Lifelong railfan Mark Wegman is a project engineer in the defense industry. Trained as a civil engineer at Pittsburg State University, he combined his professional background with his railroad avocation to produce the artwork and history in this volume over the course of a 12-year period. He resides in Columbia, Missouri.

The period from the 1890s to the mid-1950s is generally considered the “golden era” of passenger rail travel in America. It was a time of celebrated locomotives and luxurious passenger service, a time when rail technology saw its greatest advances and railroads became the nation’s favored mode of transportation. These glory years come alive in American Passenger Trains and Locomotives Illustrated, 1889–1971. For this volume, author and illustrator Mark Wegman has researched original railroad drawings and in some cases even paint chips to render more than 160 profiles, front and top views, and interior layouts depicting the steam, diesel, and electric locomotives, along with passenger cars, of three dozen of the nation’s most celebrated trains of the golden age. Accompanying the author’s drawings are histories of each train, period photographs, postcards, menus, luggage stickers, vintage print ads, and detailed captions. The book is a lavishly appointed journey back in time to the bygone heyday of passenger-train travel.