On Board With Design

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the logo of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (popularly known as the New Haven Railroad) would have been instantly recognizable to anyone in the region of southern New England and New York. When controversial new president Patrick B. McGinnis took control of the company in 1954, he hired noted designer Herbert Matter as the railroad’s design consultant. The result was the creation of a new, modern image unlike virtually anything else in U.S. railroads. This included a new logo: a bold, stacked NH, with a red, black, and white color scheme that alternated according to season. It appeared on everything from timetables, to rail cars, to menus and annual reports.

Like so many of its peers during the period, competition from passenger air travel and from automobiles increasingly cut into the railroad’s revenues. The Connecticut Turnpike opened in 1958, and the railroad filed for bankruptcy three years later, eventually merging with Penn Central in 1969 and becoming part of Amtrak in 1971.

Items in the exhibit are housed at Northwestern University’s Transportation Library. Email transportationlibrary@northwestern.edu with questions, or to schedule an appointment.