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This colour image shows five railway-themed postcards on a green background arranged in a fan from top right to bottom left.
In a colour photograph from 1960, the F3A locomotive 883A painted Gulf Mobile & Ohio brown leads the commuter train between Chicago and Joliet that was widely known as The Plug.
In this colour photograph taken by the railfan designer Ian Logan in the 1980s, the Santa Fe GP30 locomotive 8742 belches its way through Holbrook, Arizona, at the head of a freight train, the company’s circle-and-cross logo elongated to adorn the nose and its livery instantly identifiable by the characteristic combination of dark blue and yellow.
In this colour photograph taken by the railfan designer Ian Logan, the number 942 is painted in red with a fine black border in a bold sans serif type on the rich Armour Yellow bodywork of a Union Pacific locomotive.
In this studio photograph shot in colour, American railroad timetables from the 1930s to the 1960s record the bold logos of the Western Pacific, Rock Island, Missouri Pacific, Wabash, New York Central, Lackawanna Railroad, Chesapeake & Ohio Lines, Great Northern Railway and Texas & Pacific Railway.
In this colour photograph taken in St Louis in 1972 by the railfan designer Ian Logan, the interior of an observation car built by Pullman for the Kansas City Southern Railway’s Southern Belle is warmed by subdued lighting, furnished with chromed-steel and leather armchairs, hung with curtains and Venetian blinds and embellished with engraved glass panels.
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.
“Pays homage to the graphics and images that projected the American railroads as the epitome of speed and adventure in the mid-20th century.”
Illustration Magazine

Vintage Railroad Postcards Streamline Style (Pack of 5)

By Ian Logan

£5.50

Revel in the glamour of the American streamline age with these retro railroading postcards. This pack includes locos, logos, stations and carriages of the go-faster era. These cards use images from the collection of the author and designer, Ian Logan.

13 in stock

Free delivery on orders over £20
Dispatched next day with Royal Mail 2nd Class
Details
  • RRP: £5.50 (incl. VAT)
  • Format: 106 mm x 142 mm landscape
  • Paper: 320 gsm Omnia Natural
  • Weight: 31.25 g
  • ISBN: 978 1 8733 2968 9
  • Publication: October 2022
  • Delivery
  • UK: 75p
  • International: £1.55
Description

Ian Logan’s passion for vintage railroad graphics was rooted in a Fifties and Sixties childhood attuned to the sounds of folk, skiffle and blues. Hearing Lonnie Donegan’s hit ‘Rock Island Line’ on the radio in 1961 inspired Ian to pack up and go to America to see the names, the places and the trains for himself.

He has selected the images on these postcards from his collection of Kodachrome slides and printed ephemera, built up over a lifetime of journeys across America. You can now join him on a time traveller’s overland train trip back in time to the speed and glamour of the streamline era.

Contents

Sans Serif Type on Union Pacific Locomotive, 2016

American Railroad Timetables, 1930s-1960s

Santa Fe GP30 Locomotive 8742 passing Holbrook Station, Arizona, 1980s

Kansas City Southern Observation Car, Southern Belle, St Louis, 1972

Gulf Mobile & Ohio F3A Locomotive 883A, the Plug, Illinois, 1960

Author

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.

Mad on Americana

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 obsession with Americana has inspired a book too. Logomotive is a tribute to the design and marketing of the American railroads of the mid-century, full to bursting with pictures and ephemera from Ian’s collection.

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