Portraits of Amtrak Richard Smyth
“Empire Builder at Glenview (IL)” Watercolor (Airbrush) on Illustration Board, 15” x 18”, 2000
Sunday, the 20th of February in 2000, was a bright sunny day but it was also intense- ly cold. It’s 3:00 p.m. and Amtrak’s west- bound Empire Builder has made its first stop, at Glenview, Illinois, to pick up pas- sengers. This painting is meant to capture the feeling of that winter day. The sun, with only an hour to go before it sets, cast an evening glow to light the side of the train. The boarding passengers are hud- dled from the cold on the platform in dark shadows. The subject matter just seemed to suggest doing it with an airbrush.
Stewart Buck “Crew Change at Dawn,“ Pastel Drawing, 19” x 25”, 2008
It’s 7:15 a.m. on May 28, 1973. Golden rays of sunlight are just beginning to spill over the top of the Sierra Nevada Mountains as Am- trak’s Train No. 5, the tri-weekly San Francisco Zephyr, pauses for servicing in Sparks, Nevada. The Zephyr’s journey has brought it to milepost 2177 on its run from the Windy City to San Francisco. Amtrak is only two years old, and its equipment is a conglomeration accumulated from its participating railroads. Although now part of Amtrak, the former Southern Pacific quartet of F-units feel right at home in the same territory where they worked for their previous owner.
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