C&NW Metal Plaques Exclusively for the C&NWHS


Copied from dining car menus, travel brochures, or adver- tisements. Decorate your office, train room, or garage. Sizes slightly vary — most 8 x 10.


C&NWHS P.O. Box 1068


North Riverside, IL 60546


$12.99 Each (Plus $5.00 Shipping)


Order online at www.cnwhs.org Illinois Residents Please Add 8.5% Sales Tax


NEWS AND OTHER STUFF WE THOUGHT OF Harold K. Vollrath 1923-2015


www.trainsshipsplanes.com


Wondering what will replace Camp Washington Chili and Skyline Chili for dinner when Summerail moves from Cincinnati to Marion, Ohio, for the next two years.


On December 3, 2008, Harold K. Vollrath is in the darkroom wearing his ever-present smile. He loved darkroom work, and over many decades produced an uncountable quantity of prints sold to railroad enthusiasts around the globe. KEVIN EUDALY PHOTO


The Circus Moves by Rail


COME ONE, COME ALL!


$39.95 PLUS S&H • ITEM CRS-CMBR


877-787-2467 TOLL-FREE 660-695-4433 NON-US


WhiteRiverProductions.com 62 OCTOBER 2015 • RAILFAN.COM


HAROLD K. VOLLRATH, known to his friends as “K,” was one of those giants of rail photography from the golden age of steam, postcard negatives, and darkrooms that we won’t see again. He passed away on August 6, 2015, at the age of 92. He was born in Manhattan, N.Y., on January 6, 1923, but discovered railroading during visits to his grandfather’s sugar mill in Louisiana with its own railroad and steam locomotive. In the mid-1930s RAILROAD STORIES magazine (which later became RAILROAD MAGAZINE, and then part of RAILFAN & RAILROAD) piqued his interest in railroad photography, and he began shooting negatives and began negative trading with other photographers. K later went to work for his grandfather on


the sugar mill and then took a job with the Texas & New Orleans (a Southern Pacific subsidiary) as an operator. He became a dispatcher for the T&NO. That led him to the


Kansas City Southern in 1949 as a dispatcher in Shreveport, La., where he worked until being promoted into KCS’s labor relations department in 1964, and relocated to Kansas City, Mo. He retired as KCS’s director of labor relations in 1988. For decades K published a list of negatives


and sold prints, and that activity is being continued by his grandson in Texas, who plans on selling prints from the collection for the foreseeable future. K was a fascinating storyteller who had vivid memories of his many years of railroading. He once recounted to me a hair-raising episode on the T&NO where he and a fellow operator sent two trains toward each other in the dark of night. There was one siding between K and the other operator, and one of the trains was cleared through while the other was told to take the siding. If the through train got there first, a head-on collision was imminent. If


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74