Railroad Logos & Branding

Ian Paget: Together, you guys have created a book that I happen to have in my hand right now, Logomotive, and that's a book about railroad graphics and the American dream. And rather than just posting a picture on social media to help promote it, I thought I'd invite you both on and to have a chat about railway logos and branding, which is definitely on topic for this podcast. So I think as a starting point for listeners, can you each briefly introduce yourself to the audience?

Ian Logan: Yes, shall I go first?

Ian Paget: Yeah, go for it.

Ian Logan: I'm Ian Logan. I was, oh, originally I trained as an engineer at Westinghouse brake and signal company in Chippenham as an apprentice. And then I went to art school, and I ended up at the Central School in London doing textile design. I ended up by doing graphic design, which made me very interested in things like logos and graphics, and type faces and things like that.

Ian Paget: It's going to be interesting that you come into this with a graphic design background, so I'm looking forward to chatting. Jonathan, do you want to introduce yourself as well?

Jonathan Glancey: I'm Jonathan Glancey. I'm a journalist, author, and I began my career with the Architecture Review magazine. And then I went on to work on the staff of the Independent and Guardian newspapers. And today I mostly write my books.

Ian Paget: So, you both have really quite different backgrounds. Is there a story behind this book and how you both ended up working together on it?

Ian Logan: Yes. I originally did this book for a company called Matthews Miller Dunbar. It was a tiny book, they did a series based on the English Sunrise. And I had gone to America for the first time in 1968, and was with a friend, and we ended up at a little industrial town north of New York. We were sitting in a bar chatting to people. It was a very rundown town, and I heard this locomotive horn going, and I went out of the bar and the railroad track was next to the bar. And this train came by, it was an F or E type General Motors engine, with six foot lettering on the side saying Rock Island. And then the carriages started going by, all the box cars with logos that I just could not believe. And I was totally taken by it, and came back to England and decided that I should try and go back and do some research, and do a book on it.

And it was the time when Matthews Miller Dunbar were doing these English Sunrise books. And they were very excited by it and said, "Well, if you can go and do it, we'll publish a little book." I then went back to America in the early seventies, and started, I really didn't do a lot of research. I didn't really know how to do it. I did it on the hoof really. But I started in New York, and wandering around freight yards just taking photographs. And it was a time before graffiti, so the box cars were fairly clean, except for the dirt of traveling. And I then phoned, I thought, I ought to go across country.

And I telephoned Union Pacific, I'd seen a Union Pacific freight car, and they said that if I was doing a book and I wanted to travel across, I could go across in the cab with an engineer, but I had to get to Chicago. So really, it was all built on that. And I hadn't really any idea of how many different logos there were in America on the railroads. And I just went from town to town, walking in freight yards, photographing box cars and engines when they had nice logos, and that's really how it started.

And then about, I suppose 10 years ago, I was looking it again. It was never a good book, it wasn't printed very well. And I started looking at all my transferences, and was thinking this is nearly 50 years ago ,and they've all gone, all the things that I photographed have gone. So, I started thinking about doing another book, and that's how it started. And I found a publisher who was very interested, called Sheldrake Press. And then at one point I said, look, there's no way I can write this, because it needed to be written. And I remembered Jonathan from coming into a little design shop that I had in the city in London. And I said, well, what about Jonathan Glancey? He's got to be the best one for the book. And very kindly Jonathan said, "Yes, please. I'll do it." So, that's how it became.

Ian Paget: I really love this. I think it's really inspiring, because it sounds like as a young guy, you found things that really inspired you. And I think even today, a lot of this stuff still inspires graphic designers around the world, but to see something that you really love and just to go out there, it kind of sounds like you just went traveling America.

Ian Logan: Well, I was there for about five or six weeks just traveling around. But the thing that really started me, of course, was the 1950s and the Rock Island Line with Lonnie Donegan. I hadn't realised that the Rock Island Line song related to a real railroad. So when I saw it, I was even more excited. And then I realised that every single railroad in America has a song.

Ian Paget: Oh, really?

Ian Logan: Oh, everyone of them has a song or even two songs. And even today, pop groups, you'll find a line in a song will relate to a railroad. The Band I think did one, and it relates to, "Catch a Cannonball, take me down the line," which is the Wabash Cannonball. They still sing about the railroads, there is a phenomenal romance in America about the railroads, even though it's crippled.

Ian Paget: Oh yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of deep history in it, in culture in general. And yeah, I just think it sounds really exciting that you went out there, you started taking photos, you kept it all and here today, you've been able to pull all of that out and to be able to share that forgotten history, and put that into a book, and to share all of the stories behind everything you saw at that time. So, I've been going through the book. I will openly admit I haven't read through the whole thing back to back, but it's really nice to be able to go through and see all of the different logos, images, branding and so on, around the American railway logos. It's amazing to see.

Ian Logan: Well, and also one of my great things was that most of them, they're not designed by designers. They're designed by people like ticket agents and railroad engineers, which is why they have that wonderful gutsy feeling to them. Also somebody of my age, and Jonathan will agree because Jonathan has the same enthusiasm as me about it, there's a phenomenal romanticism about America for the names. The Wabash Cannonball, what a name for a train? Wonderful. The California Zephyr, they're just wonderful names. I remember being in the cab of the engine and the engineer said, I said, "What's going on in the distance there. I can see cowboys on horseback." And he said, "Well, it's a cow town. It's Cheyenne." And I thought, Christ, I'm in a forties film. And then he looked at me and said, "Do you want to pull the horn?" Well, I thought I'd gone to heaven.

Ian Paget: I really love this. I can can really tell that you are really passionate about this, you were when you first started taking those photos and you still are today.

Ian Logan: Yeah, absolutely.

Ian Paget: It's nice to hear. I find it really interesting that you mentioned that a lot of these logos wasn't done by graphic designers or logo designers. But when you look through the, collectively there is this shared aesthetic, there's this overall aesthetic. I think it would be interesting to talk about that, because you've researched this, you've gone through this. So, how have you feel it's changed over the years, these train logos? Because the early one that you mentioned, that just looked like stencilled letters. But then some of the ones in the book are very illustrative, very detailed, there seems to be a lot going on, but it still has some look and feel to it that feels consistent with the others. Are you able to talk about that at all? How it's evolved, and any of the styles of the logos at all?

Ian Logan: Well, I think the Rock Island, for instance, it's a beaver pelt. Now, I don't know why they chose a beaver pelt, but obviously it relates to where the train goes or where the line goes. And I think that the whole thing about that, is it's simple, it's right to the point, the guy who did it loved the idea that that's where it came from. Go to the back of the book, I think you'll find there's a new logo which has been done called The Rock, which is the Rock Island. And it's totally corporate, and for me, it hasn't got that subtlety and that basic thing about... The passion of the early one. The new one is just, for me, it's just corporate. Which most modern logos are, I think.

Ian Paget: Yeah, it is interesting with logos how they have changed over the years, you can see that within the whole corporate industry. And I think a big part of that is that the logos are much more versatile, so they can have that large on the side of the train, but then also if they're using it within any of their marketing material or anything else, they can use that smaller. So I do understand why it's gone in that way, but yeah, I do agree with you, it's lost its character.

Ian Logan: Most modern designers who are designing big logos will have a total room full of strategy, to convince the client that that's what it should be. There are good logos, of course there are nowadays, but there are ones that have lasted forever, like I suppose Coca-Cola, certainly General Electric which was designed in the 1890s, and is based on a fan. Although I do know that it was modified in 2004 by Wolff Olins. I don't know what they did actually, because if you look at it, it's no different except it's just blue.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Do you think that that change in how they look is because graphic designers started creating the logos, rather than what you said earlier with it being the engineers, and basically the people that you wouldn't want designing a logo?

Ian Logan: Well, I also have a fascination with airplanes. And the logos on aircraft manufacturers are mostly designed by engineers, who will emboss them into the pedals in an airplane, or on the side of an airplane or something. And I don't know what it is. There's a spontaneity about them that has not gone through a committee of 15 people. That's what I like about it.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Well, you can see that in a lot of older general logo designs, that it just doesn't go through the process it does now. And it's interesting really, that we think that it's lost a lot of that charm that it has, that's appealing to the point where I look through that book and I like looking at them, even though they don't follow the expected characteristics or trait of what you redeem as a successful logo.

Ian Logan: Absolutely, absolutely.

Ian Paget: I'm curious to ask if, so you've got this whole collection of all these images from over the years. It is now all collected into one book, is there a favorite piece that's really stuck with you for whatever reason?

Ian Logan: Well, I've collected things like... Anything, I've been back to America probably every year I go, and I scour antique shops where you can find timetables, book matches, all sorts of things related to the railroads, but they are becoming incredible collectors pieces now. I remember when I was with my partner, Gail, we went to South Dakota and I said on the way back, we were driving, that, "I've got to go to Rock Island," and in fact, Rock Island's horrible. Where was my romance about Rock Island being a wonderful small town, with a lovely engine sitting there? Nothing, except the broken down building with a beautiful enamel plate on the side, saying Rock Island with the logo. I wish I'd taken it.

Ian Paget: Yeah, I can imagine that you probably would want to collect that. I think anything to do with trains, there's a lot of collectors out there, and it's not just graphic designers. There's a lot of people that would be interested in this book, that are really enthusiastic about trains. I know it's one of those things.

Ian Logan: It's not just trains, it's the whole feeling. Jonathan will talk about the architecture, the architecture's sensational of that period. They were amazingly proud people, and very rich, the owners of the railroad companies, like Henry J. Flagler, who owned the Florida east coast line, and built it. He was in partnership with Rockefeller, an oil man, and took his wife to Florida every year because she suffered from a bad chest. And he sort of said, "Why isn't there a railroad? Why do I have to come down here by a car?" Or something, so he built a railroad. It's those sort of guys.

Ian Paget: Yes, surreal, it's surreal. You mentioned then about the architecture. And I know, I do feel that's a huge part of the overall identity of the rail system. You could share a couple of images, and people know straight away, that's related to trains, or the rail system or something like that.

Ian Logan: I think, just walk into Los Angeles Union Station, your jaw will drop. Or the in New York, the Grand Central Terminal. They are palaces, just incredible.

Ian Paget: Jonathan, I'm keen to let you speak a little bit as well. Is there something that you can add in terms of the architectural aspect?

Jonathan Glancey: I think it's important to remember that before the interstate highways were built in the 1950s and before the inter-city jets, the airliners started criss-crossing the United States, the railroad was the way to travel. At the turn of the 20th century, about 99% of business journeys in the United States were made by train. Very different a hundred years later. And because of that, and what Ian says about the money involved, is prestige, money, adventure, and this glorious sense of place that Ian's also touched on, that railroads got to build architecture. They didn't just follow immediate fashions, they followed styles that reflected where they were. So inevitably in New York, you get the great neoclassical and art deco stations, because New York was the heart and zenith of fashion, architecture, design and so on. But as you roll out West across this enormous country, which remember, is the size of, it's a continent as well as a country, the United States, each State is different and still is.

And as you travel across, you see the styles of architecture changing, and that is wonderful. So, you see Mormon and neo-Mormon architecture, gothic architecture, it's extraordinary. Timber architecture, stone architecture, marble architecture. And one of the things that we both loved, there's a railroad we both love, Ian, which is the Santa Fe, the great Southwestern railroad that would allow you to ride out from Kansas City, out to the Californian coast in immense style. And that pulls the whole story together in some ways, because its logo, which you saw stamped into the buildings in that Union Station in Los Angeles, in trains, benches, anything you can think of, ashtrays, across the railroad system, is one of the best of all railroad logos. The Santa Fe logo, it's a circle with a cross in the centre.

And that was designed, again, as Ian's pointing out, not by a design agency, they didn't exist. It was designed in 1880 by Mr. JJ Burnham, who was a traffic manager of the Santa Fe railroad. And he designed it on a train journey, which makes the story even better, sitting on a train. And he's toying with a silver dollar on his table, with a pen and a piece of paper. He traces around the silver dollar, and thinks, yeah, circle is nice, circles is nice. Then he puts this cross through it, which of course, because he's in the great region where the Spanish came and built their great mission churches, and that cross was very much part of that Spanish Southwest America.

And so that logo, it became the one of the first modern logos. It wasn't adopted until 1901, but it was then used for the next three quarters of a century. And it predated, for example, London Transport's round bullseye by 20 years. And it is supreme, it tells you a story. The sense of place and occasion, and it's modern in a certain way, and historical as well. You just don't get any better.

Ian Paget: It's surreal really, to think that all of this stuff that we're admiring and looking back on is striking enough not just to graphic designers, but to so many people, it's amazing to think that it wasn't by a graphic designer, that it was created by people that were working within the project. And to some extent, that's like a graphic designer's nightmare. We want to be able to have the freedom to do that. But it really adds to the charm. Something I wanted to ask, and I don't know if you know the answer to this. But okay, so that guy, he sketched out whilst on a train journey, would he given that sketch to an illustrator, or an artist or something like that, in order to make it real?

Jonathan Glancey: Yes, he would have given it to someone in house. The railroads in America quite early on, started developing publicity departments. They were very good at that, the Americans of course, marketing and publicity, they got it, advertising. And so they had a lot of people working in house, and that tradition by the way, to the frustration of modern graphic designers, continued right through very late. In the 1950s, some of the best graphic design, most engaging graphic design for example, was by the people working in the publicity departments. Like the Long Island railroad, there was this tremendous desire to make the railroad seem more cheerful than this dreary commuter line from Long Island into New York. And in the mid-fifties, the railroad came up with this lovely idea. They called the line, "The route of the dashing commuter," and they created these cartoon graphics, very entertaining, showing a dashing Dan, this frantic chap, who's running always to catch trains, but turned into a stylized logo.

And, "The route of the dashing commuter," brought the Long Island railroad very much life. But the graphics that came from it were done with three men talking in the advertising department of the railroad. They came up with the ideas, the graphics, the captions. And that shows you, they lasted a long time. And it wasn't really until the railroads started to get closed down or merge, these giant mergers that happened in the seventies, and all Ian's lovely box car logos started to disappear. Those mergers by giant corporations, weren't interested in asking their staff to do things, they went out to the big time advertising agencies and design agencies, and got them to do things.

And for the most part, which is the saddest story, which Ian Logan and I feel strongly about and sad about, is very much for the most part, the logos that emerged from the Amtrak era and the era of these big mergers were bland. If you look at the Amtrak logo, if it was created in 2000, it's just dreadful. It's like these three ink splashes, which look, if you ask people, just try and say, "What is this a logo of?" They would say, "A bank? Insurance company?" What else could they say? If you said, "No, no, it's a railway, a railroad." "Oh, I wouldn't have guessed that," is what I know people have said, because they're meaningless.

And that is the danger of big time corporatism. And also it's that separation, Ian, of the designers from the actual concern itself. So, if you are asked as a professional designer to go and work for a railway company, for example, or a bank, you would do your best to try and engage with them and to understand what they're about. But you'll never be quite right in there, and I think that's where the American railroad guys had that talent to design. It was a terrific period, and it's not just nostalgia on the part of Ian Logan and myself, it's because they were really, really good at it. It's what they lived, breathed and designed, and that's why they're so convincing. And the whole book Logomotive, is in a way a story about the identity of the United States as you travel through it in history, and in space as well.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Something I'm really getting from both of you, is the scale of this really. Because when you consider that the railroad system was the way to travel around, and the sheer wealth, and I'm going to assume going on a train way back would have been like a real luxury, so you'd want it to be such a luxurious, incredible experience. And that's very likely to be the reason why there's so much story, and so much heart and soul gone into a lot of this older stuff.

Jonathan Glancey: Yeah. I think we mustn't have forget, I mean, there's no question that there were great designers brought in from the outside. Really, I think Ian will agree from the 1930s, people like Henry Dreyfus, very successful New York industrial designer brought in by the New York Central, to style the streamlined 20th century limited train, and also to completely revitalise the graphics of the railway, the railroad. And with design down to every minute level, not just graphics and the outward appearance of railway carriages and locomotives, but down to everything you picked up, knives, forks, spoons, packets of matches.

Ian Logan: Sorry, Jonathan. People like Henry Dreyfus were completely all around designers, and he was an engineer as well. And he didn't just design railroad, I mean he designed the Hoover logo.

Jonathan Glancey: Yeah, he was supremely talented. But there are, I think, so as not to sound as if we're negative about more modern graphic designers, we're certainly not. And Ian trained as one of course, but there's some brilliant, but very, very occasional examples of great design. And I'll see what Ian Logan thinks too, but there was Herbert Matter in the mid-fifties, who designed the new logo for the New Haven railroad, which is really good.

Ian Logan: I agree.

Jonathan Glancey: It's a really lovely, great, big powerful M over a great, big powerful H, and stuck on the side of trains it had that kind of... It was modern, but still felt like a great big stencil stamped onto the trains. And that was successful, Ian, wasn't it?

Ian Logan: Yes. Very, very much so. And that really had the essence of the sort of freedom of the old logos, I think.

Jonathan Glancey: Yeah. It felt gutsy and positive. And the other one was, I know it's not specifically United States, but had an influence, was Alan Fleming's designer in the late fifties for Canadian National, that lovely one.

Ian Logan: Yeah. Very good one.

Jonathan Glancey: Really lovely, it has a C that turns into an N, they flow into each other and it looks like a map of a railway really, it's like a railway line. It's so clever, and that had a big influence. So ,there were these brilliant people that were involved.

Ian Logan: Raymond Loewy.

Jonathan Glancey: And Raymond Loewy, another one, one of the first professional designers. He got it, just thrilled by the railways. That's the other thing, being excited by them. And you've got to be excited by something like a railway or an airline, to capture its spirit in design.

Ian Paget: Something that you guys are making me think of, in the UK, we have the Great Western Railway brand, company. And I don't know the exact details of it, but I remember a point probably about five years ago or maybe a little bit more, where they did a whole redesign, rebrand. And I can't remember what the trains used to look like, but I remember one day going on the train, and this green, it was a whole rebranded one, it went back to the solid darker green. And it just had the GWR on the side in a nice font. And that for me was so much more striking than what they had previously. It kind of went back to those roots, what you're talking about where it's more stencilled. It looks like somebody could have painted it on there rather than it being created in a computer. And yeah, I really appreciated seeing that, it was nice to see. And I think it was the first time, in the UK anyway, being excited about a logo on the side of a train.

Jonathan Glancey: And the trains started to, actually the Great Western Trains started to like trains again. Trains are big, solid things, but they can be quite dramatic colours and quite revolutionary ones. I think when we both, another railroad that Ian Logan and I both thrill to, is the Union Pacific, which has always been a gigantic railroad. It's very proud of its heritage, and it runs today, two magnificent, giant steam locomotives, one passenger, one freight. They're on regular rosters as well, they're not museum pieces. And those engines have this 1930s livery and graphics. Fantastic, there's sort of an anthracite and a steely grey. With this magnificent lettering, which is based on Futura font, but slightly modified for the railroad. And they just look great. Black and silver, basically, with beautiful crisp, white, modern lettering.

And then the diesel trains, and some of the freight cars are this dramatic... Well, why don't, Ian Logan... that colour. I can't quite get it, they're sort of a yellow and vermilion, aren't they?

Ian Logan: Yeah.

Jonathan Glancey: Is that right, the right colours? And they look absolutely tremendous in the landscape. So, colours don't have to be olde fashioned to work for railways, railroads, they can be striking and modern. But it's about, again, it's about an integrity of design. It's about this real thrill to what a train can be, and these new Great Western trains do look good again, because they look like trains.

Ian Logan: I think it's Pentagram that did that, isn't it?

Jonathan Glancey: It's Pentagram, yeah. It's really good, isn't it? It's a great job they did. Because we've seen so many of these liveries we've discussed, where this sort of blandness creeps in, this vague, computer graphic type styling on the side of trains is ridiculous. It might look okay on a computer screen, but a train is big, it's this long, big, heavy, powerful, noisy thing. And it needs much more than computer graphics to make it work.

Ian Logan: I think that's when I first saw the Rock Island train in Cold Springs in upper New York, the lettering was six foot. And it was at the time when there was a big fashion for super graphics, and I thought, my God, the railroads had it before we've got it. Just seeing Rock Island six foot high was wonderful.

Jonathan Glancey: And they did brilliant things with taking things, graphics that started off as very sort of cutie pie, and playful and nostalgic, and then turning them into something much more powerful. I was thinking of the story of the Chesapeake Ohio railroad, where it's Chessie the cat. Chessie the cat was this pretty little picture, drawing the railroad team had seen of a little sleeping pussycat. And they were about to introduce new type of sleeping car express, and they used Chessie as a little emblem of how you'd sleep, like a little kitten in the super smooth trains. It's a lovely idea. And Chessie it built up into little books about Chessie, and Chessie and her partner, Chessie and her children.

But eventually the logo itself was brilliantly stylised into this abstract Chessie the cat on the side of Ian's beloved box cars. And you saw those Ian, didn't you, in the 1970s?

Ian Logan: Yeah.

Jonathan Glancey: And Chessie the cat was a great abstract logo, but it had come from, again, a story, a very particular story in the railroad's history. And that made the logo work.

Ian Paget: I think something I need to make sure I do, is with everything that you described, all these different logos and brands, I'm going to have to link to them in the show notes. I feel like this is a very visual thing, and we're talking about it. I know it's going to be one of those things that people are listening, and they'll want to have a look. So, obviously people need to look at the book because it's great, but I think I'll pop a few images in the show notes for this episode as well.

Something you mentioned just now was about what works. So, you spoke about how people are creating graphic design within a computer, and it doesn't necessarily look great on a train. Based on all of this collective research and all of this collective body of images and so on, what do you think does work for a train?

Jonathan Glancey: Well, I would say powerful logos, simple logos. They've got to be tough in every way. One thing that you don't get in, if you look at computer screen design, a lot of it, and see the images people are working with, everything's just perfect, clean, squeaky clean, anodyne. A train operates, and in America think about they operate in cities, and big yards, and deserts and mountains. The train gets dirty, dusty, great dust, filth kicked up in bad weather. So, a graphic logo, a colour scheme, a livery has to work in the harshest of climatic and geographic conditions. So they have to be strong, clear, simple. And then they can have lovely details when you get close up, which is lovely. You can still put, which the American railroads will do, sometimes quite traditional design motifs and messages on the trains, which you see when you ride by them in yards or in railway stations. But it's got to be a form of graphic design that can cope with the environment that trains work in.

Ian Paget: So, initially what comes to my mind is just really bold typography, and keeping it simple. We've spoken about how some of these companies start to look too corporate. So, is there a fine line between that? Between being tough and bold, and just being really striking, and how I see that, in order to do that, it requires that simplicity. How do you feel that's been done to avoid this whole corporate look and feel, that you could so easily get to if you took that route?

Jonathan Glancey: Well, management aside, most corporate managements today want to look like everybody else. They want these global look graphics, which are inherently anodyne and boring, so that's a bit of a drag. But for graphic designers themselves, the people working, used to on the drawing boards and now working on the computer screens, I would say to them, and I hope they do, you need to just get out there really, be on the platform end, be in the freight yard. And I think that did show when, you mentioned the Great Western trains, the new look by Pentagram, and clearly, it's absolutely clear that the graphic designers there were looking properly at the trains, and they imagined what they would look. Not imagine, you could tell they were actually there at Paddington Station, or wherever, Bristol or Slough, actually looking, and watching, and thinking about the trains. And that's what you have to do, you have to be involved with them. So they have to be, even if they're only doing it for a year, you've got to be a rail enthusiastic as a designer, for a year, to create a successful railway logo and livery.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Something that comes to mind, and it's unrelated to railways, but in a previous job I needed to do a lot of exhibition graphic design, and some of the early stuff, some of the first stuff that I did, it took time to learn how to create work that would work effectively at that size. Because you're seeing everything on a computer screen, it's hard to imagine it in that environment. And it probably took me about five years to really master what would work effectively on something big. And it sounds like that's very much the case for trains, stuff that doesn't work was probably just thrown together in a computer, without necessarily spending time around the train and really understanding the potential applications.

So, I think you're right, it does feel like with that Pentagram example, that they did, and they would have done, that they did go and properly look at the trains, properly understand it, properly test everything, to make sure that it would really work in that scenario. So yeah, it's interesting. For me, it sounds very similar to creating graphics for an exhibition stand, because you've got the same constraints. Well, there's more constraints within a train because of the environments that it's put through, but it sounds like there's some similarities there.

Jonathan Glancey: I think it's very touching when Ian did his first book, Lost Glory with the photographs he took from the late sixties through the seventies in the states of lots of box cars, how those grimy, rusty, weather stained box cars shone through for their graphics, where these powerful logos on their side somehow made up for the fact that they were having pretty a hard time physically. The great graphics shine through. But as we're saying, they've got to respond to the conditions of the rails themselves. And if everything's perfect, and it's wonderful weather, and it's the zenith days of the railways, things could be quite different. When trains were polished every day, you could have more elaborate logos and crests, but that's not always the case in the past quarter of a century.

Ian Paget: Yeah. It sounds like really useful research work actually, to look at a lot of the images that Ian's collected up. Because you're able to see what has stood the test of time, what has worked effectively in extreme conditions, what has worked when it's been battered, when it's been cleaned a hundred times and so on. Because that's stuff that's been through those harsh conditions, has stuck around and has worked. So, I think after this conversation, I'm going to sit down with the book and really study some of those images, because I think there's a lot of lessons in some of that photography and some of that collated archive of logo design and graphics.

Ian Logan: I think it's also, it's the history as well. The history of all the logos, of how they originally started out. If you look at General Motors, who were one of the great builders of the railway locomotives, their early publicity photographs were undoubtedly designed on the outside by the engineers who would put the logo on. And they always managed to make it in relation to the actual engine itself, because they were so involved with it. And even, Americans have always been tremendous about styling and paint work, which is one of the things I really love about the way they paint the engines and the trains. But it must have been those... Those early engineers could draw.

Jonathan Glancey: Oh yes. If you look through, some of us have had the opportunities to do archives at the great railway museums, whether in France or Germany, or the States, or here in Britain at the National Rail Museum, all those engineering drawings right through to the 1950s, are wonderful.

Ian Logan: Not on the computer.

Jonathan Glancey: They're not on the computer. And we're not just knocking computers, but what we're saying, is it's been connected to what you're doing now, that's the thing. And the computer has this danger of distancing you. You even feel it when you're writing, you have to remember to go out and talk to people, visit places. You could sit and write a book, or write a newspaper article, just sitting behind your computer screen, and that's done more and more today. But the articles or the books are far, far, far better when the author, the journalist is out and about, being somewhere, immersing themselves and talking to people, things are very different then. So, it's really about immersion. And the whole book, I think, what's so enjoyable about it, it was this immersion into not just American railroad culture, but the excitement, the epic quality of a whole country that has had a wonderful confident sense of itself, until very recent times.

Ian Logan: I think, again for me, it is a very much a visual thing. The excitement of seeing, even today, those huge locomotives. There was one when I was in Kansas City, I was there with a ticket agent who was showing me around the freight yard. And an engine came around the corner, and it was Frisco, and it had come up from Texas. Now, Texas to Kansas City apparently it's very flat, and this engine was nearly four miles long. I mean, you stand there and you think, God.

Jonathan Glancey: And do you remember when we used to say, as school children we used to know that American freight trains could be a mile long, it seemed impossible. And now as Ian said, I checked funny enough, only a couple of months ago about these lengths, because I was intrigued. And they are, yeah, they're three to four miles.

Ian Paget: Really, I didn't know that. I've never seen these trains, it's hard to imagine. It just sounds like it goes on for infinity.

Jonathan Glancey: It would take you over an hour to walk past the engine, and they're that long. And so, when it comes to how they look, it's really important that they have these powerful...

Ian Logan: It was fascinating, because the engineer leaned out the cab when he came up close to us and said, "What are you doing?" And the agent said, "Oh, he's doing a book on the trains." And he said, "You want to photograph mine?" I said, "Yeah, well, it's fine. I can take the photograph now." But he got on his radio and backed this four mile train back a hundred yards, unhitched his engine and brought it forward. I was astounded. And that's when the ticket agent said, "Well, he's radioing the guys in the back."

Ian Paget: Oh, I can imagine that they were really excited about it anyway, to get their train photographs. Because they're probably enthusiastic about it as well, and they probably appreciate it when someone comes in and they're as excited as they are.

Ian Logan: I learned very early on when I was with an engineer in the cab, it's families, it goes from generation to generation. These guys are railroad guys through and through, and they live the railroads.

Ian Paget: And you can see that and the identities, can't you?

Jonathan Glancey: Very, very much. And you see it, so if you travel through the land of the Union Pacific, which is virtually the whole of the Western half of the United States, the trains of course now, the locomotives and the trains have these huge stars and stripe flags going down as well. It's quite something for somebody from Britain or Europe to travel and see that. Because at first it's a bit daunting, this huge razzmatazz, God bless America stuff. But it is them, as Ian said, that's who they are. That is their family, that is their belief and feeling. And they work for a great railroad in a great country, and that's how they see it. And so, the trains have to look like that. And they do, not just scale, but the actual graphics and so on. Union Pacific keeps that going really well.

Ian Paget: You guys are really making me want to just go over to America and go traveling.

Ian Logan: We ought to tell you that the Union Pacific, as Jonathan was saying earlier on, they've restored one of the biggest engines in the world. It's called Big Boy, and it weighs about 600 tons, and it's articulated because it's so enormous, it's virtually the length of a jumbo jet, the engine. The wheels, which is where you measure a train, are four, eight, eight, four, which is just enormous. And I went to see it a couple of years ago when it came into Los Angeles, and I really, you cannot believe how big it is.

Jonathan Glancey: And it's black and silver, isn't it?

Ian Logan: Yeah, amazing.

Jonathan Glancey: With this white Futura lettering on the side. So, a steam locomotive from 1941 that doesn't seem old fashioned at all. And what was intriguing, Ians, plural, was the sheer number of people that turned out in the States. This land, you think, of the automobile, who turned out from the moment that locomotive turned a wheel again a couple of years ago when Ian Logan was there to see it. And the police, the US police were having to control traffic on great rural roads going out across mountain passes. There was that much traffic, people just wanted to see this mighty bit of American railroad, not just history, it's kind of a sensation, a feeling, a love of American railroading. They came out actually in the millions, to see this single steam locomotive. How about that?

Ian Paget: I really love the enthusiasm coming from you both, it's really nice to hear the absolute love for the trains, and the graphic design and identities surrounding this. And it sounds like it's been a real lifelong passion for you both. So, we don't have long left of the conversation, but something I've been thinking to ask. So, something I really like about your story is how it started with you, Ian, going back to that first train you saw, you fell in love with graphic design. You were able to just go out there, traveling, taking photos, collecting stuff, documenting everything. And here today, you basically have a book, you've worked with someone else you've been able to release this. And I find that really inspiring, as a graphic designer, if there's something that I really like, I can just go out there, document it and share it.

So, I feel that there might be people listening that might think, "I'd love to do that for X thing," for whatever that thing is that they've found. So someone might have found their own train or whatever, that they fell in love with. So I'd love to find out, in the last 10 minutes, are there any tips or advice that you can share for anyone that might want to do a book on their own? Has there been any interesting lessons that you guys have learned working together to pull this together, so that you could share that with someone else that might want to do something similar?

Jonathan Glancey: Well, if you're lucky and you really have to not just trust your luck, but make your luck, find an enthusiastic publisher. And I don't think that we could have been luckier with Simon Rigge of Sheldrake Press, who was an extremely lovely and enthusiastic man himself. And he wanted this book to be special. And the designer, Bernard Hickton, who sadly died just before the book was published, did a terrific job too. And we had only together, the whole team before this blasted COVID thing hit, one big lovely meeting together, the whole team.

And it's that teamwork that's so lovely, really enjoyable. How you find a publisher like that, they're very rare these days. You can self-publish, of course you can. And then you need to, graphic designers should be very good at this, work out costs. But it's a big gamble, because distribution's important, and a proper publisher, I mean an established publisher knows how to distribute books and get them out there to the bookshops and so on, and the online trade. So finding a publisher, if you can, is number one. But self-publish, if you can't. Because as you said, Ian, if a group of you get together with a common enthusiasm, you can do it.

Ian Logan: I did, for this one I published... I didn't publish, actually. I did a book on Blurb of all the photographs, of my photographs, and that's how I showed it to the publisher. It obviously changed an incredible amount from there on, but I can tell you that Simon Rigge the publisher, who is absolutely wonderful, now knows more about trains than I ever will.

Jonathan Glancey: And it's very exciting when you find a publisher like that, and they're not everywhere. Most publishers, you have to work quite hard to get them on your side, and whether they're right or wrong about how well a book will do, you need to persuade them. But you can do it by yourself, it's just this question of distribution, I think is the problem. Isn't it, Ian?

Ian Logan: Yes, marketing.

Jonathan Glancey: It's marketing, and they're good at that. That's what publishers know how to do, market. They know the book trade, they know the media, they know how to get it out.

Ian Logan: But it's still difficult.

Jonathan Glancey: Yeah. So, we're saying it's not easy, but you can do it by yourself. Funny enough, I'm about to do an in memoriam book for a locomotive engineer who died age 96, a couple of years back, just before COVID. And that will be self-financing amongst a group of friends, family, enthusiasts. And that's because it'll work because they're generous, and they'll all have to stump up some money to make the book work, because we won't get some mainstream publisher to do it. But it'll look terrific and have a proper designer doing the book as well. But that's how you have to do it, talk to each other, talk to your friends, talk to your families, find out who's got a bit of money up their sleeve. So not easy.

Ian Logan: I think-

Ian Paget: I hope, sorry to interrupt. I hope doing this podcast will help a little bit to tap into the logo designers. But yeah, I really think there's a big market for this book, because you can tap into the people that are really into trains. And I know that there are a lot of them out there that would absolutely love this. But also graphic designers, you can really appreciate a lot of stuff just by looking at the images only. And there's a lot within the book, and I think just talking about this in this conversation, there's stuff that I'm going to be looking at that I probably didn't even think of looking at previously, like what I mentioned about looking at what works successfully within all those harsh environments. Because I know that that's lessons I can learn and apply to my own work, which is interesting.

So yeah, so we've got a few minutes left. So I think as a final question, in terms of this book, obviously I want to help to promote it, which is why I brought you both on. How can people get hold of this book now?

Ian Logan: They can go straight to the publisher, sheldrakepress.co.uk. I think if you go onto the Sheldrake website, there is a link where you can buy it.

Ian Paget: Fantastic. And they have kindly sent me all these different links to where it can be bought. So what I'll do, is I'll include that in the show notes for this episode. And when I do the email marketing and stuff, I'll make sure that those links are all in there, so that people can find it. Is it going to be on things like Amazon as well, or is it only directly through the publisher?

Ian Logan: I think it's on Amazon, but I think they don't really... I mean, yes, you have to put that, but I think that they don't make a lot of money when it's on Amazon.

Ian Paget: Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's good to know that. So if people want to support you, go directly to the publisher because that's going to be the most successful for you guys. I'm glad I asked that question you know, because I always go to Amazon and I don't think of the consequences of doing that. So yeah, if anyone wants a copy, order it directly from the publisher and I'll put links to all of that in the show notes for this particular episode.

Ian Paget: But yeah, I think this has been amazing. We're at that hour mark now, and I know that Jonathan, you have a call shortly, so we'll wrap it up. It's been absolutely amazing to speak to you both. I hope the audience has really enjoyed this, and also like me, appreciates the absolute enthusiasm and dedication towards collating this whole body of amazing Logomotive collection. So, thank you both for coming on.

Ian Logan: It's all about passion and enthusiasm.

Jonathan Glancey: Exactly.