Arthur Dubin, Historian of Railroad’s Golden Era, Dies at 88

Arthur Dubin, a leading historian of the golden age of American passenger railroads, when trains bore names like ocean liners and Champagne glasses were filled by elegantly attired servers, died on Oct. 3 at a nursing home in Riverwoods, Ill. He was 88.

His death was confirmed by his son, Peter.

Mr. Dubin, an architect, had been devoted to trains since he watched them, fascinated, as a child as they rumbled near his home in Chicago, many of them luxury trains. It was the era of the 20th Century Limited, the Silver Meteor and the Prairie State Special, trains that whisked the well-to-do from state to state and across the continent in plush compartments, some with not even a coach for the common traveler.

He went on to spend most of his spare time as an adult researching and writing two of the best-known works on passenger railroads: “Some Classic Trains” (1964) and “More Classic Trains” (1974).

The books are replete with scores of photographs Mr. Dubin acquired during a lifetime of collecting railroad paraphernalia, including timetables, travel brochures, station signs, menus, dinnerware, car-floor plans, porters’ uniforms and paintings of trains rolling across grand landscapes....