Beebe & Clegg

Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg were prolific railroad photographers and authors who helped shape the genre of railroad writing as we know it today. They co-authored numerous titles, bringing a distinctive style to their work. While their writing can at times be critiqued for its florid prose and a tendency to favor storytelling over strict adherence to fact, it nonetheless represents a valuable historical record when approached with appropriate context.

Among their best-known works is Mixed Train Daily, first published in 1947, which explored the nation’s more obscure short lines and branch lines—capturing their quirks, oddities, and local lore. Notably, the Rahway Valley Railroad was omitted from the volume. However, I have long been aware that Beebe and Clegg visited the line at least once. In the journal of William S. Young, the following entry appears under August 10, 1945:

"Had the pleasure of entertaining author Lucius Beebe and a lesser-known rail photographer, C. M. Clegg, today. Cycled out to Michigan Avenue to get the boys coming up from Aldene. Got there and waited. Suddenly a Buick convertible with New York plates drove up and out got two chaps with big cameras. We saw each other, and met. They didn’t know their way around, so I got in and guided them up to Summit and back. They took some pictures. Clegg said he’d get in touch with me to get some of my short line information. We’ll see. No. 13 is on the road this month. Beebe asked old Frank Froat for some smoke when they went up the Kenilworth hill, and Frank said he’d give it to them. Last I saw of Beebe and Clegg, they were headed up Michigan Avenue to get a good place on the hill near the water supply tower to snap the train."

Until now, I had been unable to locate any of Beebe and Clegg’s photographs of the Rahway Valley. It appears that a significant portion of their photographic work has since been digitized by the California State Railroad Museum and made available through the Internet Archive (archive.org), the nonprofit organization best known for developing the “Wayback Machine.”