Classic Railroad Advertising [Hardcover]

Tad Burness (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2001

The excitement of train travel comes to life in ads featuring scenic panoramas, well-dressed passengers lounging in luxurious surroundings, and powerful locomotives pulling long strings of streamlined cars. Features 224 full-color pages as well as historical notes on America's most famous passenger trains and railroads.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Krause Publications (August 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873492749
• ISBN-13: 978-0873492744
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,894,351 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #74 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Antiques & Collectibles > Advertising

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Railroading on the 20th Century Limited, January 26, 2002

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Classic Railroad Advertising (Hardcover)

An interesting book of over two hundred passenger train ads that appeared in mass-market magazines. Each one fills a page with an informative caption. None of them would have won any design awards, mostly they follow the predictable format of illustration, headline, text and small pictures and as these are train ads, the little route map.

However, within this predictable (and sucessful) format you will see some great artwork, page 17 shows a 1945 American Locomotives ad with a stunning painting of a railroad yard with five streamliners, pages 52-53 has two Leslie Ragan paintings for the Budd Company. The Shell ad on page 186 looks like it was straight out of something painted by Bruce McCall (it wasn't) and there are thirteen pages of great New York Central ads that all feature cut-away illustrations.

As well as great art don't forget the copy. I'm pleased to see included the New Haven RR's 'The Kid In Upper 4' one of the most famous ads of the war years, read it and appreciate copywriting at its creative best. I never knew what the term 'highball' meant until I read the copy in the Pennsylvania RR ad on page 169-169.

I would have given this book five stars but like so many pictorial books the publishers have not taken the presentation seriously enough. Here the none of the ads have a definable edge, they just float in the white space on each page, easily solved by running a very thin black line round the ads original size or better still use a grey vignette drop shadow behind them. The typography of the title, contents, index pages etc is very bland and unimaginative. There are five ads that run across spreads but they don't, each has a thick white margin either side of the middle of the book, doing this is as bad as not correcting typos.

If you like railroad advertisments have a look at 'All-American Ads 40's' by Jim Heimann, a massive 764 page book that has (in color) thirty five of them in the chapter on travel.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Time Travel, July 1, 2002

By 

Alfonso Llana (Colombia, SouthAmerica) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Classic Railroad Advertising (Hardcover)

What a beautiful book! Hardcover and full of the most deliciuous information. Mr. Burness has compiled, from his own collection of original railroad advertising a real time travel to explain us in the words of the railroads themselves (and some related industries-even Lionel), the evolution, successes and problems of American rail industry. The ads are sorted in alphabetical order by company name. From the 20's and 30's going through that heroic period of WW II and the postwar years and coming to Amtrak, you will witness the introduction of dome cars, the new trains like the California Zephyr, new technical achivements and so on. Reading this book you will feel the fallen flags so alive that is difficult to realize that most of them disappeared 30 or 40 years ago.

And it is not only the trains. Reading these ads you will be back in time in the United States of yesterday. The problems, the people and their fashions, etc. You will really enjoy this book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Railroad Art and Print Advertising, September 25, 2001

By 

Gary Gelzer "GNC Railway Supt." (Goodyear, AZ, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Classic Railroad Advertising (Hardcover)

This is a fascinating book for those interested in the transition era of railroading and the advertising that was created in this era. The book is a collection of nearly 200 classic print advertisment that appeared in magazines during the 1940's, 50's and 60's. The ads range from railroad specific ads, with extensive coverage of the Union Pacific, Pennsylvania, New York Central and Great Northern railroads. Most other major railroads are represented with some pages in the book. In addition to railraod specific ads, this book has lots of ads from the manaufacturers of railroad equipmemt, including EMD and Pullman, along with others.
If you are interested in railroad art, or are interested in the transition era of the railroads, this is a book for you. This book is a quality publication and the reproduction effort is quite good. This book is a welcome part of my library and covers a neglected area of railroad history.