Travel by Train: The American Railroad Poster 1870-1950

This is a very nicely produced book from Amazon and does indeed contain a wide range of Poster material. However I was a little bit suprised by some of the samples that are included but more suprised by that has not been included. An obvious gap is the very small amount of Sante Fe, Union Pacific and Canadian Pacific work that has been included. These I think were probably amongst the most prolific producers of advertising materiels.Nevertheless it is a fine overview of the genre and should be on your bookshelf if you are a poster fan or are into North American Railroads.I lived over there for many years and no there are not hoards of Railway travel posters on every station. Not many places to stick them for a start. Mostly magazines and the like.

Poster books about US railroads are rare and this work is the definitive guide so far. It may be a few years old but it is full of good research and is well written, support by excellent reproductions of the posters and photographs. For those interested in commercial art it has a deserved place in anybody's library.

Cet imposant ouvrage de 140 pages présente la production des affiches des compagnies ferroviaires américaines de 1890 jusqu'aux années 30. Un texte abondant replace les "posters" (terme utilisé en anglais-américain pour désigner ces affiches) dans le contexte historique mais laisse également une place importante aux peintres et graphistes qui les ont créé.Si vous êtes nostalgiques de l'époque des grand trains ou bien un graphiste en quête d'inspiration, ce livre est pour vous !

Well written, well assembled, beautiful reproductions of the posters. I bought it for the Leslie Ragan images (there are more than a dozen!) but discovered much more. I appreciated that no picture takes up more than a page (it's always distracting when pictures get spread across two pages). In the writing, I would have preferred more about some of the actual trains and less about advertising history. But the writing is informative and clear.

I love trains, and I was born just a little too late to have enjoyed the last great decade of train travel (I was 15 when Amtrak was formed).So it's great to live that era vicariously through books like this. The presentation of the posters is top-notch, as are the bios of the artists and the descriptions of the processes by which certain posters were created. Not a complete documentation, but a vital part of any railroad library.