CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image: Burlington Zephyr

This digital collection contains documents and images covering the early history of railroads in the Midwest, and in Illinois in particular, up to the introduction of the Zephyr in the 1930s. Early annual reports and recollected histories document the rapid pace of railroad-building that occurred during this period. Annual reports in this collection also give details about railroad company receipts from freight and passengers, operating expenses, costs of construction of new roads, number and type of cars and equipment on hand.

This collection also includes photographs on and of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy's (C.B. & Q.) fast mail train. Many of these photographs were taken by Allen A. Green (Knox College class of 1903), who was, for a time, the C.B. & Q.'s official photographer, and who pioneered the photography of trains in motion by developing a trigger device that allowed a train to take its own picture.

This postcard depicts C.B. & Q.'s Zephyr twin train in Galesburg, Illinois. The first diesel engine was produced in 1925, but didn't catch on until the Pioneer Zephyr of the Burlington Route was unveiled at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago in 1933. The typescript on the front of the postcard reads: "HOWE'S popular 'hearth-baked' RYE being delivered to the new twin Burlington Zephyr for their famous Buffet Lunch, April, 9th., 1935."

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