grandparents’ house, I’ve been intrigued by railroad promotional art.
That
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timetable, which my friend’s grand- mother kindly let me have, was the start of a collection that has been growing for almost 50 years. It was the cover that grabbed my attention: a streamlined New York Central steam engine racing along the east shore of the Hudson Riv- er. It was the same river my friend and I could see from our homes, only by this time the trains that ran alongside it were led by diesels. It wasn’t a fluke that the image on the cover of that timetable caught my eye. Railroads paid big money to artists and graphic designers to make their services look attractive to the public. The cover of this 1941 timetable did just what it was supposed to do–it made me want to ride that train. (Unfortunately, I was about 25 years too late.) Railroads have always depended upon advertising. In the beginning, it was condensed timetables published in local newspapers and broadsides list- ing train routes, services and times. Train times printed on small cards be- gan appearing in the 1860’s and rail- road-issued travel guides came a decade later. By the 1880’s, railroads were producing folding timetables with elaborately designed covers meant to attract travelers. It’s a practice that is still in use today.
Author Chuck Blardone opens his book with an interview with Al Paul Lefton, Jr., a name unfamiliar to most, but a man who was intimately familiar with the workings of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s advertising department from the late 1920’s to the demise of the Penn Central some 50 years later. His father’s company, which he went to work for and later took over, handled all the advertising for the PRR. Left- on’s designed everything from the timetables to the travel posters, news- paper and magazine ads, annual re- ports and calenders. They hired the artists, chose the type and came up with the slogans. Of course the Pennsylvania Rail-
road’s advertising history extended to well before the 1920’s and historian Chris Baer, of the Hagley Museum and Archives, provides an insightful look at the railroad and how it used advertis- ing to sell itself and create an image of an efficient, professionally run compa- ny employing competent, caring em- ployees and cutting edge technology. This section of the book is well illus- trated with a variety of ads, broad- sides, maps and publicity photos span- ning the history of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Having provided a general overview of the railroad, readers are then treat- ed to a closer, chronological look at the
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