Awesome Locomotive Album and Music Offers

Union Pacific is America’s most popular railroad. The first to create a transcontinental railroad link in 1869 in conjunction with the Central Pacific, UP was also the first U.S. railroad to create a modern streamlined passenger train. Sleek, quiet, powerful, and fast, the lightweight streamliner set a new standard for luxury on the rails.  This authoritative, illustrated history follows up streamliners from 1934 with the launch of the City of Salina right up to Union Pacific’s ceding of passenger service to Amtrak in 1971. 

Award-winning rail author Joe Welsh examines the fleet of “City” trains that followed the Salina, all connecting Chicago to their namesakes with revolutionary equipment and diesel motive power on breakneck schedules. In addition to detailed looks at the trains, readers are treated to their various forms of motive power and rolling stock, and their unparalleled services. Dozens of black-and-white images and period color photos depict the City of Portland, City of Denver, City of Los Angeles, City of San Francisco, and City of St. Louis along, with period ads and route maps to complete the picture.  Images also detail the opulent furnishings and impeccable service that distinguished America’s premier passenger line--from uniforms and dinnerware to the most exotic lounge cars ever built.

The period from the 1890s to the mid-1950s is generally considered the “golden era” of passenger rail travel in America.  It was a time of celebrated locomotives and luxurious passenger service, a time when rail technology saw its greatest advances and railroads became the nation’s favored mode of transportation.   These glory years come alive in American Passenger Trains and Locomotives Illustrated, 1889–1971.  For this volume, author and illustrator Mark Wegman has researched original railroad drawings and in some cases even paint chips to render more than 160 profiles, front and top views, and interior layouts depicting the steam, diesel, and electric locomotives, along with passenger cars, of three dozen of the nation’s most celebrated trains of the golden age.  Accompanying the author’s drawings are histories of each train, period photographs, postcards, menus, luggage stickers, vintage print ads, and detailed captions.  The book is a lavishly appointed journey back in time to the bygone heyday of passenger-train travel.