Those of you who have seen the C-Span Book TV broadcast of my talk at Kansas City Union Station might be interested in these nice shots we just got from that day. In the first, my co-ribbon-cutter is legendary railroad exec Mike Haverty, the last president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe before the BNSF merger, and now CEO of the Kansas City Southern and board president of Union Station. (This was the grand opening of their Model Railroad Experience display, which was pretty cool.) To his left are George Guastello, the CEO of Union Station and our new friend Bonnie Hansen, in one of her many authentic Harvey Girl outfits.

Bonnie’s husband, Peter, the editor of Railroad History (where he wrote a very kind review of the book), was the curator of the new exhibit there in the Kansas City Museum on Railroads and the National Parks–which, besides being really interesting, is the first show involving Fred Harvey to use the new dates established in the book for when he first came to the U.S. and many others. Actually, docents and historical lecturers all over the Midwest and Southwest now face the prospect of deciding whether or not to change the presentations they have been giving on Fred, the Harvey Girls and the Santa Fe–sometimes, literally, for decades–to reflect the new facts in the book. May Fred be with them. 😉

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