Leslie Ragan Calendars for the New York Central Railway: A Unique Pictorial Record

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. 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. 

Leslie Ragan, The New 20th Century Limited / New York Central System, 1939. Estimate $12,000 to $18,000.

Leslie Ragan’s The Highlights of the Hudson: (left) Calendar back, 1944. Sold August 2012 for $510; (right) Original maquette, circa 1943. At auction October 10, 2024. Estimate $8,000 to $12,000.

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: 

“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. 

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” (Watson p. 249). 



Calendar Backs

New York Central System Calendar Backs by Leslie Ragan: (left) New York Central System / For the Public Service, 1945. Sold in October 2016 for $1,250; (center) New York Central System / The New Empire State Express Passing West Point, 1942. At auction October 10, 2024. Estimate $700 to $1,000; (right) The 20th Century Limited / New York Central System, 1945. Sold October 2016 for $1,375.

Curiously, of the 100 or so posters that Watson mentions Ragan having designed for the New York Central System, only 11 have appeared on the market, images well-known to collectors and students of railroad history and American art. Lesser known than his posters are the ten calendar backs Ragan designed for the Railroad between 1942 and 1953 (in 1948 and 1949, the calendars were designed by other artists). 

Starting as early as 1922, the New York Central Line began publishing yearly promotional calendars featuring an impressive image of one of its locomotives or trains. In 1925, Walter Greene took over that task, designing the calendars through 1931 and two posters for the railway during the same period. 

New York Central System Calendar Backs by Leslie Ragan: The 20th Century Limited / Speeding Through the Heart of Industrial America, 1943. Sold October 2016 for $1,500; Twilight on the Hudson River, circa 1940. Sold August 2021 for $2,750.

Ragan took over designing the calendars in 1942. Like Greene’s, they were all originally executed by the artist as paintings and then used on the calendar backs over the course of 11 years. We do not believe they have ever all been published in the same place.  

New York Central System Calendar Backs by Leslie Ragan with Affixed Calendars: New York Central System / Buffalo, 1953. Sold March 2018 for $975; New York Central System / Bannerman’s Island, 1951; New York Central System / on the Move Along the Water Level Route, 1950; The “New England States” in the Berkshires, 1951.

When they come up for sale, these calendars can appear in their original state, with the calendar pages still affixed at the bottom. Still, on occasion (for aesthetic reasons), the bottom of the calendars are trimmed off, and they come on the market with the bottom half removed, appearing as just the image. As far as value goes, it is a sad irony that, more often than not, the images trimmed to present better tend to sell for a higher price.