Dan Cupper<\/a>
\nMember since 2002
\n4741 Spring Creek Road
\nHarrisburg, PA 17111
\n717-756-3116
\n<\/b><\/p>\nRailroad History<\/b> Editor Dan Cupper is a historian and author, and a retired Norfolk Southern locomotive engineer. Among his 10 books are histories of the Horseshoe Curve, Rockville Bridge, and Pennsylvania Turnpike.<\/p>\n
His 184-page book, Crossroads of Commerce: the Pennsylvania Railroad Calendar Art of Grif Teller<\/b>, won the 1993 book award from the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. In 2006 he was co-winner, with Tony Reevy, of R&LHS\u2019s David P. Morgan Article Award.<\/p>\n
From 2002 to 2020, he was deputy editor of Railroad History<\/b>, overseeing copy-editing and book reviews. In 2020, he was named editor following the resignation for health reasons of Peter A. Hansen. Dan also edits the society\u2019s Quarterly Newsletter<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Born in Lewistown, Pa., and raised there and later near Pittsburgh, he is the grandson and great-grandson of PRR railroaders, and his father once worked for a subsidiary of the Baldwin Locomotive Works. When he was a small boy, his parents often took him to the passenger station in Lewistown to watch the parade of PRR trains, many of them still steam-powered at the time.<\/p>\n
A graduate of Penn State University with a B.A. in journalism, he worked for the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad as a freight-station clerk before pursuing his chosen field. He has worked as a reporter for daily newspapers, and later as an editor and press spokesman for a state high-speed-rail feasibility study. In 1988, he became a freelance writer, editor, and historical consultant. He has been quoted on railroad history in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Wall Street Journal<\/b>, and New York Times<\/b>.<\/p>\n
From 1984 to 1987, he served as chairman of a $50,000 project to rescue, restore, preserve, and display the first electric locomotive to pull a revenue passenger train into Harrisburg, Pa. The 237-ton GG1 locomotive, No. 4859, drew that assignment on January 15, 1938, over PRR\u2019s then-newly-electrified Philadelphia-Harrisburg line. The engine was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is now displayed in Amtrak\u2019s former-PRR 1887 Harrisburg passenger station.<\/p>\n
Dan has written more than 50 articles for Trains<\/b> magazine, including three cover stories. Also, he has contributed to such magazines as American Heritage, American Heritage of Invention & Technology, Classic Trains, Locomotive & Railway Preservation, Mass Transit, Passenger Train Journal, Pennsylvania Heritage, Railroad & Railfan<\/b>, and Railway Age<\/b>. In addition, he has worked as an exhibit-design consultant for museums, including the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, Pa., the Horseshoe Curve Visitor Center, and the Altoona (Pa.) Railroaders Memorial Museum.<\/p>\n
In 2006, he left freelance writing and consulting to become a freight-train conductor for Norfolk Southern Railway. He worked in that role for eight years and was promoted to engineer in 2014. Four years later, he retired, in August 2018.<\/p>\n
Besides R&LHS, he is a member of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society, the National Railway Historical Society (and its Harrisburg Chapter), the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, and Friends of the East Broad Top Railroad.<\/p>\n
He and his wife Shirley live in suburban Harrisburg. They are the parents of two adult married sons and have a grandson and a granddaughter.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan Cupper Member since 2002 4741 Spring Creek Road Harrisburg, PA 17111 717-756-3116 Railroad History Editor Dan Cupper is a historian and author, and a retired Norfolk Southern locomotive engineer. Among his 10 books are histories of the Horseshoe Curve, Rockville Bridge, and Pennsylvania Turnpike. His 184-page book, Crossroads of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139,"parent":191,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/template-fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-197","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5691,"href":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/197\/revisions\/5691"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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