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In this promotional graphic Ian Logan’s book Logomotive is complemented by a set of retro postcards spread out in a fan.
Presented on a red background is a black and white railroad graphic of Zephyrus, winged god of the west wind, pointing to the future above a speeding, three-car diesel train. The title Logomotive follows in bold, yellow, Art Deco lettering.
In this colour photograph of Ian Logan’s book Logomotive open at the title page, his photograph of a Missouri Pacific eagle logo is the frontispiece, painted in white on the side of a diesel locomotive. The pages have a black background with the title and byline dropped out in white.
In this colour photograph taken in the 1970s by Ian Logan, author of Logomotive, a Southern Pacific GP 30 diesel locomotive draws a long train of boxcars and flat cars up a pass in the New Mexico desert, with two additional locomotives providing power immediately behind. and telegraph poles following the track. The company’s SP logo is picked out in white against the company’s ‘bloody nose’ livery.
In this colour photograph taken by Ian Logan in the 1970s, boxcars of the Southern Pacific and Rock Island Lines stand cheek by jowl in the freight yards at Kansas City, the names of the companies painted in huge white sans serif capitals on the rusty brown of the cars.
In this colour photograph taken by Ian Logan in the 1980s a GP 7 diesel locomotive of the Georgia Railroad inches forward with a lookout standing on the forward platform. Painted dark grey, it carries the name Georgia painted in white serif capitals and the badge of the Georgia Railroad with three white pillars on a red background labelled Courtesy, Safety and Service supporting a lintel and arch emblazoned with the name Georgia RR, Old Reliable.
In this atmospheric colour photograph taken from a control tower in the 1970s, the silvery tracks of the Burlington Northern freight yards in Kansas City stretch away to the city skyline, lines of stationary boxcars picked out by a slanting sun.
In this colour photograph taken by the railfan designer Ian Logan, a rusting enamel sign screwed to the side of a wooden boxcar carries the name Western Pacific picked out in white serif capitals on a black background with a red feather pointing through a central circle which carries the legend Feather River Route.
In this double-page spread from Logomotive by Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey, a dozen logos of American railroads of varying sizes recall their regional origins in places like Boston, Western Maryland, Louisville & Nashville, Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac, picked out in bold colours and stylized graphics.
In this colour photograph taken by the railfan designer Ian Logan, the nose of a diesel locomotive is painted in Cape Cod Railroad livery, an orange body overlaid with a scalloped, yellow-edged black waistband and a central roundel carrying the company name in white serif capitals, a floral flourish on a red background at its centre.
In a colour photograph taken through the windscreen of a Union Pacific diesel locomotive, the engineer in a red woolly hat drives the train west across the prairies, dials and control panels laid out in front of him, tracks stretching ahead round a gentle curve. The railfan designer Ian Logan was invited to ride in the cab of the California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco, taking this and other photographs as he went.
In these colour photographs by Mitch Goldman from the book Logomotive, an EMD E8 locomotive painted Century Green and a two-tone grey passenger car of the famous 20th Century Limited recall the glory days of the New York Central Railroad, identified on a white tiled wall by its 1935 logo.
In this colour photograph taken by the railfan designer Ian Logan in 1972, an engineer wearing a blue cap smiles down from the cab of his Union Pacific EMD SD4 Locomotive 446, painted Armour Yellow with a grey roof and a slogan in red letters proclaiming Dependable Transportation.
On this engineman’s pass issued by the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, the nickname Nickel Plate Road adopted by the company is printed in bold black type on a patterned pink background with the date 1926 and the number of the pass in red,
In this colour photograph taken by the railfan designer Ian Logan in 1972, the side of a brown Santa Fe boxcar carries the legend Shock Control in bold white capitals and the slogan A smoother ride in a light-yellow script face.
In this colour photograph taken by the railfan designer Ian Logan in the 1970s, a freight train rumbles across asparagus fields in Salinas Valley, California, with ploughed furrows lending perspective to the foreground and blue-grey mountains, hazy clouds and a deep blue sky forming the backdrop.
In this colour photograph taken in 1972 by the railfan designer Ian Logan, a conductor with a dark blue cap rides the caboose at the end of a Chicago-New Orleans train of the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad.
In this black-and-white image of the back of the card, the words Post Card appear in an open-face font. A vertical dividing line of small type identifies the publisher. The right half of the card has a space for the stamp and five lines for the address. The left half carries a small caption at the bottom identifying the source of the image on the front.
Postcards are laid out on a table, with one selected for writing.
    “It is fantastic – my personal fave book of the year. I just love it. ”
    Nick Smith, E&T Magazine
    “Exciting imagery from the golden age of American trains.”
    Carmen Martínez-López, Chartered Society of Designers
    “A visual tribute to the heyday of railroad graphics and design.”
    The Ephemera Society
    “Reminders of lavish, optimistic, world-beating long-distance trains from another, pre-Amtrak age.”
    Tim Dunn, presenter of The Architecture the Railways Built
    “How graphic design was used to paint the US as both an industrial powerhouse and the home of adventure. ”
    Megan Williams, Creative Review
    “Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey are to be congratulated for assembling such a rich collection of images with a strong narrative that captures the spirit of an age and its boundless confidence.”
    Norman Foster
    “Wonderfully written with beautiful prints and photographs.”
    Memphis Cromwell, Amazon customer

    Rolling Along Bundle

    Train Lover’s Book and Retro Postcards

    By Ian Logan & Jonathan Glancey, Foreword by Norman Foster

    £28.00

    Get rolling along with a copy of Ian Logan’s Logomotive and a pack of retro postcards. We’ve taken 20% off the price of the book, reducing it to £28 (£35.00), and thrown in five postcards worth £5.50, giving you a saving of £12.50. Keep the past alive this Christmas with the Rolling Along bundle.

    Free delivery on orders over £20
    Dispatched next day with Royal Mail 2nd Class
    Details
    • Book Specifications:
    • RRP: £35.00
    • Format: 187 mm x 264 mm (7 2/5 x 10 2/5 in) landscape
    • Pages: 272
    • Weight: 1.3 kg (2 lb 14 oz)
    • Pictures: 400 in colour
    • Binding: Hardcover no jacket
    • ISBN: 978-1-873329-50-4
    • Publication: December 2020
    •  
    • Postcard Specifications:
    • RRP: £5.50 (free with bundle)
    • Format: 106 mm x 142 mm (4 1/5 x 5 3/5 in )landscape
    • Paper: 320 gsm Omnia Natural
    • Weight: 31.25 g (1 oz)
    • ISBN: 978-1-873329-66-5
    • Publication: October 2022
    Description

    Boxcars roll across Salinas Valley at 5.30 a.m. on Christmas Day, 1972.

    How many people would be out photographing trains at 5.30 a.m. on Christmas Day? It takes an enthusiast to bring a subject alive. And this is very much alive. In between designing fabrics for Mary Quant and Jeff Banks, the indefatigable Ian Logan travelled across America, wandering into freight yards to record the Route of the Eagles, the Rebel Route, the Speedway to America’s Playground and more.

    He has turned his passion for trains and logos into this celebratory book Logomotive, filled with the spoils of his journeys, and turned some of his favourite Kodachrome slides into postcards that bring alive those days.

    For further details of the book, go to Logomotive, Railroad Graphics and the American Dream.

    To see more of the cards, go to Vintage Railroad Postcards.

    Contents

    FOREWORD BY NORMAN FOSTER

    PREFACE: Ian Logan on his love for US railroads

    CHAPTER 1: CONQUERING THE CONTINENT
    How railroads reached all corners of the continent; transcontinental lines; infrastructure and rolling stock.
    Setting a Style
    Overland Brands
    Spirit of the Union
    Romance of the Southwest
    Mountain Mascot
    A Mighty Good Road
    Across the Divide
    Southern Blues
    Multiple Identities

    CHAPTER 2: A SENSE OF PLACE
    Regional and local networks, and how they ran across one another’s lines.
    Pride in Their Roots
    Maritime and Coastal
    Chicago and the Lakes
    Southern Connections
    Commuter Lines

    CHAPTER 3: ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES
    The city as railroad hub: stations, freight yards and transfers.
    Architectural Logos
    Station Design
    Romanesque Revival
    New Deal Deco
    Spanish Mission Style
    Carrying the Message

    CHAPTER 4: SELLING THE DREAM
    How the railroads built customer loyalty through advertising campaigns, slogans, nicknames and branding.
    The Soft Sell
    Nicknames
    Slogans
    Native American Imagery
    Logo Evolution
    Union Pacific
    New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads
    The On-Board Experience

    CHAPTER 5: STREAMLINE STYLE
    The influence of European Modernism and sleek Art Deco styling; innovative railroad design from the 1930s to 1950s.
    Shooting Stars
    Eagles
    Zephyrs
    Hiawathas
    The Aerotrain
    Interiors
    Art Deco Typography
    On the Road

    CHAPTER 6: PHOENIX ARISING
    The switch from steam to diesel in the mid-20th century; the decline of passenger travel leading to amalgamations and Amtrak-operated services in the 1970s; the revival of restored steam locomotives on scenic routes.
    Rust to Rust
    Romance Revived
    Heritage Line Logos
    New Identities
    Logo Revolution
    New Haven
    Canadian National
    I Love G&W
    Business Attire
    Flying the Flag

    FRONT-WINDOW VIEW
    A Journey with Ian Logan on the Union Pacific
    Railroad Patches

    A RAILROAD GLOSSARY

    RAILROAD NAMES, ABBREVIATIONS AND NICKNAMES

    SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    PICTURE CREDITS

    INDEX

    Authors

    In this colour photo, a smiling Ian Logan sports a Biro in the pocket of his blue open-neck shirt.Ian Logan was at the centre of the design revolution that marked the end of post-war austerity. He studied at the Central School of Art and Design in London (now Central St. Martin’s), and won a scholarship to the Konstfack, Stockholm’s University of Arts, Crafts and Design. In the early 1960s he joined JRM Design, a fabric print company set up by a group of Central graduates in an almost derelict building in London’s East End. Ian and his partners produced prints for up-and-coming fashion designers such as Mary Quant and Jeff Banks, and designed a tin tray with a Middle Eastern-inspired motif that became enormously successful, first in Carnaby Street and then all over the UK.

    In the mid-1970s he set off in a new direction. Inspired by decorative Victorian tin boxes, he produced a range of tins for Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, Whittard of Chelsea and the National Trust. Commissions came from France, the Netherlands and the United States, for which he developed the Americana range featuring diners, gasoline stations and collectable cars. His money boxes in the form of the iconic red British telephone kiosk became known all over the world.

    In this colour photograph the design critic Jonathan Glancey, co-author of Logomotive: Railroad Graphics and the American Dream with Ian Logan and Norman Foster, smiles at the camera as he sits on a garden bench with a backdrop of trees.

    The journalist, author and broadcaster Jonathan Glancey is a trailblazing commentator on architecture and design, writing about buildings, cars, planes and trains with deep knowledge and infectious enthusiasm. The architecture and design editor of The Guardian from 1997 to 2012, he now reports on those topics for the Daily Telegraph, magazines and websites.

    The architect Norman Foster sits with pencil and sketch book in this black-and-white portrait, courtesy of GA/Yukio Futagawa.

    Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, Kt, OM, RA, is an internationally renowned architect whose buildings include the Hearst Headquarters in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Swiss Re ‘Gherkin’ in London and the Reichstag dome in Berlin. His passion for railways goes back to childhood, when he would watch trains passing his home in Manchester. He has undertaken several major railroad projects, including the Florence High Speed Station in Italy and four stations for the Haramain High Speed Rail in Saudi Arabia.

    Preview

    FOREWORD BY NORMAN FOSTER
    Logomotive touches on so many of my personal interests and in the ways they connect, particularly the age of streamlining, which ushered in the new era of lightweight, stainless steel post-steam expresses like the Burlington Zephyr built by Budd of Philadelphia and Union Pacific M10000. Budd also pressed body panels for the revolutionary Chrysler Airflow automobile of the same period. In promotional photo shoots, the Airflow appears alongside the M10000. Significantly, both are also visually linked to the Art Deco detailing of the New York Chrysler Building – all born in the early 1930s.

    FROM CHAPTER 3: ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES
    An epiphany of clanging bells, chiming whistles, baritone hooters and the percussive ministry of air-brake pumps announced the arrival of generations of trains at railroad stations across the United States. It was as if religious processions were coming to town. And, in a sense, they were. For the American railroad station or depot was, as medieval parish churches had been in Europe, the ritualistic hub around which life turned, especially in remote settlements.

    As trains drew in, stations burst into life. Station wagons, horse powered before 1900, met passengers and their luggage bound for hotels. The station telegraph would be busy with reports on the line ahead and messages to and from passengers and their points of departure. Freight and baggage were manhandled in and out of boxcars and cabooses…

    Station styles

    By 1900, American passengers might find themselves boarding or alighting trains at stations designed in the guise of Romanesque abbey churches, Greek temples, imperial Roman baths, Gothic cathedrals, medieval cloth halls, Italianate palazzi, French chateaux, Black Forest gingerbread houses, Spanish missions and homespun farmsteads. Through this encyclopedia of styles, US railways expressed their values and ambitions. Station design could also be a reflection of local architectural character. Daniel Burnham’s mighty Union Station in Washington DC, opened in 1907, is an equal match for the Neoclassical civic temples and monuments lining the city’s Mall.

    Classical allusions

    For many Americans, the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome embodied republican and democratic virtues. Commanding a vista of streets and avenues fanning out from Columbus Circle, Union Station is fronted by a giant reiteration of the Arch of Constantine. Through this Neo-Roman portal as many as 200,000 passengers a day have flocked into the Great Hall behind it, the imperious design of which is based on the Baths of Diocletian. ‘Make no little plans,’ Burnham said. ‘They have no magic to stir men’s blood.’

    FROM CHAPTER 1: CONQUERING THE CONTINENT
    The 1881 Trademark Act made a significant visual impact on US railroads as draughtsmen got to work on new insignia. That same year the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy registered the first railroad trademark, a distinctive rectangle enclosing the legend ‘Burlington Route’ created by Daniel Lord of the pioneering Chicago advertising agency Lord & Thomas. Lord’s logo stayed firmly in place on Burlington Route trains until the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy merged with three other railroads in 1970 to form the Burlington Northern.

    Choose a memorable logo

    Also in 1881 the Union Pacific abandoned its antique-looking mountain elk symbol that might have belonged to any number of western railroads in favour of a distinctive shield design invented by its passenger agent Edward L. Lomax. With a number of subtle changes – among them the adoption of the colours of the US flag in 1888 and Futura-style lettering in the 1940s – this has stayed much the same ever since. Lomax said that it took him a year and a hundred sketches to find the exact right design.

    By 1883, the Pennsylvania Railroad had begun using its famous and long-lived keystone emblem, a visual reference to the state’s nickname The Keystone State. By this time, the Pennsy was not just the largest US railroad, but the world’s biggest corporation. The Baltimore & Ohio offered a white-on-blue image of the dome of the US Capitol entwined with the letters B and O encircled by the legend All Trains Run Via Washington.

    The Santa Fe’s cross-in-a-circle logo, allegedly created in 1880 by J. J. Byrne, the railway’s traffic manager, toying creatively with a pen and a silver dollar, was adopted in 1901, while the Great Northern’s Rocky Mountain goat trademark leapt from the mind of the railroad’s then Vice President W. P. Kenney in 1921. The Great Northern had played a key role in founding the Glacier National Park, where Rocky Mountain goats were a familiar sight. The beaver pelt trademark of the Rock Island – Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad – emerged in adverts in 1900 and had been refined into a well-known and enduring logo within five years.

    Use your trademark

    As early as 1890 Edward O. McCormick, general passenger agent of the Big Four system – the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway formed from a merger of four railroads in 1889 – gave a talk on railway advertising. ‘Have a trade mark and use it,’ he said. ‘Use it every-where . . . put it on your freight cars and plaster it wherever you can. People will unconsciously learn it, and will recognise it wherever it may be.’

    FROM CHAPTER 5: STREAMLINE STYLE
    What these German, British and American trains had in common, whether steam or diesel, was a fresh look that manifested itself in bright new colour schemes, the latest in exterior styling and interior design, up-to-the-minute graphics, badges and logos, underpinned by decidedly modern advertising and marketing campaigns that helped sear their image into the popular imagination.

    Gods and goddesses

    The Burlington Zephyrs were the product of the research and imaginative skills of the aeronautical engineer Albert Dean, the advanced welding techniques of Edward Budd, the design flair of architects Paul Philippe Cret and John Harbeson and the vision of Burlington’s dynamic president, Ralph Budd. Wanting his streamliners to be the last word in contemporary railroad design, he decided their name had to begin with Z. By chance, Budd had been reading the Canterbury Tales. In the Prologue, Chaucer writes, ‘When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath, Quickened again . . .’ The reference to the god of the west wind settled the matter. Racing with or against the west wind, the first two Burlington streamliners were known as the Train of the Gods and the Train of the Goddesses. Their passenger cars were named after the Roman deities Apollo, Jupiter, Mars, Ceres, Diana, and Venus, evoking notions of beauty, power, authority and speed.

    Luxury, speed and glamour

    Until General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division got into its stride in the late 1930s, however, diesel could not produce anything approaching the horsepower of a big steam engine, restricting the number of cars that could be pulled and the on-board facilities provided. So the new streamline style was applied to the older technology, and it was a generation of mighty steam locomotives, modelled on sleek, wind-cheating lines, that powered the most glamorous streamliners. These included the Pennsylvania’s Broadway Limited, the Hiawathas of the Milwaukee Road, and the Southern Pacific’s Coast Daylight.

    The brightest star of all was surely the 1938 edition of the New York Central’s 20th Century Limited. A seamless fusion of the highest-quality engineering, design and styling, this lengthy and magnificently equipped two-tone grey streamliner was ‘cleanlined’ by the celebrated industrial artist Henry Dreyfuss from the striking Trojan Helmet nose cone of Paul Kiefer’s imperious Class J3a Hudson steam locomotives to every last detail of the cars. Lettering, logo, livery. Cutlery, napery, crockery. Cocktail glasses, matchboxes, concealed lighting and refined décor. In terms of design, no train has bettered this mile-a-minute overnight New York–Chicago express.