Metal railroad heralds in cereal boxes offered boys and girls during the 1950s one more way to show their fascination with trains, whether full-size or miniature replicas. Kids, eager to discover the premiums packed inside boxes of their favorite breakfast food, had no hesitation about begging their parents to buy box after box of Sugar Crisp in 1954 and ’55 to get the little sheet-metal pieces that featured the colors and logos of 28 railroads.
Frankly, I probably would not have remembered the pleasures of collecting the different heralds had not the late Jim Hediger, longtime senior editor at Model Railroader magazine, donated a large piece of dark brown corkboard on which 25 of the heralds were tacked to the workshop used by the editors of MR and Classic Toy Trains. There, amid test tracks and workbenches on the second floor of the building in Waukesha, Wis., once owned by Kalmbach Media Co., he hung up the display from his home train room.
I took one look at the nostalgic and eye-catching display and knew what Jim had collected. Memories flooded back to me about a popular, sugary cereal from my early years as I explained to younger colleagues what Jim had given us. Then I recalled the pleasures associated with watching freight trains pass across grade crossings and learning about the different railroads represented by the heralds painted on boxcars and gondolas.
Impressive promotion
Finding premiums inside specially marked boxes of breakfast cereal was common during the post-World War II decades and beyond. We baby boomers loved our different cereals made out of oats, barley, rice, and wheat and typically covered with sugar. The companies producing them — General Mills, Kellogg’s, and Post — sponsored many of our favorite television shows broadcast on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons.
Many of us also loved the experience of watching trains rumble along not too far from the highways our families used on road trips and short vacations. While younger siblings learning to count tallied the number of freight cars, those of us who had learned how to read were focusing on the names and slogans emblazoned on the rolling stock. And we especially liked the heralds, which blended words and symbols to promote the railroads on whose roster the various hoppers, refrigerator cars, and boxcars belonged.
Which meant we were thrilled in February 1954, when Post announced in its television and newspaper advertisements that replicas of various heralds would be given away in specially marked boxes of its Sugar Crisp cereal. Well, not exactly given away. As we discovered after checking the fine print, you had to mail in one Sugar Crisp boxtop and 25 cents to receive a set of seven emblems as well as a 36-page Railroad Fun Book.
Turns out, Post was offering four groups of seven slick heralds in an impressive promotion that ran from May of 1954 through November of 1955. In other words there was a total of 28 heralds — Jim Hediger had no idea he was missing three of them.
What you got
Once the ads started to appear on TV and in the full-color comics sections of local Sunday newspapers, kids across the United States were ready to fill bowls with Sugar Crisp and milk plus a little more sugar! Parents likely weren’t thrilled about hearing pleas to keep buying more boxes, but the quest to acquire all four sets of heralds was intense.
The heralds were grouped according to regions of the country. Check them out:
Northeastern included the Baltimore & Ohio; Delaware, Lackawanna & Western; Erie; New York Central; Nickel Plate Road; Pennsylvania RR; and Reading Lines.
Central and Northern included the Chicago & Eastern Illinois; Chicago & North Western; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; Chicago Great Western; Grand Trunk Western; Rock Island; and Wabash.
Central and Southern included the Atlantic Coast Line; Chesapeake & Ohio; Illinois Central; Missouri, Kansas & Texas; Missouri Pacific; Seaboard Air Line; and Southern.
Western included the Great Northern, Milwaukee Road, Northern Pacific, Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Western Pacific.
Hungry for more
Too bad more information about the heralds — who came up with the idea, what firm cranked them out by the tens or hundreds of thousands, and how successful the promotion really was — has disappeared. About all that has survived is memories of the cereal (plus vows never to eat another mouthful) and the heralds themselves. Assembling a collection of all 28 takes little more than patience and dollars and constant perusal of entries on eBay, the buy-and-sell website beloved of toy train collectors everywhere.
Supposedly, variations exist — who can truly be surprised by this fact? The Wabash herald can, or so I’ve been told, be found in either white and blue or those two color plus red. And reproductions of several heralds were made in the 1970s. Good luck distinguishing between them and originals. Instead, have some fun by searching for the heralds of railroads you remember best from long ago or simply have come to love.
