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An F-Type Loco painted in orange, black and yellow livery hauls an excursion train on the Cape Cod Central Railroad.

Locos and Logos

Written by Sheldrake Editor on . Posted in Blog.

Since his first visit to America in the 1960s, the London designer Ian Logan has nurtured a private passion for locos and logos, especially style classics like an EMD F-Unit painted in a heritage livery. Listen to him now, being interviewed about his love for American trains.

Wearing an open-neck checked blue shirt, the designer Ian Logan speaks during an interview about his book Logomotive.
Click on the image to hear Ian Logan speak about ‘Logomotive’.

In this interview, Ian Logan sits down with the writer and editor Chris Schüler to speak about his decades-long fascination for American railroads. With the enthusiasm of a committed railfan, he relives the many journeys he took to photograph logos on locomotives and freight cars. These he has triumphantly published in a large-format volume called Logomotive, co-written with the design editor Jonathan Glancey and introduced by the architect Norman Foster.

‘A rich and varied and absolutely fascinating glimpse
into a vanished world.’ – Chris Schüler, Editor

To hear what Ian Logan has to say, please click here.

Locos and logos on film

Recounting his trip to San Francisco in the cab of the California Zephyr, Ian Logan gives us a fascinating insight into the making of his book Logomotive. He recalls how he wandered into freight yards with his camera, fighting off wild dogs with an electric stick and capturing fading logos on the sides of boxcars that took him back to the age of the Streamliners. Befriending an engineer, he got to pull an air horn. He photographed San Francisco Station just months before its demolition. It was the chance of a lifetime. He grabbed it.

Logomotive brings it all together

With his archive of Kodachrome slides, Ian Logan has assembled a record of a vanished world. Guided by the talented art director Bernard Higton, he has recreated the world of Art Deco design and given us a visual interpretation of the supergraphics movement that predated modern branding.

His co-author Jonathan Glancey has added an extra dimension. Using his deep knowledge of the American railroads, he has set the images in their historical context and brought to life the great passenger services that once united the States: the Pennsylvania’s Broadway Limited, the Hiawathas of the Milwaukee Road, the Southern Pacific’s Coast Daylight and the New York Central’s 20th Century Limited.

In this late-afternoon colour photograph taken by John Cosford in May 1964, a Merchant Navy Pacific locomotive heads a train at Waterloo Station, London.
A Merchant Navy Pacific locomotive heads a train at London’s Waterloo Station in May 1964. Click the image for the interview with Jonathan Glancey. Photo courtesy John Cosford, Trains and Travel.

In an interview with Chris Schüler, Jonathan Glancey explains how he got involved with railways. ‘I’m just old enough to remember steam trains at some of the London railway stations.’ To be at Waterloo, he remembers, and to see Merchant Navy Pacific locomotives taking boat trains to Southampton, and then watch the liners leaving for the United States, was thrilling and romantic. He goes on to give a masterful summary of design history in Europe and America, from florid Victoriana, Art Deco and Streamline Style through to modern corporatism. Not flinching from betraying where his sympathies lie. 

To hear the interview with Jonathan Glancey, click here.

To see the lavish book Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey have created, go to Logomotive. If you wish to order the book in the United States, please follow this link to our US website.