Dating Old Post Cards

The two trains in these post cards are relatively old. They look like they are 2-6-0 Moguls (according to the Whyte classification system). Moguls were designed to be shorter, and, thus, used in spaces that were limited.  They made good yard engines.  The top one certainly looks older than the bottom one. The shapes of the steam and sand domes, the headlights, the shape of the cabs and the pilots or cow catchers, as they are commonly known, are all indicators to me of the ages of the engines. Even the dress of the people in the pictures says to me that the bottom picture is younger. Unfortunately, I could not see enough detail in the pictures to be able to accurately identify either locomotive. I can read a "3804" on the tender in the bottom post card; and there may be a CNR or CPR on the side of the cab, but I cannot confirm this.

The two post cards you see in this scan are also relatively old. The top could be from as early as 1907 and the bottom one from as early as 1904. The hint that leads me to that conclusion is held on the backs of the post cards. The two images that you see below are scans of the stamp boxes from the upper right hand corners of the post cards.  The one at the top is from the top post card.

The one at the bottom is from the bottom post card.  You will notice that both have "AZO" as part of the borders.  The differences are in the corners.  The top one has 4 diamonds and the bottom one has 4 triangles, all facing up.  These differences help us to tell the age of the post cards.  The four diamonds were used on AZO paper from 1907 to 1909.  The four triangles facing up (later they used two up and two down) are from 1904 to 1918. 

What is really neat about these post cards is that they are REAL PHOTO post cards.  They were not printed using a printing press.  These images are actually photographs.   The images were printed on real photo paper that were pre-designed to be mailed after the image was developed.  When I look at the images with my very powerful magnifying glass, I do not see a series of dots (as in a printing press image); I see continuous pictures.

The papers used for this process were manufactured by suspending very tiny particles of silver in a gelatin-based emulsion.  They were much faster to develop than the earlier versions of REAL PHOTO papers.  Their ease of use made this system of photography/post carding extremely popular.  People used this system for family pictures, family events, sports events and corporate events - like posing around steam locomotives. 

Is that a Crown that I See - The Royal Hudson

After 15 years of active service, the Royal Hudson 2860 – which you see on the front of this post card - was retired in April 1956.

The Vancouver Railway Museum Association wanted to preserve the locomotive so they acquired it in 1964 after it had been sitting outside the Weston Shops in Winnipeg. The Museum was not successful in this endeavour and gave the locomotive to the Province of British Columbia. It was completely restored (and a few external modifications made) so that it returned to service on June 20, 1974. It was used by the province to operate summer seasonal (May to October) steam excursions between North Vancouver and Squamish. In that first season of operation almost 50,000 passengers rode into history. The excursions ended in 1999. Currently the 2860 is still owned by the Province of British Columbia, but is on permanent loan to the West Coast Railway Association and is housed securely under cover at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park in Squamish, B.C.

In the 1920s the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was using 4-6-2 Pacifics for many of their service routes. While the Pacifics were adequate in the 20s, the increase in load weight for their freight routes and the need for speed on their passenger routes led to the desire for a new locomotive that would be both lighter and have greater horse power. After considering several options, the CPR looked to the New York Central Railroad. The CPR ordered the first batch of Hudsons in 1929. The grate in the firebox was 25% larger (80 square feet) so the locomotive could develop 275 pounds of boiler pressure. To be efficient, the It used an efficient Elsco feed water heater; they utilized Type E superheaters for extra steam capacity. Their driver wheels were 75 inches for both speed and power; the locomotive weighed in at 194,000 pounds and delivered 45,000 pounds of tractive effort. The first set of 20 locomotives were ordered in 1929 and were coal burning, some of which were later converted to oil burners. The second set of 10 locomotives were modified to gain another 12,000 pounds of tractive effort. The third set of 30 locomotives included the one on the front of this post card.

These locomotives were so successful that one locomotive would take the train from Toronto to Fort William and turn the consist over to another Hudson. That locomotive would take the train to Calgary (1,250 miles) where the consist would be hitched to a Selkirk locomotive to get it through the tough part of the Rockies. At Revelstoke, the trains would again be hooked up to a Hudson for the final 380 mile trip to Vancouver.

ROYAL HUDSON
In 1939 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth became the first reigning British Monarchs to visit Canada. They were given a 31-day tour of Canada by rail. A special 12-car train was assembled and the role of lead locomotive was given to the Hudson. The train went west via the CPR main line and came back east via the Canadian National line. The king, it turns out was a bit of a railroad buff and spent an amount of time in the locomotive with the crew. He said that he was impressed with its performance and by the fact that only one locomotive was used to travel to the west coast and back with no stoppage for mechanical problems. So, when the CPR applied for the status of adding "Royal" to the name Hudson, it was easily granted. Thus you see on the front of the engine on this post card, a little crown.

The post card does not tell us who the publisher is, but the picture comes from the Steamscenes collection of J. F. Orem.

Kaslo & Slocan Railway - Short but Important

Silver was discovered in the mountains above New Denver and Kaslo in 1891. Soon, the town of Slocan developed to support the mining operations. But, there was still a need to get the silver to market quickly. Kaslo was served by steam ships that plied the waters of Kootnay Lake; they connected the town with places like Nelson that already had rail service. It was natural to want to build a railway to bring the silver to these railway connections through the steamship service already in place. The Kaslo & Slocan Railway was a narrow gauge railway that connected Kaslo (on Lake Kootnay), Slocan (at the southern-most point on the Slocan Lake), and the mining community of Sandon

– the picture in this post card was taken at Sandon – (in the mountains between the two lakes). It operated 55 kilometers of track between 1895 and 1955. It was first operated by the Great Northern Railway. Later the operations were taken over by the Canadian Pacific Railway, which changed it over to standard gauge track. With financial backing from the Great Northern Railway (GNR), construction on the line started in 1895. GNR had a line that ran to Spokane, Washington and getting the silver to market would provide traffic (and revenue) for the GNR. The railway proceeded up the Kaslo River toward the pass of Seaton Creek, and continued across the mountains to Sandon. There was a switchback at one point because the grade was so steep. The labourers built more than 30 bridges between Kaslo and Sandon on steep mountain sides (Payne Bluff

- where the picture in this post card was taken - had a steep drop of over 1,000 feet) that would make my heart stop. As was the standard operating procedure in those days, the only tools used by this brave crew were dynamite and the typical hand tools. The railway began service on November 20, 1895. In its first year of operations, the railway made more than 500 round trips carrying 23,734 tons of freight and 28,307 passengers. But, less than 20 years later the railway was starting to lose money. The silver had been depleted, the treacherous terrain and weather had taken their tolls so that repairs were costly, and the number of passengers was dwindling. In 1912, the CPR agreed to lease the K&S for 999 years. The CPR rebuilt it to standard gauge and connected it with its already existing Nakusp & Slocan line by abandoning the exposed section across Payne Bluff and building a 6-mile extension from Zincton to Parapet and thereby establishing a line from Nakusp through to Kaslo in November 1913. The CPR operated the line until it was abandoned. The final blow came in 1955 when torrential rains washed out a large section of track at Three Forks. Ore traffic had been dwindling for years and the CPR decided not to rebuild. Its right-of-way was used to build a new road to New Denver. Neither of these post cards were printed in that era. The pictures on their fronts are reproductions by the Pioneer Postcards Company from Kelowna, British Columbia. The were printed by Wayside Press, Ltd. out of Vernon and Kelowna.

Nicholas Morant

The picture on the front of this post card was taken by Nicholas Morant.

For those of us who are "foamers" along the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) right of way west of Calgary, Nicholas Morant is a sort of icon or hero. Although he photographed many aspects of Canadian life and he was a great nature photographer, we "foamers" know him for the pictures of the CPR in the Rockies and the curve that the CPR named after him near Lake Louise at milepost 113 on CPR’s Laggan Subdivision. This post card shows the actual Curve that Morant made famous:

On the main line, so that the engineers and conductors can see it, there is a sign that says: "Morant's Curve" straight down from where the photographer of this picture is standing. This is looking west from an observation point along Highway 1A (Bow Valley Parkway). The picture on the front of this post card, below, is facing east from the same vantage point:

I strongly suggest that you look up Nicholas Morant on line, or in the library, to see what wonderful Black & White as well as colour photographs he developed. There is one book of which I am aware that features his work: Nicholas Morant's Canadian Pacific by J. F. Garden.

At only 19 years old, Nicholas Morant from Kamloops, British Columbia, began his photographic efforts with the CPR in 1929. He was hired on as the “special photographer”. He worked with the CPR almost continuously (there were 2 "shifts" not with the CPR) until he retired in 1981. He died March 13, 1999, in Calgary, Alberta at the age of 88.

He spent many hours at the Stoney Creek Bridge in Rogers Pass atop a specially constructed scaffolding where he photographed the special passenger train in the first post card, above, in 1955. This train is a special edition with Princess Margaret aboard. It is following the tracks of the famous Canadian transcontinental service.

As you can imagine, photographing around a railway in the mountains can be hazardous. An example of this is the story of when Morant and a Swiss guide encountered and were attacked by a grizzly bear. It happened in 1939. The guide eventually died of his injuries while Morant spent three months recovering in a hospital. The incident happened near the Morant's Curve featured in the other two post cards.

The first post card was published by Vanishing Vistas. It is copyrighted by Lyman E. Cox out of Sacramento, California in 1974. The middle post card is published by Altitude Publishing - the photo is copyrighted by Douglas Leighton. The bottom post card is the result of the efforts of The Postcard Factory from Markham, Ontario, Canada.

It Is NOT All About the Trains!!

First of all, Happy Birthday to my sister, Mary. You made it all the way to 65!!! Secondly: I know that the theme of my blogspot is “About My Trains”, but, if you are a regular reader, you know that the posts have not been 100% about the trains on the front of the post cards. Today’s blog really takes this to the nth degree.

The two pictures on these two post cards do not have trains on them. They are, however, part of my train post card collection. The top one is a set of tracks that go over a bridge in the Royal Gorge in Colorado. The bridge is an engineering achievement that allowed the trains to traverse a very narrow spot in the canyon. Those girders are holding up the bridge because there was not enough mass below to support it. This bridge is the subject of many of my post cards about the Royal Gorge. The second post card is a picture of a sunset over Pikes Peak, also in Colorado. Again, I have many post cards that depict the route of the Pikes Peak cog train. I have this one as a supplement to those post cards. BUT, the reason that I am posting these two cards in not because of what is on the fronts of them. I noticed

that, on the backs, both of them have a red-ish, purple-ish rubber stamp on the bottom left of the card that says, “THE RICHARDS-SCHEBLE CANDY CO.” Both post cards were printed by the same company, even though the printer does not identify itself on the card. But, the distributor was kind enough to identify itself. So, I thought to myself, “What was the Richards-Scheble Candy Company?” This brought me down quite the maze of information that ended with intrigue. I first found this in newspaper clippings sent to me by John Green; I found him through the Hutchinson News facebook page. The company was a partnership between Misters Richards and Scheble. In 1901 D.E. Richards started selling candy out of the back of a feed store on Main Street. The Richards-Scheble Co. They were in business from 1902 to 1954. They specialized in hard candy, peppermints, hot caramel and chocolates. The Richards-Scheble Candy Company was especially famous as the home of Donatti Chocolates. The store was located on Elm Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues in Hutchinson, Kansas. Hutchinson is very close to the geographical centre of Kansas. Another article intrigued me, too. A.R. Scheble was killed by the elevator while at the candy factory. It seems that at 12:40 P.M. on January 30, 1934 that “he was found with his head and neck wedged between the elevator and the planks of the first floor”. It was deemed an accident. Then, another article included this: “Basil Wilson said A.R. Scheble, a 52-year-old candy manufacturer, was killed in the building while on the freight elevator. After her husband’s death, Junia Belle Scheble asked that the elevator never be used again. A second freight elevator was built and it’s still used today to bring heavy wood pieces to the wood shops. Junia Belle Scheble kept the candy factory open and produced Donatti Chocolates, hard candy, peppermints and hot caramels, but it closed in 1954.” This is when the intrigue really built up in me. In another article I read this: “He [the current owner in 2009] tells the story of a couple coming to the former candy factory to purchase a used car from him. Wilson explained they stood outside when the woman said she was clairvoyant and was getting a feeling that a tragedy had happened in the building. “The woman had never been in the building and she went right to the elevator,” he said. “She said that a person had been murdered and the hat held the answer.” Scheble always wore a hat, and it was found lying on the floor after his death, Wilson said. He admits that sometimes he feels there is another presence in the building. “I don’t think he’s uncomfortable with me,” Wilson said. And, so, I decided to blog about this part of my post card collection. It isn’t ALL about the trains.

Gone, but Still Around

The locomotive on the front of this post card is CP 8218 as pictured at

Revelstoke in British Columbia sometime between 1988 and 2015. This locomotive was built by General Motors Diesel (GMD) in 1957 as CP 8678. It was a class DRS-17 locomotive and the original paint scheme was that of the CPR Beaver. Here is some of its history as told by this website: http://www.cprdieselroster.com/Roster%20Archive/CP%208200B/CP%208218.htm It was built by GMD as GP9 #8678 in 1957. Then, it was rebuilt by CPR as a chop-nosed GP9u and renumbered to #8218 in 1988. On April 28, 2015 it was declared to be surplus. But, rather than scrap the locomotive, it was sold to Pennsylvania Northeastern Railroad four months later on August 18, 2015 (my 63rd birthday!) where it became PN #8218. Then it was sold to the New Hope & Ivyland Railroad and it became NHRR #8218. It emerged from the shop in New Hope & Ivyland Railroad paint on September 27, 2017. It was after this date that 8218 officially began operating in revenue service for the Railroad. If you would like to see this locomotive today, contact the owner at this website to make arrangements for a sighting: www.newhoperailroad.com Special thanks to Paul Koprowski for some of the above information.

Revelstoke, British Columbia is a divisional point on the Canadian Pacific Railway. If one continues to head east out of the city one will enter the infamous Rogers Pass area. This is where the Connaught Tunnel was opened in 1916 to prevent loss of life from avalanches in the winter. The post card was published by Galena Publishing Company out of Nelson, B.C. Iknow that it was printed after 1974, because it has a bar code on it.

As I read the summary description on the back of the card I noticed a printing error: it says that Revelstoke is a CP Rainway divisional point; it should say CP Railway divisional point. I hope this makes it a collectors' valuable!!! Galena Publishing is out of Nelson, B.C. on this post card but, I have another post card that says that they operate out of Burnaby, B. C. Neither post card has a date on it to know which came first.

World Famous - at one time....

This is the third in a series of three related posts. They are all post cards of trains related to the current Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF). These three post cards have pictures of trains from the companies that merged to form the BNSF. The train in this post card is a Santa Fe passenger consist passing through the Cajon Pass.

This pass is notable because it was with the completion of this pass that gave the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway the status of transcontinental railroad.

Fortune magazine named the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (Santa Fe) the Nation's Number One Railroad in 1948. The Santa Fe was the only transcontinental train route from Chicago to Los Angeles until December 22, 1982 - when the takeover by the Union Pacific Railroad of the Missouri Pacific Railroad became effective. The Santa Fe railway The Santa Fe was the brainchild of Cyrus K. Holliday. He helped to found the city of Topeka in Kansas and quickly realized that the city needed to be connected to the rest of the country in order to thrive economically. Being a lawyer by trade, he wrote the charter for the Atchison and Topeka Railroad Company in 1859. It's purpose was to connect the two cities (Topeka and Atchison) by railroad as it followed the route of the Santa Fe Trail. The charter was approved by the Kansas Territory governor Samuel Medary on February 11, 1859. Holliday was named a director and president of the new railroad on September 17, 1860. The company was given the right to raise one and half million dollars in stock, which the board realized could only be raised through the selling of land rights. Through the normal political machinations, the Santa Fe was included in the Pacific Railroad Act of 1863. When the Act was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863 the Santa Fe received the odd numbered sections of land for ten sections in width on each side of the track. The name of the company was also changed in 1863 to include “Santa Fe” because it seemed like Cyrus Holliday’s dream could come true. In 1867 Holliday was successful in raising funds within some of the local counties when they $350,000 worth of bonds. In 1868 the company purchased 338,766 acres of land from the Potawatomi Indians, which lands provided financial support when the lands were then resold to the new settlers. With these finances and the charter in hand, a ceremony was held on October 30, 1868 to celebrate the beginning of the building of the railroad. By 1870 gross revenue reached $127,000. The railroad reached the town of Atchison on May 13, 1872; you can imagine the celebration that day!! When the company was included in the Pacific Railroad Act, the grant of all that land was contingent on the rails reaching the border of Colorado before March 3, 1873. Granada, Colorado was reached on December 28, 1872 – 3 months to spare! The company continued to expand and grow attempting to reach the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. There were many challenges to overcome, some were geological, some were financial (though not significant), and some came from the competition. Most notable of these was the Colorado Railroad War between the Denver & Rio Grande and the Santa Fe railroads – which was won in court by the Santa Fe. By 1879, the railroad’s net income was $3.5 million. On November 15, 1885, the day that the final track work over the Cajon Pass in southern California was completed, the Santa Fe officially achieved transcontinental status. While the railroad was the brainchild of Mr. Holliday, that child was brought to life, nurtured and grew strong thanks to the efforts of William Barstow Strong; he was elected vice president and general manager in 1877 and spearheaded the developments that led to the completion of the transcontinental railroad.

The post card was printed in 1957.

I know that it was 1957 because the "Place Stamp Here" box has a Curt Otto Teich code in it: The post card was printed by a Curt Teich company. That is what the dividing line between the message and address tells us.
It was published by Western Publishing & Novelty Company out of Los Angeles, California. The company began in 1932 with a focus only on Southern California related tourist materials and post cards; it ended sometime in the 1970s.

Talk About Complicated!

Last week I wrote about the Chicago, Burlington * Quincy (Burlington Railroad) and how it became part of the Burlington Northern Railway - what is known today as the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF). Today's blog is about one of the sister companies that make up the BNSF.
This passenger train, on the Northern Pacific Railway line, sits peacefully at Seattle's King Street Station waiting to depart to Portland Oregon. The picture does not reflect the turmoil and the complications that the railway had to endure in order for this passenger consist to exist at all.

It started serenely enough in May of 1804 when, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark set off to explore the newly acquired land included in the Louisiana Purchase. Their explorations included territory on which the future Northern Pacific Railway would also travel.
The railroad was approved by congress on July 2, 1884 to build a railroad that would connect Lake Superior with a port on the pacific coast. The original charter included a land grant of 40 million acres.
Unfortunately, the money did not come as quickly as hoped. It was not until 1870 that Jay Cooke brought $100 million dollars to the table. It was enough for the railroad to get started; but, in 1873 his bank went under and the building of the railroad slowed to a standstill. Then, in 1875, after a corporate reorganization, another $40 million in bonds was sold. In 1881 Henry Villard, the owner of a competing railroad purchased the line. He used it to compliment his own line. Finally, after overcoming many more financial and corporate challenges, the final spike was driven to complete the Northern Pacific Railway on September 8, 1883. James Hill, owner of the Great Northern Railway, purchased the company. It was added to his portfolio that also included the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad.
Despite all of the challenges it had to overcome to connect the two sides of the country, the Northern Pacific Railroad survived. It also contributed to the overall health and well-being of the railroad industry in the United States: initiated two designs of very powerful locomotives (rather than use many smaller locomotives linked together). The terrain that the railroad had to traverse energized the engineering creativity that developed in 1926 the 4-8-4 (Whyte classification) "Northern" locomotive. Then, in 1928 they came up with the 2-8-8-4 "Yellowstone" Locomotive.
Other technical wonders of the railroad include the various tunnels and bridges that were needed to complete the line. An 1,100 meter (3,610 feet) tunnel was completed through the Cascade mountains and the 1,175 meter (3,850 feet) tunnel over Mullan Pass are two examples of tunnels they had to bore. Two examples of bridges include the 860 meter (860 feet) long by 70 meter (226 feet) high Marent's Gulch Trestle and the 550 meter (1,800 feet) long by 35 meter (112 feet) high O'Keefe's Canyon Trestle.
By the early 1950s, the Northern Pacific Railroad system traversed over 2,100 kilometers (6,888 miles). The two-tone green color scheme for the North Coast Limited was designed by the famed industrial designer, Raymond Lowey.

You've Come a Long Way!

The Aurora Branch Railway was begun on October 2, 1848. Its purpose was to ensure train service to communities west of Chicago, Illinois that may be missed by other railroads. The well managed company began to expand early and in 1856 it changed its name to the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad (CB&Q) to reflect its aspirations. The distance from Chicago to Burlington, Iowa is only 390 kilometers (243 miles), but it was a large expanse back then. Although Burlington is in southeast Iowa, the Mississippi River is its eastern border. To connect Chicago to Burlington a bridge would have to be built over the river; which happened in 1868. The good management of the railroad was so impressive that the Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railway purchased the stock of the CB&Q by the year 1900. Each railroad still maintained its own operations and independence. The CB&Q became commonly known as the Burlington and the company advertised a lot using only that moniker.

The post card to the left shows an A-B set of FT locomotives with the "Burlington" name on their sides. The CB&Q was one of the first, if not the first, railroads to use diesel power to replace the steam engines. The first diesel to lead a consist on the CB&Q happened in 1934. This picture was taken in April of 1962, two and a half years after the CB&Q stopped using steam locomotives for their passenger service. 1962 was also the last year that they used steam on their railroad at all. Eight years after this picture was taken, on March 2, 1970, the CB&Q, Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railroads merged into one company: the Burlington Northern.
The post card was published by Audio-Visual Designs

out of Earlton, New York. It was printed after October of 1983 because the address on the card shows a 5-digit postal code with 4 added digits. According to their website: Audio-Visual Designs was founded in 1964 by the late Carl H. Sturner, Audio-Visual Designs has been a leader in providing high quality railroad images products for over 4 decades. The business was originally located in Earlton, NY. The name was derived by the products sold at the time – audio soundtracks of trains well as visual items (post cards, books, & calendars). The first All Pennsy Calendar was published in 1966 and for many years used exclusively the photos of Don Wood, a long time friend of Carl's. In the late 80's, Carl started showcasing other photographer's work as well. Railroad Christmas cards were added to the line of products early on and with a few exceptions have featured real photos of trains in action. Three railroad books have been published by Audio-Visual Designs: I Remember Pennsy, Locomotives in My Life, and The Unique New York and Long Branch: all of which were projects worked on by Carl and Mr. Wood. Audio-Visual Designs has also published books for other non-railroad related organizations.

For My Friend, Louise DePape

I recently received an e-mail from my friend, Louise DePape saying that she loves "the beautiful trains, especially the the two-tone orange and silver ones."

This post is dedicated to you, Louise. These are some of my favourite ones, too. They are from the Southern Pacific's Coast Daylight trains that ran between San Francisco and Los Angeles from 1937 to 1974. This route started by using steam locomotives and switched to diesels in the 1950s. The picture on the front of this post card is one of the diesels used on that route. It is an E-9 model of locomotive built by Electro-Motive Diesel for delivery in December of 1954 to the Southern Pacific Railroad. It made its first trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco on January 4, 1955. It was retired on December 24, 1969 and donated for heritage preservation. It is currently at the California Railway Museum in Sacramento. After this diesel was retired, Southern Pacific continued to operate the Coast Daylight until 1974, when AMTRAK took over the operation of passenger service in the United States.

The post card was published by the Railway & Locomotive Historial Society, Inc. They were founded in 1921, and are the oldest organization in North America devoted to railroad history. They were among the first anywhere to pursue formal studies in the history of technology. The Society promotes research and encourages preservation of documentation and photography of business history, finance, labor history, and biography as well as technology. I am familiar with them because I used to go to the Los Angels County Fairgrounds in Pomona, California as a kid to vist the Big Boy on static display. This is the same Big Boy (4014) that was reactivated by the Union Pacific for the sesquicentennial (150 years) of the completion of the transcontinental railroad.

Twins, Separated by 3 Years

The pictures on these two post cards are exactly the same; one isn't even a

copy of the other. Notice the moon in the upper left-hand corner. It has the same cloud shadowing on both cards. The round front of each train are identical; the headlight shines in the same manner. There is nothing extremely obvious that is different from one post card to the other at first glance. I can see two differences: 1) the border on the top one is smaller and darker than the second, and 2) the number and title at the bottom, while the same wording, are in different font size and style. Also, one is a bit lighter than the other - but that could just be age. The top card was mailed in 1911 and the bottom one in 1914. The reason that these two cards are the same is because they were both published by the same company.

On the top post card the publisher's name is very difficult to read because the author of the message went out of the borders. The printing going up the side of the post card reads: "PUBLISHED BY BARKALOW BROS. DENVER, COLO. MADE IN U.S.A." The second post card, however, shows the publisher very clearly. I guess that after 3 years in the publishing business, they made some money, figured they would be around longer and paid to have a logo developed for them. It is the circle in the upper left corner of the bottom card.

The Royal Gorge (also Grand Canyon of the Arkansas) is a canyon on the Arkansas River near Cañon City, Colorado. With a width of 50 feet (15 m) at its base and a few hundred feet at its top, and a depth of 1,250 feet (380 m) in places, the 10-mile-long canyon is a narrow, steep gorge through the granite of Fremont Peak. It is one of the deepest canyons in Colorado. On April 19, 1878, a hastily assembled construction crew from the Santa Fe began grading for a railroad just west of Cañon City in the mouth of the gorge. The D&RG whose end of track was only ¾ of a mile from Canon City raced crews to the same area, but were blocked by the Santa Fe graders in the narrow canyon. By a few hours they had lost the first round in what became a two-year struggle between the two railroads that would be known as the Royal Gorge War. The railroads went to court with each trying to establish their primacy to the right of way. After a long legal battle that ended in the U.S. Supreme Court, on April 21, 1879, the D&RG was granted the primary right to build through the gorge that in places was wide enough at best for only one railroad. On May 7, 1879 the first excursion train traveled through the Royal Gorge after years of court battles between the Denver & Rio Grande and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (AT&SF or Santa Fe) railroads.

Two Birds with One Stone...

This post card shows how the Southern Pacific Railroad solved two challenges with one design. The first, and most obvious is the fact that this engine is not running backwards. The front of the train is to the right, where the cab is. In the northern California routes, especially through the Sierra Nevada mountains, the engineers' lives were being threatened. As the locomotive entered the various tunnels, the smokestack led the way. As they continued through the tunnel there was no place for the smoke and gases to escape. The train crew had to drive right through the heavy pollution, breathe in the poisons and, perhaps succumb to lack of oxygen. The solution to this was to move the cab forward. The fireman, in a coal-fired locomotive, was just below the smokestack rather than behind it; thus, he, too, avoided asphyxiation. The first cab-forward locomotive was delivered in 1908.
The second challenge that is solved in the locomotive shown on this post card was the need for power. Some of the grades the Southern Pacific faced were as much as 2.5%. Getting through the steep grades required either many engines linked together - or this solution. This engine is called a "Mallet" (pronounced mal-ay); it was invented by a Swiss (think lots of mountains) engineer Anatole Mallet who lived from 1837 to 1919. A Mallet engine has one boiler that is connected to two sets of driving cylinders; this is also called an articulated engine. What makes this a Mallet engine is that the steam goes through one set of cylinders (rear) at high pressure, the exhaust from those cylinders is at a lower pressure, but strong enough to still be used in the second set of cylinders (front set) before it is sent out the exhaust.

Again, this is an Edward Mitchell post card as indicated by the back of the post card.

The Water Just Disappears!

I grew up in Arizona so I know how unforgiving the desert can be. The river to the right of this train as it passes through Palisade Canyon in the desert of north-central Nevada, USA certainly looks full and flowing. Never mind being part of the easy route for building the transcontinental railroad,

the beauty of this canyon in the desert should be enough to choose this route. The river that the train tracks follow is called the Humboldt River. It was named in 1845 by John Fremont. The river starts north of Wells, Nevada and flows westward to Lovelock, 530 kilometers (330 miles) away. It has the distinction of being the longest river that begins and ends within the boundaries of one state. But, it you add the winding, wandering, twisting and turning path through the state it could be twice as long.
Early explorers, settlers and empire builders took advantage of the Humboldt River, each in their own way. It was discovered by Peter Ogden (think Ogden Utah and the Ogden Route of the Southern Pacific) in 1828 while he was exploring for the Hudson's Bay Company; their trappers took beavers from the waters of the Humboldt. The settlers that followed the Overland Trail to California would have probably rejoiced at the cools waters in their trek through the desert. The builders of the Transcontinental Railroad used the path of the Humboldt River to get through northern Nevada on their way to Utah.
The Humboldt River, unlike so many other rivers, does NOT flow into the ocean. It slowly loses all its water to evaporation in what is called the Humboldt Sink. The United States Geological Survey suggests that Palisade Canyon is the point where the river's flow ceases to increase and begins to decrease. The back of the card that you see here, below:

is the typical back of the post card printed by Edward Mitchell of San Francisco. I have written about him in many past blogs, so I will save you the verbiage here. Suffice it to say that the company was a major printer and publisher of view-cards depicting scenes throughout the American West. They temporarily moved to Clay Street when their Post Street office was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, but they later went on to set up a factory on Army Street. Even though they developed a number of their own unique techniques to print their cards like the Mitchell Photo-Chrome Process, many cards were also contracted out to other printers. Likewise they printed postcards for a number of other publishers.

It's a Heritage Railroad Today

This train line through Niles Canyon near Oakland, California, was part of the Transcontinental Railroad. It was eventually abandoned by the Southern

Pacific Railroad. Today, it is a heritage railroad.
The tracks were laid by the first Western Pacific Railroad Company (formed in 1862 - there was another one formed in 1903). They started construction from San Jose towards Sacramento. They built twenty miles of track that reached into Alameda Creek canyon in 1866. The first passenger excursion entered the canyon on October 2nd of that year. In September, 1869, four months after the famous golden spike ceremony at Promontory Summit, Utah, the Central Pacific Railroad completed the transcontinental rail link between Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay, finishing the track through the canyon. The Central Pacific had acquired the Western Pacific and other local railroads and built track to connect them at a waterfront terminal at Alameda Point. The Central Pacific constructed a freight terminal at the west end of the canyon and a town quickly sprang up around it. The town was named for Addison C. Niles, a prominent judge and former railroad attorney. The Southern Pacific Railroad purchased the Central Pacific and slowly, over many decades, finally abandoned this part of their line through the canyon. They gave the right of way to Alameda County. Then, on May 21, 1988, almost 122 years after the first Western Pacific excursion, the Pacific Locomotive Association brought railroad passenger operations back to life in Niles Canyon. Presently, Niles Canyon Railway provides train rides to the public year-round between Sunol, California and Niles in Fremont, California. The above information is gleaned from: https://www.ncry.org/about/

The former Southern Pacific route from Oakland to Tracy via Niles Canyon is now abandoned, except for the portion from Sunol to Niles Station operated by the heritage railway known as the Niles Canyon Railway. This line was the original westernmost section of the First Transcontinental Railroad from Sacramento to San Francisco Bay (by way of Stockton and the Altamont Pass). It was completed in September 1869 by the Western Pacific Railroad (1862-1870), but lost its transcontinental traffic in 1879 to a shorter route through Benicia. The Southern Pacific tracks in Niles Canyon are on the north side of the canyon. Southern Pacific, being the first railroad in the canyon, chose the best route. The Union Pacific Railroad (formerly Western Pacific Railroad) has an active mainline on the south side of the canyon. The Altamont Corridor Express runs along this line on weekdays. This information was taken from Wikipedia.

This post card

continues the Edward Mitchell series (though not on purpose on my account) of post cards in this blog.

I blogged about this place - Shasta Springs - back on April 19, 2014; but, there was a different post card picture featured then. It was published by the Newman Post Card Company. These two post cards were both printed by Edward Mitchell out of San Francisco - just like the post card from last week's blog. These both show the very popular tourist spot in northern California, Shasta Springs. In the late 1800s and early 1900s people used to flock to a summer resort on the Sacrament River for their health and enjoyment. It was so popular that the Southern Pacific Railroad built a train station for those who were going to disembark there. It was near the small town of Dunsmuir, California whose population came in at 1,650 in the 2010 census. Dunsmuir is where the Southern Pacific makes a couple of wicked hairpin turns to get up the river valley.

The resort closed in the early 1950s when it was sold and continues to be owned by the Saint Germain Foundation, and is used as a major facility by that organization (you can look up this organization on Wikipedia). It is no longer open to the public and the lower part of the resort - the bottling plant, the train station, the incline railway, the kiosk and the fountains are all gone. The falls that were visible from the railroad tracks and what ruins are left of the lower part of the resort are all overgrown by blackberry bushes.

Here is what the back of the post cards look like - a typical Edward Mitchell look. The bottom post card has a very short message written on it. According to this article, that message is not so innocent.... http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/06/sex_and_pop_the_forgotten_1909_hit_that_introduced_adultery_to_american.html

In the spring of 1909, American popular song got sexy. Of course, love and courtship, and by extension sex, had been Topic A in pop music for decades. But while songwriters had long trafficked in euphemisms and innuendo—coy talk of “sighing” and “spooning” beneath the old oak tree and by the light of the silvery moon—it was a 1909 hit by composer Harry Von Tilzer and lyricist Jimmy Lucas, “I Love, I Love, I Love My Wife—But Oh! You Kid!,” which opened Tin Pan Alley to brasher, bawdier, more raucously comic songs of lust. The comment written upside down and on a slant on the back of this post card is ......... "Oh, you kid."

Now Begins the Hard Part!

I wonder if the post card was trying to show the train or show what a

passenger could see while on the train. It is a view from Cape Horn looking at the American River in northern California (about 100 kilometers - 60 miles - from Sacramento). Many times the train would actually stop and let the passengers off so that they could admire the scenery and the view. While the notes on the front of this post card tell us that this view is on the "Ogden Route, S.P.R.R." (top right-hand corner of the front), this section of rail was actually built by the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the Transcontinental Railroad. Part of this article in https://www.sierranevadageotourism.org/content/cape-horn-and-the-transcontinental-railroad/sie3cf4cac0c3aa88ff9 tells us that "By September 1865, the Central Pacific Railroad had extended east from Sacramento as far as Camp 20, which was later renamed Colfax. The real assault on the Sierra Nevada began here. Colfax became a staging area for construction further uphill. Beyond Colfax, construction began in August 1865, with much of the basic work to Dutch Flat completed by year's end. Major obstacles remained at Long Ravine, Secret Ravine, and Cape Horn. Trestles bridged the ravines, but Cape Horn loomed forebodingly. At Cape Horn, aided by a veritable army of Chinese laborers, railroad engineers carved a roadbed around the steep peninsula high above the American River canyon. Construction took a year. More than 300 Chinese workers fell to their deaths in the process. This next article tells us that the "rumour" about Chinese labourers being lowered down in wicker baskets to do the drilling and dynamiting was exactly that - a RUMOUR. There is no truth in the matter. http://cprr.org/Museum/Cape_Horn.html In 1885 the Central Pacific Railroad was purchased by the Southern Pacific. This post card is definitely from after that year!!

The post card was printed and published by Edward H. Mitchell. He was a prolific post card printer, owning several printing companies in the San Francisco area. This back of the post card is very typical of what one of the backs of his post cards looked like.

California, Here I Come!

It is hard to tell from the picture on the front of this post card, but I think the locomotive is a "Ten Wheel" or 4-6-0 wheel configuration style of engine. The first of this style of locomotive was built in 1847 for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad by the Norris Brothers. This locomotive is parked in front of the new Southern Pacific depot in Santa Barbara, California. The following information can be found at https://www.independent.com/2017/03/23/southern-pacific-railroad-station-209-state-street/ After the Southern Pacific Railroad completed the Coast Line in 1901, making it possible for passengers to travel uninterrupted from Los Angeles to San Francisco, rail excursions became popular. The increased rail traffic, however, necessitated larger facilities in Santa Barbara. When the railroad realigned the local tracks in 1905, it also built a new passenger depot, the fourth to be constructed in the city since 1887, when the railroad first arrived. A local architect, Francis W. Wilson, active here from the 1890s to the early years of the 20th century, was engaged to do the new building. The Mission Revival style was selected so that the depot would “conform in general style to the Mission Architecture so appropriate and so popular in Southern California.” The station was sited to allow passengers and their escorts easy arrival and departure by way of State or Chapala streets.

The back of the post card only tells me that it was published between 1907 and 1915; it is from the Divided Back era of post cards. It is representative of the fact that the United States Postal Service finally allowed more than only the address on the back of the picture. You can see that there is a reminder that the message goes on the left and the address is to be written on the right-hand side of the back of the post card. I have looked in many places to see if there is any history on the publisher, California Sales Co. out of San Francisco. So far nothing!!!

I do know that it was published to promote the Southern Pacific Railroad. The theme "ON THE ROAD OF A THOUSAND WONDERS" was used by the Southern Pacific on many, many post cards.

The Devil's Slide

The geological formation on the front of this post card is called “Devil’s Slide”.

It is a chute of two pretty parallel slabs of limestone 6 meters (20 feet) apart, each 12 meters (40 feet) high and 30.5 meters (200 feet) long. This slide is near Croydon, Utah in Weber Canyon. I blogged about Croyden on January 5, 2018 and about Weber (It’s pronounced Weeber) Canyon on both October 18, 2014 and December 16, 2014.

The first maps of the area referred to phenomenon Weber Canyon as “Gutter Defile”.
According to Lynn Arave on this website: https://www.standard.net/what-s-the-story-behind-devil-s-slide-in-morgan/article_08d618c3-93e2-5ead-b6b5-f0d1153434b0.html

“James John Walker (1830-1896), an early resident of Croydon and a railroad worker, is very likely the first person to have called it Devil’s Slide. A Walker family history states that James Walker was a contractor on the railroad, installing the first tracks through upper Weber Canyon. Probably around 1868, he was asked (being a local resident) by a railroad crew what to call this unusual rocky chute and his reply was Devil’s Slide and the title stuck. The first official mention of that name for the rock formation in a newspaper was in 1875. By 1904, someone discovered that the limestone was not just in the geological formation, but was abundant in the area. The Portland Cement Company set up a town and tried to name it Portland, after itself. But, in 1907 the post office was reflecting the name Devils Slide. The town reached its heyday in the late 1920s, before the Great Depression, when it boasted 529 residents. By the 1940s, its school closed and by the 1980s, only a few families still resided there. Soon after, the cement company closed the town and today a gravel pit and rubble mostly cover what remains of this ghost town. Ogden began promoting Devil’s Slide as a tourist attraction in the mid 1920s, with signs. Devil’s Gate, at the lower end of Weber Canyon, was also boasted of in numerous Standard-Examiner reports of the 1920s. ” - End of article by Lynn Arave.

This is the back of the post card:

There isn't a lot to know about the publisher of this post card. The name down the left-hand side says that it was published by The Gray News Company out of Salt Lake City, Utah. The company was a publisher and distributor of regional lithographic view-cards. Many images were produced of sparsely populated rugged areas. They only existed for 16 years; between 1906 and 1922. That makes this post card almost 100 years old! However, looking at the number at the bottom, middle of the post card raised my curiosity.

It looked an awful lot like a file number that Curt Otto Teich's company would use when they printed the post card for The Grey News Company. I looked at my files and saw this: "1908-1928 Cards numbered A or R 1 to 124180. The cards they printed for Woolworth have a W prefix. The letter N prefix was used to designate a reprinted image from this series." I thought that I was on the right track; then I saw this:

That little logo under the letter "T" is the company logo for Curt Otto Teich's company!! So, doing some math, if this is lot 7967 out of 124,180 printed between 1908 and 1928, this post card was probably printed in April of 1909. This does make sense because this is a divided back era post card. That era covers from 1907 to 1915. That means that this post card would be over 100 years old!

The Southern Pacific's Daylight

Like all good-named trains, this one was a "Limited". The Southern Pacific

Railroad introduced the "Coast Line" between San Francisco and Los Angeles California on April 28, 1922. As illustrated by the novel, The Great Gatsby, the economy of the United States was recovering wonderfully after the ravages of "The Great War." It was time to provide a train service that connected these two cities to each other through a route that stayed as close to the Pacific Ocean as it

could. The "Daylight Limited" took only 12 hours to go from one city to the other; that is a "speedy" average of 33 miles per hour. When it began service the train only ran during the good Spring and Summer weather span and then, only once a day on Friday and Saturday. On March 21, 1937 the Railroad introduced the new

streamlined locomotives similar to those that you see in these post cards. The trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles (or vise versa) was reduced by 2 hours and 15 minutes. What was the fastest non-stop train route in the world became even faster. These new GS-2 locomotives were manufactured by Lima Locomotive Works. They were known, using the Whyte Identification system, as 4-8-4s or Northerns. I wrote about the Northerns at the end of July. These, for the Southern Pacific had 73.5 inch driver wheels and were capable of developing 4,500 horsepower at 55 miles per hour; they were also capable of a maximum speed of 90 miles per hour. These locomotives were quickly replaced by GS-3s, also from the Lima Locomotive Works. The new trains could go over 100 miles per hour. They were so popular that the Southern Pacific Railroad introduced other "Daylight Limited" trains like the Sacramento, San Juaquin and Shasta Limiteds.
As you can see by the front of the post cards, they reflect different eras of post card printing. The top one demonstrates the White Border Era, the middle post card is a classic Linen Card and the bottom one is from the
Photo-chrome era. These are the backs of the post cards:

What a Beautiful Ride this Would Be

The Southern Pacific Railroad introduced the "Coast Line" between San Francisco and Los Angeles California on April 28, 1922. As illustrated by the novel, The Great Gatsby, the economy of the United States was recovering wonderfully after the ravages of "The Great War." It was time to provide a train service that connected these two cities to each other through a route that stayed as close to the Pacific Ocean as it could. As you can see in this picture, it stayed mighty close at times. Under the picture, on the bottom, left of the post card is one of the themes adopted by the Southern Pacific Railroad: "ROAD OF A THOUSAND WONDERS." This motto is on many of my Southern Pacific Railroad post cards. Someone actually published a book with the same title. It is available through Gutenberg.org at this web address: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48407/48407-h/48407-h.htm. It is free, if you follow a few of their simple rules. I will be blogging more about this Southern Pacific scenic train route next week.

This week I would like to look at the back of the post card. I will not delve into the backs of the post cards next week.
This post card was printed some time after April 28, 1922. I know that simply because that is the first day the trains ran on this route (see above). I also know that it was printed before 1926 even though there is not a post mark on the card. The reason I know the year is because that is the year in which Van Noy - Interstate stopped operating.

This symbol at the bottom, middle of the back of the post card indicates that it was this company that published it. Van Noy Railway Hotel and News, of Kansas City, began a series of mergers and acquisitions in 1914, starting with the Brown News Company (also headquartered in Kansas City) which was acquired on October 1, 1914 being operated as Van Noy News. In 1915, the Company began consolidating operations with the New York City based Interstate News Company. The company name was changed to Van Noy-Interstate News Company in 1917, but the company headquarters remained in Kansas City under the leadership of Ira C. Van Noy. They published post cards of trains and other items. However, as a result of changes in railroad passenger train service, Van Noy Interstate began to focus more on the hotel side of their operations. In 1922, the Company acquired the Gem Fountain Company, and in 1926 the company began operating simply as the Interstate Company. If, for some strange chance, it takes more to convince you that the Van Noy - Interstate Company published this post card, this appears on the left side of the back of the post card:

Next week, I will be addressing a bit of the history of the route started by the train on the front of this post card.