QUICKSILVER
In the 1930s, as America emerged from the Great Depression, the Midwest’s railroads raced to reinvent passenger travel with sleek, high-speed streamliners. The name that came to define this golden age was Zephyr—a fleet pioneered by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad (also known as CB&Q, or simply Burlington).
The series began in 1934 with the Pioneer Zephyr, a revolutionary three-car trainset clad in polished stainless steel. On May 26th, 1934, it made a record-breaking run from Denver to Chicago—over 1,000 miles in just 13 hours (besting even today’s average highway drive). An entire family of Zephyrs followed: the Twin Zephyrs (Chicago to Minneapolis–St. Paul), the Denver Zephyr, the famed Nebraska Zephyr, and later the iconic California Zephyr.
The Zephyrs faded by the mid-1970s, but managed to transform the popular image of what trains could and should be. These gleaming silver giants became Midwestern icons and an enduring vision of American grit, engineering prowess, and entrepreneurial spirit.
FOUNDER’S GRAY
Switchman’s Founder’s Gray was inspired by our honorary founder—grandfather and great-grandfather of our founders—John F. McGhee II, who spent much of his career working on the Milwaukee Road and upon the trains the Road built to compete with the Zephyrs, the Hiawathas. As we remember our ancestor fondly, we hope that you will use this ink to reach out and strengthen—or, if necessary, renew—bonds of friendship and family. It is no mistake that the color we selected for this purpose is very much like that of stormy skies. Family and friends can often be as tempestuous as they are rewarding, but they are nevertheless worthy of our greatest efforts. Fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, friends—even rivals, like the Burlington and the Road—are the very essence of life. There are few things more worthy of treasuring.
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