The American Car & Foundry Company has been busy!

The car pictured on the front of this post card is the first of 400 R-10 subway cars built after World War 2 by the American Car & Foundry Company.

Here, it poses for its portrait at the builder’s plant. These 400 cars, delivered in 1948 and 1949, were intended for joint Independent-Brooklyn Manhatten Transit service but they were used initially on the New York City built Independent Lines. I posted a picture earlier this month (June 4, 2025) of another car that was built by this company. Here is the link to that post: https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/2934863145319975648/1792440136948994381 In this post I will focus on the builder of the car. I have taken the information below from this website which gives great information about the history of the American Car & Foundry Company: https://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/builders/amercar&foundry1.htm By 17 March 1899, when the American Car & Foundry Company (AC&F) came into being at New York City, a few all-steel cars were being built, most cars were still built largely of wood, though with an ever-increasing amount of steel. Hopper cars were early made entirely of steel, with gondola and flat cars following (though with wood floors). House cars first had steel frames with wooden sheathing. It would be almost the time of the 1st World War before the majority of box cars, tank cars and passenger cars were made entirely of steel. There were 13 independent car builders consolidated into AC&F in 1899. During the previous year, those 13 had accounted for 53% of all freight cars built outside the railroads’ own shops. Additional companies were added in ensuing years such that there were 18 by 1920. AC&F was incorporated in New Jersey, with capital of $60 million. The initial Directors of the company were W.K. Bixby of Missouri Car & Foundry, George Hargreaves of Michigan-Peninsular Car Company, J.L. Swyser of Ohio Falls Car Mfg. Company, Fred H. Eaton of Jackson & Woodin Mfg. Company, J.J. Albright of Union Car Company, H.B. Denton of St. Charles Car Company and Charles T. Schoen of Pressed Steel Car Company. William Keeny Bixby (1857-1931) is credited with forming the American Car & Foundry Company. Born in Adrian, MI, he began his railway career in 1870 as a night watchman and baggage man for the International Great Northern Railroad at Palestine, Texas. He was soon promoted to the post of general baggage agent in San Antonio. He next moved to St. Louis, where he became printing and stationery buyer for all the Gould lines. After several years he became a lumber agent for the Missouri Car & Foundry Company of St. Louis. He was promoted to Vice-President within two years and later became its President. As head of Missouri Car & Foundry, Bixby engineered a consolidation with the Michigan-Peninsular Car Company of Detroit, then added 12 other independent car builders to become the American Car & Foundry Company, of which he was the first President, serving from 1899 to 1901. He thereafter became Chairman of the Board, then retired in 1905.

The post card was published by Audio Visual Designs (AVD) from Earlton, New York. AVD was started in 1964 by Carl Sturner for the sole purpose of providing railfans with sound recordings of locos and trains as well as with photochrome postcards of trackside photos. These stunning color images were taken all over the country by some well-known photographers such as David Sweetland. The history and product line of AVD can be found on the company's website at https://www.audiovisualdesigns.com/

A Real Team Effort

This information below may sound familiar. I posted about the Horseshoe Curve back in February of this year. Here is the link to that post: https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/2934863145319975648/5578340278373810654 The famous Horseshoe curve on the Pennsilvania Pailroad's four track main line to the West, is still regarded as one of the world's most striking examples of railroad construction work. Located near the centre of the state, about 5 1/2 miles west of Altoona, the view to the south, stretching across Pennsylvania to the East and West incline of the Allagheny Mountains, near the Maryland border, is considered to be the most beautiful and impressive in the state. This website is the official website for the National Historic Landmark: https://www.railroadcity.org/horseshoecurve

Today I would like to focus on the companies involved in getting this post card into the hands of the public. There are three of them, Curt Otto Teich's company, The Minsky Brothers from Pittsburgh, and the United News Company. Each had a unique role to play.

First, it was printed by Curt Otta Teich. This is a "C.T. ART-COLORTONE" card. The process used to print this card was registered by Teich's company with the United States Patent Office. This post card is a sample of, in my opion, one of the finest of the "linen card" era. The texture of the front of the card is amazing; yet, the picture is sharp. The code (8A-H2199) at the top-middle of the card's back tells us that it was printed in 1938. The A tells us that it is from the 1930s and the 8 says specifically 1938. The H tells us that the method used for printing the card was the ART_COLORTONE method. That is the company's logo at bottom-middle of the card's back.

Second, the publisher, the one who asked Curt Otto Teich's company to print the card, was the Minsky Brothers and Company out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This company was around from 1935 to 1948. They published mostly linen cards with pictures of Pennsylvania.

The Third group that had a hand in this post card's existence was the company whose logo is in the bottom, left corner of the back of the post card - partially obscuring the Minsky Brothers name. Based in New York between 1908 and 1969 this was a wholly owned subsidiary of the American News Company they became major distributors of postcards and other printed items through their newsstands at hotels, rail and subway stations. Their cards were published by a variety of different companies including American News, Curt Teich, Robbins Brothers, and Valentine & Sons. Sometimes only their logo appears on a card, but it is often hand stamped on cards not originally published for them. That is the case with today's post card!!

How did Cyrus K. Holliday earn getting his name on a railroad car?

The picture on the front of this post card is of a car built in March of 1921 by the American Car & Foundry Company in St. Charles, Missouri. It was built for the Soo Line Railroad and acquired in 1962 by Tom Sefton and a group of private investors. It is now owned by the San Diego Trust & Savings Bank. It is on display at the former Santa Fe train station in San Diego.

The name on the side of the car is “Cyrus K. Holliday”, one of the founders of the Atchison, Topeks and Santa Fe Railroad. The information below is taken from the website https://www.american-rails.com/holliday.html The article there written by Adam Burns provides this information: Cyrus Holliday was born on April 3, 1826, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania the youngest of seven children. His father died when he was about 4 years old, so his mother took the family to live with his older sister in Wooster, Ohio. He attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania from 1848 to 1852. That is when he started his experience with the railroads. He was hired to help build one from Meadville, Pennsylvania to the Ohio border. That company went under but his payment included bonds that helped to finance his move to Lawrence, Kansas and then to the town that he helped to set up – Topeka. He recognized the huge potential of railroads for the development of the Wild West and devoted his energy and resources to this cause. His railroad's origins began humbly in Lawrence, Kansas hotel room when he wrote up the charter for the Atchison & Topeka during January 30-31, 1859. According to this document the system would connect its namesake towns and then head towards Santa Fe, New Mexico before continuing to the west coast and reaching out to the Gulf of Mexico. It was officially chartered on February 11, 1859. On November 23, 1863 the company's name was changed to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. The task of building the railroad officially kicked off at a small ceremony in Topeka along Washington Street on October 30, 1868. The Santa Fe brought significant changes to Kansas and the American Midwest. It provided a much-needed transportation link for people and goods, bringing growth and prosperity to several areas. Holliday died on March 29, 1900, in Topeka, Kansas.

This post card was published by the bank that owns the car: the San Diego Trust & Savings Bank. Their motto is "Where money matters...but, people count" The little logo at the top tells us that the bank has celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1989.

Isn't that a Train, not an Airplane?

Yes. It is a train, not an airplane. The name of the railroad is a marking tool to demonstrate how fast their locomotives were expected to travel. The

picture on the front of this post card is of the Seaboard Air Line #2028 power car. It was built in 1936 by the St. Louis Car Company and it was used to pull two or three other cars from branch lines to the main connection points with Seaboard Air Line’s main line. Our friends at Wikipedia tell us this: “The Seaboard Air Line Railroad (reporting mark SAL), which styled itself as "The Route of Courteous Service", was an American railroad that existed from April 14, 1900, until July 1, 1967, when it merged with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, its longtime rival, to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. Predecessor railroads dated from the 1830s and reorganized extensively to rebuild after the American Civil War. The company was headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, until 1958, when its main offices were relocated to Richmond, Virginia… At the end of 1925 SAL operated 3,929 miles of road, not including its flock of subsidiaries; at the end of 1960 it reported 4,135 miles. The main line ran from Richmond via Raleigh, North Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia to Jacksonville, Florida, a major interchange point for passenger trains bringing travelers to the Sunshine State. From Jacksonville, Seaboard rails continued to Tampa, St. Petersburg, West Palm Beach and Miami… The complex corporate history of the Seaboard began on March 8, 1832, when its earliest predecessor, the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad was chartered by the legislatures of Virginia and North Carolina to build a railroad from Portsmouth, Virginia, to the Roanoke River port of Weldon, North Carolina. After a couple of months of horse-drawn operation, the first locomotive-pulled service on this line began on September 4, 1834, with a twice-daily train from Portsmouth to Suffolk, Virginia, 17 miles away." This complex history can be better followed by going to this website: https://www.american-rails.com/seaboard.html

Once again the mystery publisher strikes!!!

Hiawatha had Class, and much Glass!!

The photo on the front of this post card is a Beaver Tail observation car used on the Hiawatha routes.

From our friends at Wikipedia: “The Hiawathas were a fleet of named passenger trains operated by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (also known as the Milwaukee Road) between Chicago and various destinations in the Midwest and Western United States. The most notable of these trains was the original Twin Cities Hiawatha, which served the Twin Cities in Minnesota. The train was named for the epic poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. History The first Hiawatha trains ran in 1935. By 1948, five routes carried the Hiawatha name: The Twin Cities Hiawatha — the main line route from Chicago through Milwaukee to St. Paul and Minneapolis, in Morning and Afternoon editions. The Twin Cities Hiawatha was the original Hiawatha, beginning service between Chicago and the Twin Cities on May 29, 1935. The Hiawatha used styled streamlined Class A 4-4-2 steam locomotives built by the American Locomotive Company and was intended to compete directly with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's (Burlington Route) Twin Cities Zephyrs and Chicago and North Western Railway's Twin Cities 400. The North Woods Hiawatha — a spur route off the Chicago-Minnesota main line leading from New Lisbon to Minocqua, Wisconsin The Chippewa-Hiawatha — connected Chicago to Ontonagon in Michigan's Upper Peninsula via Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wisconsin The Midwest Hiawatha — used the Milwaukee Road's mainline across Illinois and Iowa to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Omaha, Nebraska (the train split into two parts in Manilla, Iowa) The Olympian Hiawatha — which traversed the Milwaukee mainline from Chicago-Twin Cities-Seattle/Tacoma.” Adam Burns of https://www.american-rails.com/ says that the history of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad’s Hiawatha is multifaceted and long. If you are interested in getting the details, you may want to purchase (or check out of the library) one of these two books: Jim Scribbins' book, "The Hiawatha Story," and "The Milwaukee Road's Hiawathas" by Brian Solomon and John Gruber.

This post card was published by that great post card mystery publisher Railcards.com

Doodlebug???

The information below was taken from this website: https://www.american-rails.com/defect.html By Adam Burns The history of testing for internal track defects dates back to the early 1900s and sadly it all began with a serious accident that occurred on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The incident occurred in 1911 when a passenger train derailed and crashed near Manchester, New York due to what is now known as a transverse fissure, or a crack/defect within a rail that cannot be seen by the naked eye. Four years later in 1915 the Bureau of Standards initiated research into finding a way to test and find this deadly problem, no longer was simply walking the rails to find potential issues effective. It took over a decade for a testing method to be developed and implemented. In 1923 a Dr. Elmer Sperry, who also created the gyroscope among his more than 400 patents he would lay claim to, began development on an induction system that would test for these transverse fissures. Defect detection cars have been scanning the rails for undetectable defects and cracks dating all of the way back to the mid-1920s with the birth of Sperry Rail Service.

Today, the company's equipment is a common sight across America with their signature yellow heavy utility trucks (the classic Doodlebug rail cars have largely since been retired). The original cars used a system known as induction testing to detect defects and newer methods use ultrasonic testing. The classic, retrofitted doodlebugs which Sperry became so well known for over the years have predominantly been replaced by high-tech utility trucks and new rail cars. By 1928 he had perfected the invention and launched his company, Sperry Rail Service. While many of the large Class I railroads operate a few of their such cars, even today, for more than 80 years since its inception Sperry has often been the contractor of choice by railroads to search and scan for transverse fissures and other imperfections hiding within their rails. The induction method uses electrical brushes and low voltage power to create a magnetic field around the rail and the different variations in the field can mean that a unseen defect or crack is apparent within the steel. Later, in the 1950s Sperry developed a new method for finding cracks and imperfections within rails. Ultrasonic testing uses high-frequency sounds pulses directed into the rails to detect problems, typically from a number of different angles. Sperry's most famous defect detection cars (also known as simply Sperry cars) have always been the now-historic gas-electric cars, better known as Doodlebugs. At first Sperry built their own cars but later they purchased them from the J.G. Brill Company. Not only did these cars come fitted with testing equipment they were also full-service, rolling hotels (complete with sleeping quarters, bathrooms, and kitchens) for the crew as many times accommodations were not available along the railroad tracks. Later, the company began acquiring several Doodlebugs secondhand from railroads (from companies such as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Lehigh Valley Railroad, and Chicago & North Western Railway), which had given up using the more efficient machines to move passengers on lightly populated branch and secondary rail lines. In all Sperry would wind up with nearly 30 of the gas-electric cars and today still employs many of them in regular service, which interestingly haven't changed much since they were built during the first half of the 20th century! As Sperry has improved its testing methods its equipment has become lighter and easier to handle. Because of this the company has begun to retire a few of its gas-electric cars and now employs more versatile heavy utility trucks to search and test for rail defects. The post card was published by Railcards.com The mystery company!!

Hold Your Breath!! We're Going Under Water.

This is a picture of the entrance to the tunnel that runs under the Detroit River so that trains can travel back and forth from Detroit, Michigan in the United States to Winsor, Ontario in Canada. Here are the words on the back of the post card: "The Detroit River Tunnel has the unique disctiction of being the only tunnel of its type ever built. It was constructed in sections, all work being done from the surface of the water without the use of compressed air. The tunnel is operated electrically. Constructioin was started October 1, 1906 and completed July 1, 1910. The length from portal to portal is 1 3/4 miles, and from summit of grade 2 1/2 miles. It was built by the Detroit River Tunnel Company for the M. C. R. R. at a cost of $8,500,000." The M.C.R.R. is the Michigan Central Rail Road. This tunnel gave the New York Central Railroad-controlled company a useful short-cut through southern Ontario connecting Buffalo, Chicago and Detroit. Back on April 5, 2014 I posted a blog about an electric locomotive used for maintaining the right of way in the tunnel: https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blog/posts/2934863145319975648?q=detroit

This post card is part of the Divided Back Era of post cards. This was from March 1, 1907 to 1915. And I can age the card even closer by seeing that the publisher of the card, S. H. Knox was only in business until 1911. So, the tunnel was completed in 1910 and the business (in Buffalo, New York) ended in 1911. That is a very short time frame of 18 months in which this post card was printed.