What a High Bridge!

In the aftermath of the Civil War, a major north-south railroad route was deemed vitally important. The Cincinnati Southern Railroad picked up where the defunct Lexington and Danville railroad had left off. A new cantilever bridge was designed by Charles Shaler Smith to be built at the same location as the previously planned suspension bridge.

Shaler, as he was known, was an engineering officer in the Confederate army during the Civil War. He designed the Confederate Powder Works in Augusta, Georgia. Following the war, he became well known as the foremost American engineer of the day. His Baltimore Bridge Company, a partnership with Benjamin and Charles Latrobe, boasted of creating 13 miles of bridges in its advertising, including four bridges over the Mississippi, one over the Missouri, and one over the Saint Lawrence. Shaler was known for innovative solutions to engineering challenges.

His use of a cantilever design for the bridge helped solve the difficult construction challenge of the 275 feet deep gorge of the Kentucky River. The cantilever meant that minimal scaffolding was necessary; the arms of the bridge could be built out from the piers, balancing each other without the need for falsework.
When the bridge was completed in 1877, it was not only the first cantilever bridge in North America, but also the highest and longest cantilever in the world. The completed bridge stood 275 feet tall and spanned 1,125 feet. Until the early 20th century, the bridge held the record as the highest bridge over a navigable stream.
High Bridge, as it became known, ushered in the era of modern bridge building. The engineering marvel was dedicated by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879. The American Society of Civil Engineers designated High Bridge as an engineering landmark in 1986. A model of the bridge can be found in the American History Museum of the Smithsonian Institute.
With increasing and heavier railroad traffic, it became evident that the bridge would need to be reinforced or rebuilt. During 1910 and 1911, the bridge was rebuilt using a design by Gustav Lindenthal.
The rebuilt bridge used the same footings as the original bridge and was built around the original. By raising the track deck of the new bridge almost 30 feet above the existing deck, railroad traffic was able to continue uninterrupted during the rebuilding.
The higher deck of the new bridge required a new elevated approach. A temporary trestle was built and then filled to the required height.
As traffic increased, the railroad found it necessary to double the track on the bridge. By the end of the track doubling project in 1929, High Bridge had attained its current appearance.
The massive limestone towers that had been a trademark of the bridge and village had to be removed to provide clearance for the extra track. Legend has it that when the towers were built in 1851, a bottle of premium bourbon was sealed in each tower by the masons to commemorate the occasion. When the towers were torn down, no one admitted to finding the bottles.

The above information is from: http://www.worldtimzone.com/railtrail/highbridge/construction.php

The post card was published by the Metrocraft Company of Everett, Mass. They were a major printer of linen and photochrome postcards, as is evidenced by this particular post card,

displaying a variety of subjects. They also printed postcards for many other publishers. A good number of Metrocraft’s early photochrome postcards retained the use of retouchers that had worked on their linens. These cards have a very distinct look before they went over to a completely uniform photographic means of natural color reproduction. From: the Metropolitan Post Card Club of New York website.

Moffat Tunnel

I am blogging about this post card because it just recently came to me in the mail. I have a few others about which I will blog so that I can process them into my collection - now up to 3,034 train post cards.

I published on previous blog about the Moffat Tunnel. It was on May 10, 2014. That post was mostly about David Moffat, after whom the Moffat Tunnel was named. This is a quick summary of what was in that post: "Almost all of the information that follows came from the Wikipedia website.
David Moffat was born in Washingtonville, New York on July 22, 1839. He moved to Denver, Colorado in 1860. Unfortunately, as the Union Pacific Railroad built the transcontinental railroad heading west it by-passed Denver for a much flatter and easier to construct route. Building the transcontinental railroad through Nebraska, totally by-passing Colorado, left the Denver stranded from the commerce connections that it had hoped for.

As a result of this snub, the governor of Colorado, together with other local business leaders, including David Moffat partnered with East Coast investors to form a railroad company (the Denver Pacific Railway) that would link Denver and the Colorado Territory with the transcontinental railroad. The second railroad company, the Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad, with which Moffat was involved got its start intending to connect the mining area of Colorado to the city of Denver. It began in 1872 and operated as an independent railroad until it was sold in foreclosure proceedings in 1889.

Looking south, Mr. Moffat, along with other business men, began the Denver and New Orleans Railroad. Their intention was to bring business to and from the Gulf of Mexico. As if that wasn’t enough railroading, David Moffat then started the first trolley line in Denver.

His next venture was to be the Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway climbing to the top of Pikes Peak. The company was founded in 1889 and limited service to the Halfway House Hotel was started in 1890. The summit was reached the following year.

In 1885 David Moffat was elected to Denver & Rio Grande board. Then in 1887 Moffat was elected president of the Denver & Rio Grande. Moffat built the Glenwood to Grand Junction, standard gauging Pueblo to Grand Junction, and the Tennessee pass tunnel.

1892 David Moffat next developed a railroad to Creede from Wagon Wheel Gap, Colorado. It ran along the banks of the Rio Grande to Creede at his own expense. He formed the Rio Grande Gunnison Railway Company.

Finally, David H. Moffat and his business associates established the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway. It was reorganized as the Denver & Salt Lake Railway and it was along this railway that the Moffat Tunnel was bored. David Moffat envisioned a tunnel through the continental divide west of Denver. Construction of the Moffat Tunnel took place from 1923 to 1927. It was officially opened on February 28, 1928 with much fanfare and several trainloads of special guests in attendance at the East Portal, the picture on this post card. Denver & Salt Lake Railroad locomotive 205, a 2-6-6-0 compound locomotive, pulled the first official passenger train through the new tunnel. The Moffat Tunnel is 6.2 miles long and is the 6th largest tunnel on earth.

Mr. Moffat died on March 18, 1911, before he could realize this dream."

This post is more about the Tunnel itself and, of course, the post card attached to it. This post card was published after 1927. I know that because one of the dates on the top of the tunnel states that it was completed in 1927. But, judging by the wording on the back of the post card, it was not published much after that date. It says,"The estimated cost was to be approximately $13,000,000 but due to unexpected and unforeseen conditions arising from time to time it is now estimated that the total cost will be about $18,000,000." This card was published so closely to the completion of the tunnel that they didn't even know the full cost of the construction.

The post card was published by the H. H. Tammen Curio Company. That little critter at which the arrow up the middle of the post card is pointing, is their trademark. A novelty dealer and important publisher of national view-cards and Western themes in continuous tone and halftone lithography. Their logo does not appear on all their cards but other graphic elements are often remain the same. H. H. Tammen (1856-1924) Harry Heye Tammen was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 6, 1856, the son of a German immigrant pharmacist. He attended Knapps Academy in Baltimore, then worked in Philadelphia before moving to Denver in 1880. (from the Metropolitan Post Card Club of New York)

The post card itself is from the Linen Era (1930 - 1945).

You can see how this company tried their best to make it look like linen. In my books, nobody came close to the best linen post card maker Curt Teich.

Chock full of Mystery!

These four post cards contain a whole lot of mystery. The first is a tongue-in-cheek mystery: Where did they get food that grew so large? The other mysteries are things like: Who printed these cards? Who published the cards? Where were they sold? Why are they printed in black and white? How old are they?

The only answer to a question from above that I can provide is not very specific. The cards were probably printed in the Divided Back Era (1907 – 1915). After March 1, 1907 the public were allowed to write more than just the address on the back of the post card. A line was usually printed down the middle and, certainly at the beginning of this era, the two sides were labelled about which side was appropriate for the address and which was reserved for the message. Another hint is that the pictures on the fronts of the cards go all the way to the edges of the post cards. After 1915, in order to save some money on ink costs, the printers provided a border around the picture on the front of the post cards.

If you look at the numbers on the flat cars (right side) you might conclude that these cards were part of a series published by the company - whoever they were.

A careful look at the post card with the flat car holding the watermelon foreshadows this border. If you look to the right-hand edge of the post card you will see that there is white space between the scene and the edge of the card. Unfortunately, it is not something that was done on purpose. This card is at the bottom of the picture below. You can imagine that the part of the watermelon is missing from the left side of the card. It could easily be the width of the white stripe on the right.

This post card is at the bottom of the picture below. You can see that the box that contains the words, “PLACE STAMP HERE” is very close to the edge – compared to the three above it. This card didn’t go through the cutting machine very neatly. Another mystery: Who was on quality control?

Exaggerated?

William Howard Taft was the 27th president of the United States on March 4, 1909. While has was campaigning for the presidency, he used a train that had a car at the end with a platform on the back. As a matter of fact, this post card has captured a picture of him on that train car. He followed Theodore Roosevelt into the presidency so the economy in the United States was flourishing. You can see in the upper right of this post card the word “PROSPERITY”. The large vegetables in the picture reflect the same feeling of wealth. This post card was produced in 1908, while Taft was still travelling across the United States trying to drum up as many votes as he could. He won the election with only 51.6% of the popular vote.

The post card was produced by William H. Martin (1865 – 1940). He worked out of Ottawa, Kansas after purchasing a shop there in 1894. Somewhere along the way he decided to produce not just photographs of exaggerated subject matter, but, he turned these photographs into post cards. He sold his Ottawa business and opened The North American Post Card Company in Kansas City, Kansas. In only three years he made a fortune by selling these post cards. He sold his photography (post card) business in 1912 to open a new venture: the National Sign Company.

This particular post card was used on September 19, 1910, 18 months after Taft became president. It seems to be a note from one young man to another asking when he went to the fair, because they did not see each other there. There must have been a large blimp or dirigible at the fair – it is mentioned at the end of the message with a “ha ha” added.

Goin' to Florida

The Overseas Railroad was an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway

to Key West, located 128 miles beyond the end of the Florida peninsula. Work on the line started in 1905 and was completed in 1912; the line was in daily passenger and freight service until its destruction by a hurricane in 1935. My wife and I joke a lot about cars driving down the road for kilometers with their turn signals on. We usually alert the other person by saying,"Guess he's goin' to Florida." Then the other person knows to look for a car with continuous turn signalling happening. I have to admit that she has asked me if I was going to Florida a couple of times. Today's blog post is taking us to Florida without the benefit of an ongoing turn signal. We are looking at three of my seven post cards that highlight the Florida East Railway's Long Key Viaduct. I will first tell you the story, then talk about the publisher of each post card at the end. I will simply intersperse the fronts of the post cards through the narrative as taken mostly from Wikipedia. The

construction problems were formidable; labor turnover was frequent and the cost was prohibitive. The first portion of the line, from Homestead to Key Largo, was across swamp land. Thankfully, the dredging of the drainage canals to clear the swamps provided the material to build up the roadbed. Worse than any other challenge was the weather: a hurricane in September 1906 destroyed the initial work on the Long Key Viaduct and killed more than 100 laborers. Hurricanes in 1909 and 1910 destroyed much of the completed railroad. After these hurricanes, work resumed at a faster pace — The owner of the railroad was 80 years old and wanted to ride all the way to Key West on his railroad. The completion of Seven Mile Bridge assured many that the line would soon be completed. Henry Flagler, by then blind, arrived in Key West on January 22, 1912, aboard his private rail car "Rambler", telling a welcoming crowd, “Now I can die happy. My dream is fulfilled.” Regular service on the 156-mile extension — dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World" — began the following day, with through sleepers between New York and Key West with connections at Key West for passenger steamers and car ferries bound for Havana. Flagler died less than 18 months later in May 1913.

The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane washed away approximately 40 miles of the Middle Keys section of the line. In addition, the Long Key Fishing Camp was destroyed, along with a rescue train which was — with the exception of locomotive #447 — overturned by the storm surge at Islamorada, Florida. With Flagler gone, the railroad was unwilling to repair a line that had never repaid its construction cost — an unknown figure. It was later determined that the total cost of what had been derisively nicknamed "Flagler's Folly" exceeded $50 million ($1.31 billion today), all from his personal fortune.

The top post card, above was mailed in 1914, soon after the viaduct opened. It was published by the H. S. Kress Company. A publisher and large distributor of postcards through their national chain of Five & Dime stores. They were purchased by Genesco in 1964 who slowly began shutting the business down.

The middle post card was published by the Leighton & Valentine Company

out of New York City. Hugh C. Leighton was a printer and major publisher of national view-cards, especially scenes of New England. They printed most of their cards in four distinct styles employing halftone lithography. Most used a simple soft yet highly recognizable RGB pallet. While some cards were printed at their plant in the U.S. most were manufactured in Frankfort, Germany. Almost all their cards were numbered. They merged with Valentine & Sons in 1909.

The last of the post cards was published by the E.C. Kropp Company:

a publisher and printer that began producing chromolithographic souvenir cards and private mailing cards in 1898 under the name Kropp. These cards were of much higher quality than those that would printed under the E.C. Kropp name. They became the E.C. Kropp Company in 1907 and produced large numbers of national view-cards and other subjects. Their latter linen cards had a noticeably fine grain. Sold to L.L. Cook in 1956 and they are now part of the GAF Corp. U.S. This post card is an excellent example of a linen post card. The texture and weight of the card are obvious when one holds it and holds it up to the light. I hope you can see the texture in this close-up:

Angels Flight Railway in Los Angeles

Colette and I won a trip to Los Angeles through a radio station that we listen to and support. We stayed in a hotel in the financial district about 6 or 8 blocks from the Union Train Station. Just a few blocks away from our hotel was an even more famous (with me, at least) railway station: Angels Flight Railway.

When I was much younger… in the 1960s …our family went to the Angels Flight Railway and rode the funicular. I don’t remember how many times we went up and down Bunker Hill. It was great. I still have a ticket to ride Angels Flight from that time in my box of memorabilia. Originally, I kept it because I thought that we would someday return and ride it again. I didn’t know much about the railroad then. But, to date I have found lots of very interesting background and information.
Angels Flight was the result of the efforts of Colonel James Ward Eddy, a Civil War veteran. He began construction of Angels Flight (a two foot, six inch gauge railroad) on August 2, 1901. The railway ended up being a 33 percent grade for 315 feet. He opened the railway on December 31st of the same year. On Opening Day more than 2,000 people took the two funicular cars, Olivet and Sinai, between Hill and Olive Streets (two blocks) in downtown Los Angeles.

Colonel Eddy was born on May 30, 1832 in Java, New York and he died in Los Angeles on April 13, 1916. He moved to Illinois in 1853 where he studied law and became a lawyer and friend of Abraham Lincoln, so much so, that during the Civil War he enlisted in the Army and joined those whose job it was to protect Washington, D. C. After the war, he helped to build a branch line from Flagstaff, Arizona to Phoenix for the Santa Fe railroad. Then, he moved to Los Angeles in 1895. He was part of the project to bring power lines from the Kern River to L.A.
Six years after moving to Los Angeles, he built Angels Flight with his own money. It just so happens that this railway is very close to the area of town in which the colonel lived. The first rides cost one penny and they took passengers from one station to the next in about a minute.
In May of 1969 Angels Flight was closed down so the city government could redevelop the area and displace over 20,000 people. They put Angels Flight into storage. On February 24, 1996 Angels Flight was opened half a block south of the original site. Since then it has had several accidents and many safety violations. Today, it sits on display for all to see and none to ride.
You can get more information about Angels Flight on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_Flight)or at http://www.ladowntownnews.com/news/will-angels-flight-ever-roll-again/article_f99ee604-bc49-11e3-abe6-0019bb2963f4.html or at http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/23044083
These two post cards show Angels Flight in its early years. Both post cards are from before March 1, 1907. The backs of them clearly show that one can only write the address on that side. The one on the left, above, is by the Detroit Publishing Co. There is a great source of information about the Detroit Company at (http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/dpc/how/animas3.asp and at http://www.metropostcard.com/publishersd.html The right-hand one is published by the M. Rieder Company who published view-cards of the West and of Native Americans. His cards were printed in Germany except those contracted out to Edward H. Mitchell in the United States.
The left one below is also from Detroit Publishing and the right-hand one is from M. Rieder.

Don't Try This at Home!

I cannot imagine being able to or wanting to stand inside one of the Spiral Tunnels on “The Big Hill” just east of Field, British Columbia. It just isn't a safe thing to do!! But that is exactly what the photographer for Gowan & Sutton Company must have done to get this beautiful shot of Cathedral Mountain.

Then, in order to sell a very impressive post card to someone, they hand tinted the real photo card. I can see a light shade of blue surrounding Cathedral Mountain; there is a slight shading of green on the side of the mountain, too.

The photographer was probably standing at the opening of the top of the Lower Spiral Tunnel in the base of Mt. Stephen. The track continues to curve to the left, which will take it to the Upper Spiral Tunnel built into the base of Cathedral Mountain.

An eastbound train leaving Field climbs a moderate hill, goes through two short, straight tunnels on Mt. Stephen, under the Trans-Canada Highway, across the Kicking Horse River and into the Lower Spiral Tunnel in Mt. Ogden. It spirals to the left up inside the mountain for 891-m and emerges 15-m higher. The train then crosses back over the Kicking Horse River, under the highway a second time and into the 991-m tunnel in Cathedral Mountain. The train spirals to the right, emerging 17-m higher and continues to the top of Kicking Horse Pass.

I have written in my past blogs about this area that straddles British Columbia and Alberta in the Rocky Mountains. See my 2013 entries from February 17th (probably from Cathedral Mountain looking back at Mt. Stephen), March 22nd and April 5th as well as Nov. 8, 2014. I have also written about the publisher/printer on April 12th and August 2nd of 2013 and February 1st of 2014.

Gowan Sutton (1921 – 1960) was a publisher of real photo and printed postcards of the Canadian West. Not only did they produce cards depicting large cities, they captured many hard to reach views within the Canadian Territories. Many of their cards were hand tinted in a simple manner striving for style rather than realism, which created cards in vastly differing quality. While the real photo cards were made in Canada their printed cards were made in England.

Next to Impossible

These two post cards are also (like the previous two blog posts) Real Photo Cards printed by Byron Harmon. They look very similar to each other. Both are labelled by Mr. Harmon as "774. Mt. Chancellor." Both show a train coming out of a tunnel or around a corner with Mt. Chancellor in the background.







There are several differences, however. 1) The exposure is different - the bottom post card is overexposed;

2) The title of the post card is in a slightly different location - in the top one the 774 touches the train tracks;

3) The engines are different - the top one has a straight line across the front of the "cow catcher" while the bottom one has a curve in front of the boiler. This last difference is so stark that I wonder if Mr. Harmon wasn't experimenting with some sort of "photo-shopping" with this picture!!

You can see that the engine number on the post card is 5178. I found at this website: http://members.shaw.ca/cprsteam/p1.htm that this was a Mikado type of engine with a 2-8-2 wheel arrangement. It was built in 1912 by the Canadian Pacific Railway.

It was next to impossible to find any information about Mt. Chancellor. What I did find was that Mount Chancellor is a 8,826 feet tall. It is located between the towns of Field and Golden in British Columbia, Canada. It is the 515th highest mountain in British Columbia and the 1,105th highest mountain in Canada. - See more at: http://peakery.com/chancellor-peak-canada/#sthash.n5Ok9Ygg.dpuf

In trying to find information about Mt. Chancellor, I found many other copies of this post card out there for sale. The prices ranged from $2.99 to $5.99 USD.

Mt. Eisenhower in Canada??

The train tracks in the foreground of this post card belong to the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The mountain was named "Castle Mountain" by James Hector in 1858 (a Scottish geologist, naturalist, and surgeon who

accompanied the Palliser Expedition as a surgeon and geologist) for its castle-like appearance. From 1946 to 1979 it was known as Mount Eisenhower in honour of the World War II general Dwight D. Eisenhower. Public pressure caused its original name to be restored, but a pinnacle on the southeastern side of the mountain was named Eisenhower Tower.


Located nearby are the remains of Silver City, a 19th-century mining settlement, AND the Castle Mountain Internment Camp in which persons deemed enemy aliens and suspected enemy sympathizers were confined during World War I. The Castle Mountain Internment Camp, located in Banff National Park, Alberta, was the largest internment facility in the Canadian Rockies, housing several hundred prisoners at any one time. Established on July 13, 1915, a total of 660 "enemy aliens" were interned at the facility during its entire operation. It held immigrant prisoners of Ukrainian, Austrian, Hungarian and German descent. Their only crime was that they were not born in Canada.

Despite their civilian status, a great many people were sent to prisoner of war camps located in the Canadian hinterland, to be used as military conscript labour on government work projects. Of particular note was the use of forced labour in Canada’s national parks, where they were introduced there as a matter of policy to improve existing facilities and increase accessibility by developing the park system’s infrastructure. By 1915 several internment camps in and around the Rocky Mountains were in full swing, including a camp at the foot of Castle Mountain, the terminal point of the then uncompleted Banff-Laggan (Lake Louise) road.

Recognizing the value of future tourism, the main purpose of the camp was to push the Banff highway on through to Lake Louise, although, in addition, bridges, culverts and fireguards were also built. The camp consisted of tents within a dual barbed wire enclosure. The tents however proved inadequate during the severe winter climate, forcing the camp to relocate to military barracks built on the outskirts of the town of Banff, adjacent to the Cave and Basin, site of the original Hot Springs.

With the onset of spring, the camp returned once more to the Castle Mountain site. This process of return and relocation would continue until August 1917 when the camp was finally closed when the internees were conditionally released to industry to meet the growing labour shortage. All of the above information was taken from Wikipedia.

The post card was printed and published by Byron Harmon.

Harmon arrived in Alberta in 1903 as an itinerant photographer after leaving his portrait studio in Tacoma, Washington. By 1906 He had become a founding member and official photographer of the Alpine Club of Canada. He took over 6,400 photographs while exploring the Canadian Rockies and the Selkirks. In 1907 Harmon began turning many of these photographs into real photo postcards, which became his principal life’s work. In 1924 he traveled into the Rockies with the photographer Lewis R. Freeman. Some of the real photo postcards produced under Harmon’s name from this trip may actually be the work of Freeman that he published for him. After this trip Harmon mostly produced scenes alongside railway lines.

This particular post card has a white border around it so it is probably from between 1915 to 1930.

Following the Rabbit Trails...

Colette and I won a trip to Los Angeles through a radio station that we listen to and support. We stayed in a hotel in the financial district about 6 or 8 blocks from the Union Train Station. Across the street from the hotel was the enticing little Caravan Book Store. It had displays in the windows and inside the store, itself that screamed at me, “Come visit!” So we did. We met a nice gentleman who directed me to the train section of the bookstore. It included a few groupings of post cards. As I thumbed through them I realized that I already had most of them in my collection. He even had some Byron Harmon post cards from the Canadian Rockies near Field, British Columbia. We had a discussion about trains and I bought two post cards from his collection to add to mine.

This is one of them. I was attracted to it for two reasons; first, it had a train on the front and, second, it was from Lima, Ohio. My paternal grandfather was born in Lima, Ohio.
I have researched the train station. There were five stations in Lima, but I cannot figure out which one was known as the Union Depot. I found this in Wikipedia: Allen County's first railroad line was built by the Indiana Railroad in 1854 and later subsumed into the Pennsylvania Railroad system. By the early twentieth century, Lima was a transportation center with links to five railroads, and its economy was highly dependent on the industry-leading Lima Locomotive Works.
Then I tried to find out about the publisher: the M. Weixelbaum Co.

Searching the web I found that there have been many Weixelbaums in the United States. The closest I could come to this company was the following. This is the result of me putting together many puzzle pieces; I am not sure of exactly how accurate the picture is, but, here goes… M. Weixelbaum was born on June 19, 1883 as Milton Weixelbaum the son of Jewish parents Adolph and Jennie. He had at least one brother, probably Jesse. Milton married Elnora Betz in 1912; they had no children by 1926. He must have either gone into business with his brother(s) or they inherited the business. In the local paper there is a reference to applying for a job at the Weixelbaum Brothers Co. 20 West High Street.
I found things published by him as early as 1906. They were post cards of Muncie, Indiana. This particular post card is from the Divided Back Era (1907 – 1915). I can date it even more specifically because the postmark on the back says that the card was mailed on August 20, 1910. That makes this post card 105 years old two days ago.

World's Longest Railroad Tunnel (at the time)

I can tell you with great certainty that the picture on this post card was taken after December 16, 1916. I know that because the Connaught Tunnel was opened on that day. The tracks shown here belong to the Canadian Pacific Railway and they are not very far from the bridge in last week’s blog post. This picture was also taken by the photographer, Byron Harmon.

You will notice that there is a set of double tracks through the tunnel. This is because, according to Gary Backler’s graduate thesis: “The C.P.R.’S Capacity and Investment Strategy in Rogers Pass, B.C., 1882 – 1916” the reason the tunnel was built was to compete with other rail lines to gain the lion’s share of rail traffic and to accommodate the increasing demand on the rails that the CPR already operated between Vancouver and Calgary. According to his thesis, the number crunchers found the combination of elevation and length of tunnel to make the project financially feasible. I recommend that you read this article: http://www.okthepk.ca/dataCprSiding/articles/201111/month00.htm

It is named the Connaught Tunnel because it was named after the person who was the Governor General (the queen’s representative in Canada) at the time, the seventh child of Queen Victoria: Prince Arthur William Patric Albert, the Duke of Connaught (a county in Ireland). Construction on the tunnel was started on April 2, 1914 and completed on December 16, 1916. The tunnel is 5.022 miles long (the longest tunnel at the time of its completion) and 20 feet wide. The grade through the tunnel is a mere .95%. In building this tunnel through the mountain CPR was able to abandon fourteen and a half miles of track and thirty one snow sheds. It also saved countless lives of the workers who could have died clearing avalanches on that 14.5 miles of track in Rogers Pass.
I can tell you with great certainty that the picture on this post card was taken after December 16, 1916. I know that because the Connaught Tunnel was opened on that day. The tracks shown here belong to the Canadian Pacific Railway and they are not very far from the bridge in last week’s blog post. This picture was also taken by the photographer, Byron Harmon.

You will notice that there is a set of double tracks through the tunnel. This is because, according to Gary Backler’s graduate thesis: “The C.P.R.’S Capacity and Investment Strategy in Rogers Pass, B.C., 1882 – 1916” the reason the tunnel was built was to compete with other rail lines to gain the lion’s share of rail traffic and to accommodate the increasing demand on the rails that the CPR already operated between Vancouver and Calgary. According to his thesis, the number crunchers found the combination of elevation and length of tunnel to make the project financially feasible. I recommend that you read this article: http://www.okthepk.ca/dataCprSiding/articles/201111/month00.htm

It is named the Connaught Tunnel because it was named after the person who was the Governor General (the queen’s representative in Canada) at the time, the seventh child of Queen Victoria: Prince Arthur William Patric Albert, the Duke of Connaught (a county in Ireland). Construction on the tunnel was started on April 2, 1914 and completed on December 16, 1916. The tunnel is 5.022 miles long (the longest tunnel at the time of its completion) and 20 feet wide. The grade through the tunnel is a mere .95%. In building this tunnel through the mountain CPR was able to abandon fourteen and a half miles of track and thirty one snow sheds. It also saved countless lives of the workers who could have died clearing avalanches on that 14.5 miles of track in Rogers Pass.

Notice that Mr. Harmon was kind enough to tell us that the mountain in the background is Ross Peak. It was named after James Ross who was the superintendent of the construction efforts in the Selkirks. It is 7,647 feet tall.

World's Tallest Railroad Bridge (at the time)

You are looking at what was the tallest bridge in the world at the time this picture was taken. This is the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Stoney Creek Bridge, on the eastern side of Rogers Pass in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia, Canada.

It was built as part of the Continental Railroad promised to the citizens of British Columbia if they would vote to join the Canadian Federation. The present steel bridge is a 656 foot long truss arch bridge. In 1893 this bridge replaced a wooden trestle that was built in 1885. It stands 295 feet over Stoney Creek. In 1929 a second steel arch was added to handle the train traffic that had become heavier over the decades.

For almost 60 years, until 1988, this bridge handled all of the Canadian Pacific's transcontinental traffic. A second track was built at a lower altitude, so that now this bridge is designated to handle mostly eastbound rail traffic. The "Rocky Mountaineer" and the "Royal Canadian Pacific" tourist trains usually cross this bridge.

It was a great image for rail fan photographers for decades. However, some “graffiti artists” decided to decorate the bridge and vandalize the radio relay tower nearby. Fortunately, the relay tower was alarmed and they were caught. Unfortunately, because of its remoteness, rail fans are not welcomed and the engineers are asked to radio in any leads about any trespassers. One of my dreams that will not be fulfilled!

These two “real photo” post cards are the same image taken by the same photographer: Byron Harmon. He simply produced the image in two renderings. I know it is Byron Harmon because he has stamped the back of the larger post card with his well-known and trademarked stamp.

Harmon arrived in Alberta in 1903 as an itinerant photographer after leaving his portrait studio in Tacoma, Washington. By 1906 He had become a founding member and official photographer of the Alpine Club of Canada. He took over 6,400 photographs while exploring the Canadian Rockies and the Selkirks, where the picture on this post card was taken. In 1907 Harmon began turning many of these photographs into real photo postcards, which became his principal life’s work. In 1924 he traveled into the Rockies with the photographer Lewis R. Freeman. Some of the real photo postcards produced under Harmon’s name from this trip may actually be the work of Freeman that he published for him. After this trip Harmon mostly produced scenes alongside railway lines.

Celebrating 1776 in Electrical Wonder

These top two street cars are of the PCC variety.
The bottom one is a GG1 built by the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The "PCC" in these cars' name comes from the name of a design committee formed in 1929 as the Presidents' Conference Committee and renamed the Electric Railway Presidents' Conference Committee (ERPCC) in 1931. This group's membership consisted mostly of representatives of some of the larger operators of urban electric street railways in the United States. The ERPCC goal was to design a new and modern type of streetcar that would better meet the needs of the street railways and their customers. The committee prepared a detailed research program, conducted extensive research, built and tested components, made necessary modifications, and, in the end, produced a set of specifications for a complete vehicle of a set design built with standard parts as opposed to a custom designed car body with any variety of different parts added to it depending on the whims and requirements of the individual customer. A significant contribution to the PCC design was Noise Reduction with extensive use of rubber in springs and other components to prevent rattle, vibration, and thus noise and to provide a level of comfort not known before. Wheel tires were mounted between rubber sandwiches and were thus electrically isolated so that shunts were used to complete ground. Resilient wheels were used on most PCC cars with later heftier cousins known as Super-Resilient.
Gears were another source of considerable noise, solved by employing hypoid gears which are mounted at a right angle to the axle, where three of the six teeth constantly engaged the main gear, reducing play and noise. All movable truck parts employed rubber for noise reduction as well. "Satisfactory Cushion Wheel of Vital Importance; Develop New Truck Design; Generous Use of Rubber" are headings within a paper that Chief Engineer Hirshfeld both presented and published.
After a specification document suitable for purchasing cars was generated by TRC orders were placed by 8 companies in 1935 and 1936. First was Brooklyn & Queens Transit Co. (B&QT) for 100 cars, then Baltimore Transit Co. (BTCo) for 27 cars, Chicago Surface Lines (CSL) for 83 cars, Pittsburgh Railways Co. (PRCO) for 101 cars, San Diego Electric Railway (SDERy) for 25 cars, Los Angeles Railway (LARy) for 60 cars, and then Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) for 1 car.
Most PCCs employed three pedals with a dead man's switch to the left, brake in center, and power pedal on the right. Depressing the brake about half way and then releasing the dead man pedal put the PCC in "park". Lifting the dead man alone would apply all brakes, drop sand, and balance the doors so they could be pushed open easily.
The first PCC cars in Canada were operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in 1937. By 1954 Toronto had the largest PCC fleet in the world, including many purchased second-hand from U.S. cities that abandoned streetcar service following the Second World War. Although it acquired new custom-designed streetcars in the late 1970s and 1980s, the TTC continued using PCCs in regular service until the mid-1990s, and retains two (#4500 and #4549) for charter purposes.
The Edmonton Radial Railway Society operates TTC 4612 at Fort Edmonton Park and has cars 4349 and 4367 in storage.
The above information was gleaned from the wikipedia site.
The following information is taken from the website http://www.steamlocomotive.com/GG1/
The GG1 was designed by the Pennsylvania Railroad based on the need for a locomotive that could pull more than 12 to 14 passenger cars. The railroad thought it had designed the perfect electric passenger locomotive, the P-5a, but as the P-5a locomotives arrived, it became necessary to double head them on many trains in order to protect schedules. Two other factors were involved in the development of the GG1. The chassis and wheel arrangement were a result of experiments with a leased New Haven EP3a and the streamlined body and center crew cab were an outcome of concern for crew safety. A tragic grade crossing accident in which a box cab P-5a hit a truck killing the engineer, reinforced the need for better protection for the crew. After the accident, a hold was put on further manufacture of the box cab P-5a and the locomotive was redesigned to include a center crew cab. The GG1 was given a sculptured carbody with contoured hoods that were tapered to provide visibility for the enginemen. As a result, a very aesthetically pleasing design evolved. Raymond Loewy, the renowned industrial designer, reviewed the prototype and recommended welding the shell rather than using rivets. He then suggested adding the famous pin stripes, making the design an award winner.

The railroad built 139 units (#4800 through #4938) between the years 1934 and 1943. Many of them were built at the Juniata Locomotive Shop in Altoona, PA.

This streamlined locomotive, designed for bidirectional operation was mainly used for passenger trains, but a few were regeared for freight service. Lasting from 1934 to well into the 1980s it would be hard to find any other American locomotive design that operated for a longer period of time. The 79.5 foot long 230+ ton GG1 was built on an articulated frame which permitted its 2-C+C-2 wheel arrangement to negotiate tight curves even in congested areas. Power was picked up from an overhead 11,000 Volt AC catenary wire by a pantograph and the voltage stepped-down through an on board transformer to feed the 12 single phase 25 cycle traction motors. Each of these motors developed 385 HP giving the GG1 a total of 4620 HP in continuous operation and allowed speeds up to 100 mph. The body of the locomotive also housed large blowers for motor and transformer cooling, a steam boiler for passenger car heat, electric controllers and sanding boxes.

Of the 139 units built, only 16 survive today. Some have been restored superficially and can be visited as shown below. It is not likely that any of these survivors will ever run again because of the prohibitive cost to rebuild or replace the electrical components.

Just a Sampling

I am not going to comment much today about the cards in this blog. I have 32 post cards in my collection under the theme of the freedom trains. Two are from the 1948 Freedom Train and the rest are related to the American Freedom Train of 1976. I am just going to post six of the pictures here so that you can see the various locomotives that were decorated to celebrate the bicentennial.