this color, not only the masthead but the General Motors logo are also purple. Hill’s signature is near the lower right corner.

This painting gives us a worm’s-eye view of an approaching Minneapolis and St. Louis freight train. Click image to download a 2.7-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for an 11.3-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.

This painting is unsigned, but only Bern Hill would put the viewer at rail-high level in the path of an on-coming train.

A Southern Pacific train crosses the Great Salt Lake on the Lucin Viaduct. Click image to download a 1.5-MB PDF of this magazine cover, which is based on a Google scan.

This is another painting whose signature isn’t visible, as it is most likely hidden behind the text box on the right.

One of Missouri Pacific’s Eagles follows a river. Click image to download a 2.1-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for a 9.4-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.

I would be tempted to say that this is the Arkansas River, which the Colorado Eagle followed for its last 35 miles before reaching Pueblo, Colorado. But by 1951, the Colorado Eagle was a domeliner, and since there are no domes on this train this is probably meant to be some other river. The top of Bern Hill’s signature is just visible in the lower right of the cover.

Santa Fe’s Super Chief passes by the highly exaggerated red cliffs of New Mexico. Click image to download a 1.4-MB PDF of this image, which is based on a Google scan.

Next to the California Zephyr painting, this painting of a Santa Fe streamliner is probably the most popular of the Bern Hill railroad series. Unfortunately, I don’t have a high-resolution image of this cover but this one will do. Hill’s signature is near the lower right corner of this painting but was cropped out of the magazine cover. Note that this issue of Railway Age was just one week after the previous one and three weeks after the one before that, meaning three in one month.

A Clinchfield Railroad train emerges from a tunnel in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Click image to download a 2.5-MB PDF of this magazine cover. Click here for a 10.7-MB higher-resolution version of this PDF.

Jointly owned by the Atlantic Coast Line and Louisville & Nashville, the Clinchfield Railroad twisted around numerous dramatic loops and passed through 18 tunnels crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains on its way from eastern Kentucky to western South Carolina. So it almost disappointing that the best Hill could do to represent the railroad is this almost trite scene of a train emerging from a tunnel. Hill’s signature is in the lower right corner.

I’ll post the remaining 1951 Hill covers tomorrow.