Let's Go to New Jersey

The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Company was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey a distance of about 400 miles. Incorporated in 1853,

the D. L. & W. was profitable during the first two decades of the twentieth century, but its margins were gradually hurt by declining traffic in coal, competition from trucks, and high New Jersey state taxes. In 1960, the D. L. & W. merged with rival Erie Railroad to form the Erie Lackawanna Railroad.

The train that we see on the front of this post card is from the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad while it was still going strong. The tracks going across the bridge are of the standard gauge size, as one would expect. However, it wasn't always this way. On March 15, 1876, D. L. & W. converted its line to standard gauge from 6-foot gauge.

If I have found the proper bridge on the internet (Bridgehunter.com), this one was built in 1903. It is of the Deck Truss Swing design. Its longest span is 221 feet and the total length is 870 feet and the deck is 30 feet wide.

The post card is an early example of the Divided Back Era post card. You can see that the address is on the right-hand side and there is a message to Andrew Robbins on the left-hand side. It confirms that the bridge was used for passenger service, as shown in the picture. The message reads, "I suppose you have been over this bridge many times. This is out back of where I board about 1/4 mile." It was mailed 6 months after the law came into effect that allowed people to write something other than the address on the back of the post cards.

The post card was manufactured in Germany for the Illustrated Postal Card Company from across the Hudson River in New York City. I have scanned their logo and the information on the post card that tells us who they are. This major publisher produced a wide variety of color halftone lithographic cards in series that were printed by Emil Pinkau in Leipzig, Saxony. Each city or location of their color card sets were assigned the same number prefix. They also published an unnumbered series of chromolithographic fine art cards that were printed in Dresden. Many of their early cards do not have their name on them, only their distinct eagle logo. This one happens to have both.

Johnson's Canyon Bridge is NO MORE!

This is a post card of a steam engine pulling a passenger train over a bridge and into a tunnel as it crosses Johnson's Canyon in Arizona.

The following information has been taken from the following presentation:

The Johnson Canyon Abandoned Railroad Grade: A History of 9.3 Miles of Treacherous Railroading in Northern Arizona By Neil S. Weintraub Northern Arizona University
Paper Presented at the 1993 Arizona History Conference in Kingman, Arizona

Johnson Canyon that is approximately eight miles west of Williams, Arizona, which is 81 miles west of Flagstaff. It is on the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau, a large geological uplift the forms an 1100 foot drop that plagued engineers as they built the tunnel and bridges over the canyon and through the rock. Congress chartered the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company to build a railway from Springfield, Missouri to San Diego, California. However, bankruptcy problems prevented the A&P from building the line until the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company acquired half interest, using the A&P charter to complete the line from Albuquerque to the Colorado River. It was in the summer of 1880 that the railroad reached the eastern Arizona border. Opening the line through Johnson Canyon required the construction of two steel bridges and a tunnel. This was the only segment of railroad grade in Arizona that required two bridges in any one locale, as well as necessitating the only tunnel west of Albuquerque. In early 1881, the A&P awarded a contract for all the work through the canyon to James T. Simms. By April, Simms’ track crews began feverishly grading the main line path by blasting rock cuts, building bridges, clearing trees, and cutting ties. Because of the significant labor the structures required, Simms’ construction camp
housed 2500-3000 men.

The bridges were located just west of the tunnel and stood 100 feet above the canyon
bottom, spanning 330 feet and 360 feet. Working on the bridges was a precarious job. The bridges were trestle type. The first bridge consisted of eleven 30 foot girder spans resting on metal trestle bents on small masonry piers. The second bridge had twelve 30 foot girder spans supported by small masonry piers. In both cases, the Edge Moore Iron Works of Edge Moore, Delaware fabricated the metal. The Arizona line’s high maintenance costs proved financially disastrous, and in 1896 the AT&SF acquired the full ownership of the A&P. Few changes were made to the line until 1901 when the AT&SF upgraded the tunnel by having it lined with cement, roofed with steel plating and the portals faced with sandstone masonry. These modifications greatly reduced maintenance costs and the operations continued through the canyon until 1910. As technology advanced, newer, more powerful and heavier trains required gentler uphill grades. In 1910, the AT&SF built the first major realignment around Johnson Canyon to lessen the grade for eastward (uphill) bound trains. This line ran from just west of Fairview to two miles east of McLellan, passing north of Johnson Canyon. Although construction lengthened this segment from 9.3 miles to 12.7 miles, it reduced uphill grades from 112 feet per mile to 82 feet per mile. by 1960, spurred by the need for higher clearances, the Santa Fe commenced work on a new multi-million dollar realignment that bypassed the 1882 Johnson Canyon railroad grade and the 1910 realignment. With the new realignment, crews scrapped the rails in Johnson Canyon and the ties left to rot. Here is a picture, I found on the internet, of Johnson's Canyon today:

The post card was published by Fred Harvey. My blog post of February 7, 2014 explains much about Mr. Harvey and his chain of restaurants. Harvey began a business venture of setting up restaurants along the Kansas Pacific Railroad with Jeff Rice in 1873. It didn’t survive; but, Fred realized that this was to be his life’s work. 1876 he struck a deal with an acquaintance, Charles Morse. Harvey opened eating houses rent free along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad – of which Mr.

Morse was the superintendent. The deal was sealed only with a handshake, but it would have huge ramifications for both parties. At its peak, there were 84 Harvey Houses, all of which catered to wealthy and middle-class visitors alike and Harvey became

known as "the Civilizer of the West."

St. Louis Train Shed

The picture on the front of this post card is looking into the train shed at Union Station in St. Louis, Missouri. It is looking from the train entrance toward the Union Station also known as the Head House.

"The Train Shed, 11.5 acres of sweeping arches, was the largest single-span Train Shed ever constructed. George H. Pegram was selected to design the Train Shed that is attached to the the Headhouse, using his patented truss in 1891. The Train Shed covered the original 32 tracks leading into St. Louis Union Station. It measures 140 feet tall, 700 feet long by 600 feet wide. The roof system is a series of five Pegram trusses combined to form a gigantic arch. At it's peak, there is a skylight that is 36 feet wide, that was originally covered with glass. Construction started July 7, 1892 and finished in November 1893. The Train Shed was extended another 180 feet in 1904. With the increase in train travel, in 1929, ten more tracks were added to the west. It wasn't logical to add another Pegram truss to the side and throw off the symmetry of original Train Shed. Instead, they built an umbrella-type covering, that you can see along 20th Street.
The Train Shed and Headhouse were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970." This paragraph was taken from the St. Louis Missouri Union Station website.

The post card is from the Undivided Back era (pre-March 1, 1907). The back of the card is reserved for the address of the receiver of the card only. No messages were allowed to be written on the backs of these post cards, as per the rule of law in those days. Although the post card was published by The St. Louis News Company

it was printed by its parent company The American News Company - in Germany. This is a photograph I found on line. It gives us an idea of what the train shed looks like today. Evidently, Union Station itself is a hotel owned by Hilton; they call it a double tree hotel. It looks like they have invested a lot of money into making the train shed a user friendly addition to the hotel. Amtrak decommissioned the Station in 1978 due to the popularity of air travel. Following revitalization, the facility reopened in 1985 as a unique hotel destination. The St. Louis Union Station hotel is in the Headhouse and part of the Train Shed, which also features a lake, shops, entertainment and restaurants. St. Louis can get snow in the winter and this might be good to attract and keep tourists.

Maybe the Last One, for a while...

This is a linen era post card printed by the, in my opinion, guru of linen post cards: Curt Otto Teich and Company. The picture is of a steam engine with a passenger train behind it crossing over the Kinzua Bridge in Pennsylvania. The Kinzua Viaduct, when first constructed in May 1882, was the highest and longest viaduct in the world, measuring 301 feet high and 2,053 feet long. The need to transport coal, oil and lumber across the Kinzua Gorge inspired General Thomas Kane, president of the New York, Lake Erie and Western Coal Company and Octave Chanute, Chief Engineer for the Erie Railroad to design a colossal viaduct. It was built by the Elmira Bridge Co. of Elmira, New York. The longest span is only 60 feet, but the entire bridge is 2,053 feet long.

In 1900, the viaduct was rebuilt of steel to accommodate larger loads and the weight of "modern" train traffic. I found a picture taken while they were re-constructing the bridge out of steel. That is the bridge we see in this post card.

The style of bridge is a Deck Plate Girder Bridge, which passes the train over Kinzua Creek [today on the former Erie Railway at Kinzua Bridge State Park] in McKean County, Pennsylvania. You can driver there today and walk on the re-constructed bridge that was mostly destroyed by a tornado on July 21, 2003. But the remaining spans were rehabilitated and reopened in 2011 as the "Kinzua Sky Walk"

If you choose to drive there these GPS coordinates can help you to arrive:
Approximate latitude, longitude
+41.76345, -78.58928 (decimal degrees)
41°45'48" N, 78°35'21" W (degrees)

The post card was printed by Curt Otto Teich as a Linen Post Card and it was published by J. P. Walmer of Box 224 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Mr. Walmer took many pictures in Pennsylvania and turned them into post cards. Penn State has about 16 of his in their collection. Judging by what I could find I know he was active in the 1930s. That makes sense because the Linen Card era starts around 1930.

Now Where are We?

We are in Burlington, Iowa at the edge of the Mississippi River looking over toward Henderson County, Illinois. This Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad train is about to cross a bridge built in 1868 by George S. Morison of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

He was born December 19, 1842. At age 14, he entered Phillips Exeter Academy and graduated by age 16. He went on to Harvard College where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1863 at the age of 20. After a brief break he attended Harvard Law School where he would receive a Bachelor of Laws degree by 1866 and was admitted to the New York Bar. In 1867, with only general mathematics training but an aptitude for mechanics, he abandoned the practice of law and pursued a career as a civil engineer and builder of bridges. He would apprentice under the supervision of engineer Octave Chanute during the construction of the first bridge to cross the Missouri River, the swing-span Kansas City Bridge.

He is known for many steel truss bridges he designed, including several crossing the Missouri River, Ohio River and the Mississippi River. The Memphis Bridge, built in 1891, is considered to be his crowning achievement, as it was the largest bridge he would design and the first bridge to span the difficult Lower Mississippi River.

This particular bridge is known as a through truss bridge. It was built in 1868 and the superstructure was replaced and rebuilt in 1893. It did last a long time but was finally replaced by a new bridge in 2012.

The original design is a one pin-connected swing span and six pin-connected Whipple through truss spans. Swing span being replaced by through-truss lift span of 307.5 feet. In addition to the lift span, one fixed span on the east side was replaced with three smaller, temporary spans until completion of the lift span.

This is what it looked like before it was replaced:

You can drive to see the replacement bridge at the following coordinates:

+40.79854, -91.09205 (decimal degrees)
40°47'55" N, 91°05'31" W (degrees°minutes'seconds")

The post card was published by the Woolworth Company, owned by Frank Woolworth. That is what the little W in the diamond at the bottom left corner is telling us. The post card was printed by the Curt Teich Company using the patented "C. T. Photochrome" process. This means that the post card may look like a divide back era card, but it was actually printed in the 1950s.