Throughout the Pioneer Zephyr’s service life and preservation, letter covers have been issued to recognize its achievements and share them with the public. We collect many kinds of Zephyr memorabilia and the letter covers are among our favorites. We write them as being Pioneer’s favorite as well.
Service Records
If you see a 20th Anniversary letter cover anywhere, I need to know about it.
– DJ
Commemorative Anniversaries
50th Anniversary
For the Pioneer Zephyr‘s 50th Anniversary, the Museum of Science and Industry issued a letter cover cachet with an enclosed brief and four additional Amtrak and United States Postal Service variants featuring silver and gold embossing or vintage graphics.
We also have this sheet of collected stamp variants from The Midwest Railway Historical Society (now the Midwest Railway Preservation Society.
Misc.
This one was issued as one of a series of letter covers to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1944. In that context – celebrating the overarching history of railroading in America – the caption is a curious choice as it only really applies to passenger diesels, but we got a kick out of it!
An E5 letter cover to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Burlington Route in 1949.
Another E5 commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Texas Zephyr, a route often worked by their class.
Another issuance from the Midwest Railway Historical Society, celebrating the history of American passenger trains.
Interestingly, this one seems not to be for railroad commemoration, but for the Lincoln Stamp Club‘s annual convention, LINPEX, hosting the Trans-Mississippi Philatelic Society’s smaller convention within it that year. There’s probably a lot of overlap between railroad enthusiasts and philatelists. This page is certainly proof!
This one commemorates the 11th Annual “Zephyr Days” event in 1998 at the Wichita Falls Railroad Museum in Wichita Falls, Texas.
One celebrating the Denver Zephyr, date unclear.
