Railroads featured in this edition include:
≈ Southern Pacific Cab Ahead
In 1909, the Baldwin Locomotive Works designed a locomotive with the entire boiler, cab and all, turned around. Over a period of 35 years, Southern Pacific put 293 oil-burning, cab-forwards into service. This painting pictures locomotive 4165, a Class AC-7 (4-8-8-2) leading a freight in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern OR, probably in about 1950.
≈ Rotary OY Working at Los Pinos
Denver and Rio Grande Western Rotary Snowplow OY is plowing moderate snow just west of the water tank at Los Pinos, CO in January 1959. Rio Grande 487 and 483 are working the plow west. OY would have been called out at Alamosa the day before and prepared for the trip.
≈ Lizard Head Pass
Rio Grande Southern 461, a Class K-27 Mikado (2-8-2) has arrived at the summit of Lizard Head Pass, CO with a southbound freight. Another K-27,
Denver and Rio Grande Western 463, was a rear end helper. It was cut in ahead of the caboose, and is now running around the train and will proceed on to Rico, CO light.
≈ ALCO 2000
Likely an Alco FA set, probably in the 1940s. The only location even similar is Crozier Canyon near Valentine, AZ.
≈ The Suntan Special
With Monterrey Bay in the background, Southern Pacific 3224, a Mikado type MK-4 (2-8-2) built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1913 and 2371, a Class T-40 Ten Wheeler, assembled in 1928 and the largest one ever built, are leading a long southbound passenger train on its way to Santa Cruz, CA and a day at the beach. Originating at San Jose, CA, and later at Oakland, this train sometimes ran in three or four sections to accommodate all the passengers it attracted.
≈ Northern Steam
A Santa Fe 2900 Class Northern (4-8-4). There were thirty of these engines, numbered from 2900 through 2929, all “war babies” built in 1943 and 1944 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works.
≈ A Wheat Country Memory
Rock Island 5104, a Class R-67 Northern (4-8-4) one of ten engines built by the American Locomotive Company in 1944, is leading a westbound freight across a virtual sea of wheat heading out of a storm in western Kansas during the late summer of 1945.
≈ Rio Grande K-36’s
Denver and Rio Grande Western 481 and 483 are on a narrow-gauge freight in an imagined scene, showing a backdrop more like Marshall Pass, CO than anywhere else. Both locomotives are Class K-36 Mikados (2-8-2’s) built and delivered by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1925, a class of ten of them.
≈ Milwaukee Road Branch Line Power
The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad had its share of branch lines, so in 1946, they went to American Locomotive Works for a road switcher that could operate over track and bridges that could not support a heavy locomotive. Alco offered the RSC-2. The locomotive used an A1A-A1A wheel arrangement with two six-wheel trucks that spread the load more evenly over the track. Milwaukee purchased 22 of the 91 copies of this locomotive produced. This image shows 976 rumbling over a small girder bridge.
≈ The Broadway Limited
In a scene reminiscent of the late 1940s, Train #29, the westbound Broadway Limited with double-headed K-4s Pacifics (4-6-2) led by 5471, is running along at 60-miles-per-hour. At this time, the Broadway was the hottest train on the Pennsylvania Railroad. 8797, a Class H-9s Consolidation, working a local freight, has cleared the main line and waits in a siding as the passenger train roars past.
≈ Lima Superpower at its Best
The fall colors are at their best in Ohio, as two trains with Lima Locomotive Works power meet at Fostoria in 1944. There is a war going on, and both trains are moving coal. Chesapeake and Ohio Class H-8 Allegheny (2-6-6-6) 1659, one of a class of 60 locomotives built by the Lima Locomotive Works during and right after World War Two, is seen here with a loaded westbound coal train meeting 3059, one of 40 Class T-1 Texas Type (2- 10-4) engines built for the C & O in 1930, leading an eastbound empty coal hopper train in the fall of 1949.
≈ Christmas on the Monon
Howard Fogg completed a series of watercolor paintings for John Barriger, who was president of the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railroad,
also known as the Monon, from 1946 until 1952. Engine 27, one of eight 1,500 horsepower Alco RS-2’s, is holding a siding while the Hoosier Limited runs past. Mr. Barriger left the Monon: he went on to the New Haven Railroad as its president.
About Howard Fogg
Howard Lockhart Fogg, Jr. was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 7, 1917. He came from a family that was interested in trains and at least some of his interest in drawing and painting pictures of trains may be attributed to his grandfather, who was a draftsman for the Boston and Maine Railroad. The Fogg family moved to a suburb of Chicago in 1923, where Fogg senior worked for the Litchfield & Madison Railroad.
In time, Howard followed his father and attended Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he studied English literature, created cartoons for the college paper, painted trains, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1938. That fall he enrolled at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts with the intention of working as a cartoonist. After graduation, several uneventful jobs followed, including work as an apprentice engineer at the Baldwin Locomotive erecting shop until 1941, when Fogg was drafted into the army. The attack on Pearl Harbor prompted Fogg to transfer to the Army Air Corps where he trained as a pilot and received his commission and wings in 1942. Stationed in England, Fogg flew 76 missions escorting heavy bombers, many over Germany, and as a result, he was awarded the Air Medal with three clusters and the Distinguished Flying Cross with one cluster. Howard was discharged from the army as a captain in 1945, certain only that he wanted to be a railroad artist.
In 1946, Fogg was fortunate to meet with Duncan Fraser, the president of American Locomotive Co. (ALCO) in New York. Impressed by Fogg’s work, Fraser hired the young artist to paint locomotives in the color schemes of the railroads that were receiving new engines. His work for ALCO brought Fogg into contact with Lucius Beebe, an author who began commissioning and reproducing Fogg paintings in a variety of railroading books. Fogg also met John Walker Barriger III, an expert in rescuing struggling rail lines. As Barriger moved from line to line, he commissioned Fogg paintings to help promote each railroad. Fogg’s reputation as a painter began to grow.
In 1943, Fogg had married his college sweetheart, Margot Dethier, and the couple was able to buy their first house in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, in 1947. The Foggs had friends in Colorado and, after visiting for several summers, they moved to Boulder in 1955. Fogg set up his studio there and continued to work for ALCO, although his long-term agreement with the company ended in 1957. Thereafter, Fogg worked as a freelance painter. As his reputation grew, Fogg found that his paintings
were in such demand that he had a backlog of orders that would require several years to fulfill.
During the course of his long career as an artist, Howard Fogg completed more than 1,200 paintings, most in watercolor, although some 200 were in oil. As a young artist, he once completed 45 watercolors in one year. As a freelance painter, he often needed about two weeks to complete one work, while late in his career each painting took about six weeks to complete.
© 2024 Tide-mark Press
