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Monday, November 17, 2025

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In 1899 “The Alton Limited” train was built in Pullman, Illinois. This train was noted because of its uniform and symmetrical design. Therefore, it’s builders requested that a single panoramic photograph be taken of this exceptional train. Photographer George R. Lawrence was commissioned to take the photograph and a giant camera was built by J. A. Anderson.

(This image will embiggen hugely.)

The question arises as to why the Chicago & Alton Railway should have spent a reported $5000 to construct a camera to make only one exceptionally large plate. That was a lot of money in the first decade of the twentieth century; actually, the sum was enough to purchase a substantial house. As far as the railway company was concerned, the money was well spent. Both the camera and the train were described in great detail in the company’s pamphlet entitled “The Largest Photograph in the World of the Handsomest Train in the World.” The company’s enthusiasm and pride in the train was explained as follows:

“No train of cars had ever before been built with windows of the same size, shape, and style from mail car to parlor car, the cars in no train heretofore had all been mounted on standard six-wheels trucks, no former effort had been made to have every car in the train precisely the same length and height, and no railway, except the Alton Road, had ever caused the tender of its locomotives to be constructed to rise to the exact height of the body of the cars following, the hood of its locomotives to the exact height of the roofs of the cars. This gave a fascinating beauty to the train –– carrying out of the principal features with classic regularity –– the absolute unity of detail from cow-catcher to observation platform. Indeed this was what created, and impelled, the idea to obtain a photograph of the ‘Limited’ sufficiently large to readily impress the public with the train's uniform conformation.”