Catching a Train

Artist Leslie Ragan captured the Art Deco glory of the country’s most famous train, the spectacular New York 20th Century Limited.

Introduced in 1938, the streamlined 20th Century Limited became the visual hallmark
of The New York Central System for years, appearing in calendars, advertisements,
timetables, and other promotional materials. The magnificent Henry Dreyfuss-designed
train offered hope to a Depression-weary nation unknowingly about to enter the horrors
of World War II. This winter’s image from 1945 often appears with the calendar cut off.
The poster (20 1/2 by 15 3/4 inches) sold for $1,375 at Swann Auction Galleries in 2016.

For an artist with such a prominent place in the American pantheon of poster designers, very little biographical information exists about the life of Leslie Ragan (1897-1972). He is best known for his exceptional poster design work for the New York Central Lines railroad. For them, he designed one of the most highly regarded and recognized American train posters, a glorious Art Deco, Machine Age image of The New 20th Century Limited, the Henry Dreyfuss-designed streamlined train, which was the pride of the New York Central fleet.

Ragan designed 11 calendars for the New York Central Railroad between 1942 and 1954. This autumnal
masterpiece appeared on the 1944 calendar with the caption “The Century in the Highlands of the Hudson.”
The artist depicts the 20th Century Limited as it winds through the Hudson Valley with its purple and
orange mountains and amber and yellow foliage. Ragan’s oil maquette of the image (35 3/4 by 29 3/4 inches) sold
for $16,000 on Oct. 10, 2024, during the “Rare & Important Travel Posters” event at Swann Auction Galleries.

History of Designing for Railways

The only brief biography of Ragan’s life comes from a 1946 book, “Forty Illustrators and How They Work” by Ernest Watson, Watson Guptil, 1946, and is excerpted below:

“The 35-story New York Central building straddles Park Avenue just north of Grand Central Station. Leslie Ragan’s studio on the eighth floor is exactly on the axis line of this famed boulevard that stretches north as far as the eye can see and covers the tracks on which 565 trains arrive and depart daily. An appropriate perch for the man who, doubtless, has painted more pictures—mostly posters—for travel, transportation, and industry than any other American artist. He has been at it for 25 years, almost his entire professional life, which began with study in the Cumming School of Art in Des Moines—Ragan was born in Iowa—and continued at the Art Institute of Chicago. After one and a half years in the Air Force in World War I, he returned to Chicago, where he taught for three years at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and began doing posters for the railroads and heavy industries.

The New York Central Line commissioned a different image yearly to adorn their calendars. Here, Ragan
depicts the La Salle Street station in Chicago and the impressive fleet of engines run by the railroad,
including the iconic 20th Century Limited. The hallmark trains of the “Great Steel Fleet” are shown. Both
steam and diesel are featured in a robust depiction of a triumphant America surging into post-World War II
modernism. The poster (21 1/2 by 15 3/4 inches) sold for $1,250 at Swann Auction Galleries. in 2016.

“His first work in New York was for General Outdoor Advertising and the now-defunct magazine Holiday. He soon began designing posters for the New York Central System; he has done in the neighborhood of 100 to date. These poster paintings of scenic beauty encompassed by the reach of the Central’s lines constitute a unique pictorial record of many of America’s famous landmarks.

“Ragan has also done a great volume of work for other railroads, among them the Norfolk and Western [and the South Shore Line] . . . For the Budd Manufacturing Company, he’s doing a continuing series of posters illustrating streamlined trains built for various railroads. In pre-war days, he made many posters for the steamship lines. At present, he is executing commissions for the Moran Towing Company.”

The United States Postal Service has featured this image on a series of stamps commemorating the 1930s
and is among the most prominent American Art Deco posters ever designed. The poster (40 1/4 by 26 inches) sold
for $19,000 on Oct. 10, 2024, during the “Rare & Important Travel Posters” event at Swann Auction Galleries.