William W. Kratville, 1929-2011

Noted railroad author, photographer, and historian William W. Kratville died March 14 at his home in Omaha, Neb. He was 81.

Among his many accomplishments, Kratville was editor of Simmons-Boardman’s 1997 Car & Locomotive Cyclopedia of American Practices. He wrote more than 20 railroad books and kept a file of more than 300,000 railroad photo negatives. Several of Kratville’s books are available through Simmons-Boardman Books.

“Bill Kratville had railroading in his DNA,” wrote the Omaha World Herald. “His grandfather worked for the Chicago & North Western, and his parents were railroaders—his father a mechanical foreman for the Kansas City Southern, his mother a telegrapher for the C&NW. Bill became a Union Pacific and Amtrak photographer, and once supplied cars to Amtrak through his company, Auto-Liner Corp. He was also a campus photographer at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and publicity chief for the city’s 1954 centennial while working for the mayor’s office. Up until his death last week at age 81, the photographer enjoyed the clatter and hum of the rails in lots of ways. It even offered the man who was on a first-name basis with everybody—says his son—a few brushes with the famous.” Kratville provided the train for Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential primary campaign in Nebraska. In 1976, he leased his private railcar to Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign.

“Bill Kratville was one of those marvelous railroad people in the Bob Lewis mold,” said Jim Michel, Senior Vice President, Global Rail Practice at MARSH USA and a former Amtrak executive. “He knew all the history of passenger cars, especially those in yellow and gray. Bill was a trusted reference for the Mechanical Department in the early days of Amtrak and a pillar of the Omaha rail historical community.” (Lewis, Railway Age’s former publisher, died Jan. 6 at age 94.)