The Spring 2014 issue begins with a cover feature on Blair Kooistra, a railroad photographer who is currently a BNSF Railway dispatcher and previously worked for twenty years in newspaper photojournalism. His work focuses on the American West from the 1970s to the present. Kevin P. Keefe, Center board member and vice president of publishing at Kalmbach Publishing Company, introduces the railroad art of George Gloff, who many know as a former art director of Trains magazine but who was also a talented painter of railroads. There is also an overview of railroad imagery in musical theater by Aviva Gellman, intern for the Center and a junior majoring in political science and theater at the University of Minnesota. You will also find information about the 2014 Conversations about Photography conference, the opening and the catalog for Railroaders: Jack Delano’s Homefront Photography exhibition at the Chicago History Museum, and the list of our 2013 donors.

$7.95, 28 pages, color and b/w

Profile of world-traveling steam photographer Victor Hand, a presenter at the 2014 Conversations about Photography conference. Hand pioneered international travel and steam photography among American rail enthusiasts. Stunning imagery from the winners of the 2013 John E. Gruber Photography Awards Program, including a two-page spread of Ronald Olsen’s jaw-dropping view from a Chinese steel mill. The tales of two Indiana Harbor Belt freight train crews of the 1940s, photographed by Jack Delano and researched extensively by the Center staff for the Railroaders: Jack Delano’s Homefront Photography exhibition at the Chicago History Museum. Learn how one crew found camaraderie through shared experiences while another struggled through great disparity yet still managed to move freight across Chicago’s tangle of railroads during the record-breaking traffic levels of World War II.

$7.95, 24 pages, color and b/w

Expanded, 36-page issue featuring an in-depth look at current trends among railroad artists by Alexander Craghead. The article includes interviews with and sample work from twenty-three artists as well as analysis and context from arts editors and museum curators. Center member Richard “Dick” Neumiller shares a gallery of historic and colorful photographs depicting Kansas City’s railroads in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, in conjunction with the 2013 annual meeting of the Lexington Group in Transportation History, hosted by the Kansas City Southern Railway. Read John Gruber’s story of Frank Williams, an African-American from Mississippi who came north to become a freight car repairman for Illinois Central in Chicago and the patriarch of a large and successful Chicago family. He is one of the fifty portrait subjects featured in the Center’s exhibition of Jack Delano’s World War II railroad photographs at the Chicago History Museum.

$9.95, 36 pages, color and b/w

In-depth look at the steam locomotive in American culture, from the country’s first railroads to the present day, with a focus on nineteenth and early twentieth century paintings. The article also includes photographs by Joel Jensen and David Plowden. Read the story of John Walter, a Chicago & North Western conductor in businessman’s clothes, who invested well and retired to Wisconsin after a long career on the C&NW working out of Proviso Yard, just west of Chicago. He is one of the fifty portrait subjects featured in the Center’s exhibition of Jack Delano’s World War II railroad photographs at the Chicago History Museum. There is also a recap of the wildly-successfull Conversations about Photography 2013 and a book review of Glenn P. Willumson’s Iron Muse by Kevin Keefe, a Center board member and editorial vice president of Kalmbach Publishing.

$7.95, 28 pages, color and b/w