Authors John Gruber & John Ryan will be visiting the Museum this Tuesday, May 15 from 1:00PM until 2:00PM. To celebrate the release of their latest titles they will be meeting & speaking with visitors and signing copies of their books.
If you are unable to visit the Museum in person you can still get a signed copy of one of of the duos latest titles, just place an order in our Online Depot Store before their visit and we will have them sign each copy (call 1-800-365-6263 to request an inscription):
Beebe & Clegg: Enduring Photographic Legacy
Beebe and Clegg: Their Enduring Photographic Legacy, a new book from the Center for Railroad Photography and Art, tells about how partners Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg introduced railroad photography and the world of railroading to wide popular audiences. Over the course of eight chapters, the book traces Beebe and Clegg’s life and times together, their visual influences, short lines, narrow gauge lines, Nevada and the Virginia & Truckee, and their photography. The book includes 222 images from the California State Railroad Museum Library and Archives, all scanned from negatives and carefully cleaned and checked, revealing surprises. Many are previously unpublished. Thirty-six additional images come from other sources. “Their legacy is larger than the publications they produced, for they demonstrated that railroads serve America as an icon of its experience,” authors John Gruber and John Ryan conclude. Hardcover, 8.5×11 inches, 224 pages, duotone.
Colorado Rail Annual No. 32: San Luis Central Greeley East Arkansas Valley
Here are three unusual “Colorado Railroads Without Mountains.” The 15-mile San Luis Central has faithfully served a rich agricultural district in the San Luis Valley for over a century, owning only three locomotives during its lifetime. Having outlived many more famous lines, its full history is presented here for the first time by John Gruber and John Ryan. Union Pacific’s Greeley branch tapped a rich sugar beet growing area, and its fortunes rose and fell along with the once important Colorado sugar industry. Historian Kenton Forrest gives a complete account of the railroad line and the area it served for many years. The Arkansas Valley Railway is famous for being the first Colorado railroad abandonment. Author Robert W. McLeod provides a detailed history of the important role it played at the dawn of the railroad era in the West. Hardbound. 8.5″x11″, 220 pages.
Did you previously purchase a copy of Colorado Rail Annual No. 32? Send us a self-addressed and stamped envelope and we will send you a signed sticker for your front-piece (order at 1-800-365-6263 to request a sticker for 32 in your Beebe & Clegg order).
About the Authors
John Gruber, Madison, Wisconsin, is a railroad historian and photographer. He was a founder and first president (1997 to 2013) of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, Madison. He has been a freelance railroad photographer since 1960. He received awards from the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society in 1994 for lifetime achievement in photography and in 2009 for “Railroading Journeys,” about Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg, published in Railroad Heritage. He is author of Classic Steam: Timeless Photographs of North America Steam Railroading (2009); editor of Railroaders: Jack Delano’s Homefront Photography (2014); and coauthor of six books. He has written about Colorado narrow gauge lines in Trains (October 1969, October 2009, May 2015). In a 10-page article, “Provocateur of Railroad Photography,” in the Winter 2014 issue of Classic Trains, Kevin P. Keefe described him as “one of the most influential figures in the field.”
John Ryan, who is self employed, lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A skilled photographer, his work has been recognized by Railfan & Railroad magazine in 2004 for its cover contest (December 2004) and in 2008 for its center spread contest. A railroad historian, he is co-author of SLC at 100, a history of the San Luis Central Railroad in Colorado, and collects historic railroad signals. His runner-up photo in the 2011 Trains contest of a signal maintainer in Michigan combines his interest in photography and signals.
Mel Patrick is a Chicago native who moved to Denver in 1972. He worked for railroads for 30 years, beginning in 1967. He received the 2011 R&LHS photography award for lifetime achievements in railroad history. Patrick made synchronized night flash pictures from 1968 to 1973. He developed a major dissolve slide show set to music, with his Chicago Union Station program of 1969. The multimedia presentations continued with Rio Grande Zephyr, Night Vision, and, in 2012, Time, Motion, Vision.
Kenton H. Forrest was born in 1944 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and after living in Fargo, North Dakota, Chicago and Minneapolis, moved to Denver with his family in 1955. He has been a resident of suburban Lakewood for 50 years. He received a BA degree in Earth Science from Colorado State College at Greeley in 1968 and an MA in Educational Media from the same institution, now University of Northern Colorado, in 1981. He was an earth science teacher at Dunstan Junior High School in Jefferson County, CO.
Kenton’s major interests include the history of the Denver Tramway, the history of Denver, RPO postmarks and the study of railroad tickets, tariffs, forms and timetables. He has authored a history of bus operations of the Tramway for Motor Coach Age and co-authored Mile High Trolleys, Denver—A Pictorial History with William C. Jones, the Moffat Tunnel with Charles Albi and Denver’s Railroads, also with Charles Albi, as well as assisting in production of several Colorado Railroad Museum publications. He has served as a trustee of the Colorado Railroad Historical Foundation, Inc., which operates the museum, and has served as president of the Intermountain Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. He was the first president of the Lakewood Historical Society and also is a member of the Motor Bus Society, Mobile Post Office Society, National Education Association, American Philatelic Society, Titanic Historical Society and the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists.
Robert McLeod came to Colorado from Cheyenne, Wyoming as a boy in 1956. He soon developed an avid interest in the state and it’s history in particular. It all began while traveling through Grand Junction with his father, who pointed out little Book Cliff Railway’s abandoned right-of-way passing under the highway. His curiosity had been piqued. Later, his working career was that of a professional photographer. After getting his feet wet writing several magazine articles in the late 1970s, he began working on a book, The Little Book Cliff Railway, which he co-authored with Lyndon Lampert in 1984.
Robert has enjoyed an association of over thirty years with Denver’s Sundance Publications, LTD., as an editor and in other capacities. He likes to say his writing style “has been influenced” by filmmaker Ken Burns and author James Michner but regards himself as less an author and more a guide through the information encountered during his very in-depth research. Of late, he has self-published several works, the most recent being Ghost Breweries of Colorado.
