I wasn't too taken with his prose or books (I like Ian Fleming and Tom Clancy, so consider that accordingly . . . ), but he wrote some good poetry (not something in which I'm real qualified, either . . . ). In particular, Trains published one in the 1960's that I believe was titled something like "The Ballad of the Twentieth Century Limited". It had an interesting train-like rhythmic 'meter', and each verse ended with the command: "The 20th Century must go through!"
- Paul North.
My first Beebe & Clegg "book" was the booklet on the V&T given by mom about a year after we left Carson City (would have been fun having that book while we were still living there). Next book was the Golden Spike edition of his The CP and SP Railroads. Have acquired several other of his books over the years, my favorite is "Mansions on Rails".
Not sure what he would think of today's railroads, though very sure he would detest the modern airline industry.
His thoughts on Amtrak? I fear that many would be unprintable.
I do remember that he was in favor of slow trains, and thought the railroads should charge extra fare to ride a slower train because of the pleasure of being on a train for a longer time. (Pullman charged the same for a particular space between two cities, no matter how long it took.)
Johnny
-- Half a bottle of claret serves two.
... serves two what? ...
Now that was one of my favorite demonstrations of how to use the English language.
If Lucius Beebe came back today, one would love to know his thoughts on high speed rail and, especially, on Amtrak.
Many years ago, I was an active member of my town's First Aid Squad, who's HQ was in the same municipal complex as the town library. One day, one of my colleages mentioned to me that the library had discarded a lot of books in the dumpster, and that he thought that he saw some train books in there.
I immediately went "dumpster diving", and saved several books, among them the following by Beebe:
Narrow Gauge in the Rockies
Highball
High Iron
Mixed Train Daily
I still enjoy looking through these, especially now with the youngest generation.
daveklepper Beebe wrote an excellent bookwith fine pix on the 20th Century Lmtd. The reporter for the New Yorker magazine, covering the last eastbound run (eon't think it was Frimbo/Rogers Whittiker) had a copy with him on that run and in his story occasionally makes a comparison.
Beebe wrote an excellent bookwith fine pix on the 20th Century Lmtd. The reporter for the New Yorker magazine, covering the last eastbound run (eon't think it was Frimbo/Rogers Whittiker) had a copy with him on that run and in his story occasionally makes a comparison.
Lucius Beebe,( and Charles Clegg) in the 1950 and beyond, were almost seemlessly spoken as if they were one. Lucius Beebe authored between thirty and thirty five books (?), and with Charles Clegg as his co-author something like half of those; Charles Clegg was the photographer of the two. Their pictorial books were a staple for railfans of the time. Beebe was a reporter of Society, and its affairs for the NY Tribune(?). One of those gadabout types that seem to people the movies of the 40's, Some of can recall those time when people when traveling on planes or trains wore suites ties, and the women their finest dresses. Lucius Beebe was known as fashonable, and flashy dresser. Pullman Porters polished traveler's shoes, meals were formal occasions, and on some trains there were barbers, and many railroads did employ registered nurses , on board their trains, as well as in a role of customer service. Travel and environment was part of a long distance train journey. The presence of Lucius Beebe on a long distance train to that experience.
In about 1950 Beebe and Clegg moved to the Virginia City,Nevada area; they bought the then defunct newspaper, Territorial Enterprise. That paper had at one time employed Mark Twain as a reporter.
They refurbished a Victorian-age Manse, and in 1954 they purchased the Pullman Car " Golden Peak" from the Pullman Company for $5k. It was done in a style of Victorian Baroque by a then famous Hollywod set designer. See link @ http://www.vcrail.com/vchistory_railcars.htm
Recently, on the Discovery Channel the car was featured in a portion of the broasdcast on the Travel Channel the show was a parade of Private Rail Cars on the show "Tricked Out Trains" The Beebe and Clegg car " Virginia City" was one of the stories featured. that Thread is linked @ http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/240080.aspx
Lucius Beebe died in 1966 and his partner of many years Charles Clegg committed suicide in 1973 ( on the same day as Beebe's passing).
I bought a used book of his back a few years ago. I'll never forget that buying experience.. I was at a used bookstore in LA and had spent hours perusing the beautiful used volumes. I ended up spending about four hours in that store, and I bought a Lucius Beebe as well as an original Jack London hardcover (!!!) for only about $10.00!!! What a deal I thought to myself as I walked back to me car.. and then I noticed something under my windshield wiper: it was a $293.00 parking ticket.. so much for my cheap encounter with the works of two great writers.
I reread my Beebe books... Classic stuff from a by gone era
"I dug a cat named Lucius--Beebe, I think, was his name--he's quoted more than Confucius, and clothes brought him his fame."
"And it's also said, when he goes to bed, that his pyjamas are as groovy as a Technicolor movie."
Yes, friends, those lines from the 1944 movie "Carolina Blues" are referencing our very own Lucius Beebe--bon vivant, boulevardier, cafe society scribe, and railfan. Beebe's fame rested on his sartorial elegance and trenchant conservatism, but he invented the railroad picture book, and endured much scorn from his sophisticated contemporaries for his passion for railroad trains and travel. But does anyone from our fraternity read him any more?
My mother-in-law (blessed is she among women, and blessed is the fruit of her womb) gave me a copy of "The Trains We Rode" (Promontory Press, 1990--combining the orginal two volumes of 1965 and 1966); I keep it beside my favorite chair in the living room, and I never fail to find something new every time I dip into it.
The prose is orotund and grandiloquent, and I see where David P. Morgan got his style. The photographs are pedestrian by contemporary standards, but feature GG1s and NYC Hudsons and Santa Fe F units doing what they were built to do, and countless pictures of men in suits and ties, and women in hats, riding the fancy cars in style, and a never-ending stream of open-platform observation cars carrying the markers of the grandest name trains in American history.
My favorite is a picture on page 168 of the Great Man himself, yukking it up with Sheila Barrett in the bar car of the Denver Zephyr, hoping that both of them will remain vertical and operable by dawn's early light. Where has this man been all my life and where (preferably on rails) can I buy him a drink?
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