Burlington Route steam as only John Gruber could see it

We all have “near misses” in our lives, and one of the biggest for me was the steam program of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, known best by the numbers of its two star locomotives, 4-8-4 No. 5632 and 2-8-2 No. 4960. Both were among a few saved after the Q dieselized and subsequently used for public excursions under the enlightened tutelage of the railroad’s president, Harry C. Murphy.

For nearly a decade, the 5632 and 4960 romped up and down the Burlington — and occasionally beyond — cultivating a bottomless well of good will for the railroad. Many of the trips were aimed at railfans, of course, but a lot of them catered to school children and employees, which added to the program’s luster. The late Trains Editor Jim Wrinn coined the phrase “Steam’s Camelot” to aptly describe the Southern and Norfolk Southern steam programs, but, with all due respect Jim, I think an earlier Camelot went “Everywhere West.”

That much is clear if you page through “Burlington’s Spectacular Steam Program,” the new book from the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, featuring the vivid and indelible black-and-white photography of CRPA founder John Gruber. The book is modest in size — 80 pages, softcover — but monumental in its depictions.

Edited by CRPA Executive Director Scott Lothes and backed up by excellent essays from Chicago railroad veteran Norm Carlson and Railfan & Railroad Associate Editor Justin Franz, the book is more than just a recounting of those halcyon steam years, it’s also a primer on what made the Burlington great. (Full disclosure: I’m a longtime CRPA board member, but my role in this book was confined to some late-deadline proofreading.)

More than anything, the book is a reminder of John Gruber’s genius. All of Gruber’s considerable powers are on display here: his arsenal of lenses and his willingness to use them; his amazingly fast reflexes, visible in so many “in the moment” images; his apparent disinterest in conventional railroad photography. Just look at the lead-off photo here, with double-headed 5632 and 4960 caught at a crazy angle, the composition far from horizontal, yet implying furious action — the kind of shot conventional photographers would throw out.

When I interviewed Gruber for a feature story in the Winter 2014 issue of Classic Trains, John was matter of fact about the sources of his inspiration. Ironically, it wasn’t other railroad photographers of the era, it was newspaper guys, including a couple of Wisconsin award-winners, Dick Sroda and Jim Stanfield. “It was a time when press photographers and journalists were interested in what people were doing,” John said. “I saw this as an underrepresented area of railroad photography, and I took advantage of every opportunity to document railroad people at work, rather than concentrating on equipment.”

Just look at John’s photo of railroaders heaving coal into 4960’s tender from an adjacent hopper car, or his shot of a gaggle of railfans awaiting a photo runby, a portrait that transcends the usual rogues’ gallery photo. These are great people pictures, not train pictures.

In the middle of his career at Trains, Editor David P. Morgan tended to lean on Gruber a lot, especially as D.P.M. himself evolved as a photo editor. When it came to taking chances, the two were a good pair. “The man whose camera got closest to the engine and her crew was John Gruber,” Morgan once wrote. “He put in long hours. He was on top of the action, however unexpected and regardless of the hour. His pictures tell it as it was.” The editor was writing about John’s epic photography of Southern 2-8-2 4501, but he could just as easily have been talking about Gruber and the CB&Q.

Which gets me back to my original observation here, that I barely missed the Burlington engines. Not that I wanted it that way. One of the first railroad books I sank my teeth into was Ron Ziel’s “The Twilight of Steam Locomotives,” a panoramic review of the last years of steam that included a memorable section about the 5632.

Ziel wrote vividly about a cab ride aboard the great O-5 Northern: “The noise is ear-piercing, with exhaust, blowers, whistle, and running gear competing for supremacy. Compound this with a hundred creaking, squealing, crashing metal surfaces, and you cannot help but feel the madness of a 238-ton boiler hurtling unchecked toward seemingly inevitable destruction.” I was mesmerized by his description and decided I need to witness the 5632 as soon as possible.

Except this was 1963 when Ziel’s book came out, I was 12 years old, and my parents weren’t inclined to take me to Chicago to ride trains. Not yet. I’d have to be patient. Then, two years later, as I was reading my very first issue of Trains (August 1965), there it was again, the 5632, on page 45 — a Gruber photo no less — showing the 4-8-4 exploding out from under the U.S. Post Office at the south end of Chicago Union Station. My determination grew.

But it wasn’t to be. Just over a year later, my heart sank as I opened up to page 14 in the September 1966 issue of Trains, “Steam News Photos,” and saw a photo of a forlorn 5632 resting in the CB&Q shop at West Burlington, Iowa. The awful news: the engine was retired by the railroad late in 1965 after its flue time ran out. The 4960 carried on for a few months into 1966. Ominously, the last sentence in the caption said “Chicago railfan Richard Jensen is negotiating for purchase of the 26-year-old 4-8-4; plans to rebuilt her for operation.”

Jensen’s association with the 5632 is a story — a misadventure, really — for another time. Meanwhile, I’d missed my chance to ride behind Burlington steam.

I guess I can blame it on my youth, or maybe even my parents, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Obviously, those last years of steam on the Burlington were a party you didn’t want to miss. Which is why the CRPA’s new book is such a revelation, at least to me. Thanks to John Gruber’s intimate, insightful, and even fearless coverage of Burlington steam, I feel like I was there. That’s how engrossing his images are. What more can you say about a photographer?