150 years of publishing

Railway Age, Sept, 2006

William H. Boardman, who had joined the Railroad Gazette in 1869 and had become part owner and president by 1883, succeeded Prout as editor. Boardman's strengths, however, were more in line with the business side of publishing. In 1908, he and Edward A. Simmons, the Gazette's vice president of advertising, established the Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation with the intent of purchasing the Railway Age, which they considered the Gazette's strongest competitor. The $265,000 transaction merging the two rival publications took place in June of that year.

Boardman remained as editor of the new Railroad Age Gazette until 1911, when he retired and was succeeded by Samuel O. Dunn, who had been the Railway Age's managing editor at the time of the merger. Dunn, appointed western editor of the Railroad Age Gazette at the time of the merger, had changed the name of the publication to the Railway Age Gazette in 1910. In 1918, he simplified it to Railway Age.

The Railway Age had been founded by George S. Bangs, Charles F. Hatch, and E. H. Talbott in Chicago in June 1876. Its headquarters were located at the Grand Pacific Hotel Building. Bangs had been superintendent of the United States Railway Mail Service Besides founding The Railway Age, his claim to fame was establishment of Fast Mail trains. The Railway Age defined its readership as railroad managers and investors and its natural source of advertising as railroad suppliers, though it also accepted advertising from the railroads.

The Railway Age was much different in character than the Gazette. It "was not then as vocal as to its objectives, but it became a lively chronicler of events and developments in the railway field," as we described it in 1956. "Its tone was lighter than that of its older rival. It dealt less consciously with the science and art of conducting transportation and leaned more to the business aspects of railroad management. It was edited for other employees of the railroads as well as officers. It attracted a large volume of advertising."

Why did Simmons and Boardman want to acquire the Railway Age? "While, prior to the merger, the Gazette had the greater prestige, it was losing ground in circulation and in advertising to its livelier, more enterprising Chicago rival," we noted in 1956. "Boardman himself admitted that the Gazette was 'edited for student railroad presidents and there were never enough of them.'" The merged magazine "reflected the character of both ancestral lines. It retailed the Age's alertness to the news of the industry. It continued the thorough exposition and interpretation of technical aspects of railroad operation which it had inherited from the Gazette. Altogether, it was a stronger paper than either and began at once a steady climb in circulation and advertising revenues. Starting out with about 4,000 subscribers on the Gazette and the Age apiece (many of which were duplicating), it pushed circulation to 10,000 by 1929--despite its policy of limiting promotion of sale of the paper to readers of railway officer status."