In England They Call Them Tramways

Norwich Electric Tramways served the city of Norwich in Norfolk from 30 July 1900 until 10 December 1935. The Norwich Electric Tramways

Company was a subsidiary of the New General Traction Company. Construction work started in June 1898 and first routes opened in July 1900. An electricity generating station was built on Duke Street to supply power for the scheme. The tram depot was on Silver Road. The network was essentially complete and fully operational by the end of 1901, but there were minor additions and changes in 1918 and 1919. The fleet, in a livery of maroon and ivory, initially consisted of 40 Brush open top double deck tramcars and 10 open top double deck trailers. In 1933 the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company bought the tramway system and began the process of shutting it down and replacing it with motor buses. The last tram route to close, in 1935, was Newmarket Road to Cavalry Barracks. Thank you, Wikipedia, for your historical records.

The post card was published by the Photochrom Company Limited out of London and Tunbridge Wells, England. This firm originally produced Christmas cards and became a major publisher and printer of tourist albums, guide books, and postcards

that mostly captured worldwide views as real photos or were printed in black & white, monochrome, and color. They also published many advertising, comic, silhouette, novelty, panoramic, and notable artist signed cards in named series as well. The number of titles Photochrom produced may exceed 40,000.major publisher and printer of Canadian view-cards. These cards were made as black & white, monochrome, and tinted collotypes. In 1896 they took over Fussli’s London office established three years earlier and began publishing similar photo-chromolithograpgic postcards after securing the exclusive English license for the Swiss photochrom process. This technique was used to produce a great number of view-cards of both England and Europe. While they captured the same fine details as the Swiss prints their pallet was much softer and reduced.

Talk about Convenience!

You have to visit this website: http://www.architecture.org/learn/resources/buildings-of-chicago/building/the-chicago-l/ They tell you about the history of Chicago's elevated railway system. The following was taken from that website:

Today, Chicago is the only city in the U.S. that still has elevated trains in its downtown area.

Beginning in the 1870s, as Chicago grew at an incredibly rapid pace, private companies laid rail tracks downtown and began introducing streetcars pulled by horses. In the 1880s, these horse-drawn trolleys were replaced by cable car services. But this form of transportation couldn’t handle a high volume of passengers and it added to street congestion. On June 6, 1892,

the first elevated—or “L”—train ran from 39th (now Pershing Road) and State streets to Congress Parkway and Wabash Avenue. By 1893, the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad extended this line to Jackson Park, the site of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Today, this section of track is still part of the Green Line. Multiple privately-operated train lines transported Chicagoans in the 1890s. However, these trains deposited people just outside the central business district—an area referred to as “the Loop” due to the cable cars that once created a loop around several blocks. A wealthy and controversial financier named Charles Tyson Yerkes soon changed all of this. Despite his sometimes illegal business practices, he had a lasting impact on Chicago by building elevated tracks above downtown streets to connect train lines together. Yerkes essentially created the Loop L we know today. The first full circuit of the Loop was completed in 1897. Its steel structure was designed by bridge designer John Alexander Low Waddell. The iconic riveted steel-plate form resembles that of the Eiffel Tower (1889) and the original Ferris Wheel (1893).

All of Chicago’s trains were either elevated or at street grade until the 1940s.

This post card was published by the V. O. Hammon Company of Chicago,

Illinois. Their headquarters were on Wabash Avenue - as in the picture's description. They were a major publisher of halftone lithographic view-cards of the Great Lakes region. They also published novelty cards. Most of their cards tend to have a distinct look as they were printed in crisp RGB colors with small red block lettering (like on the front of this post card). The V.O. Hammon Publishing Company, publisher of pictorial postcards, is listed in the Minneapolis, Minnesota city directory from 1904 until 1923. www.digitalpast.org/.../results.php?...hammon+publishing They began in 1900 and finished business just 5 years after this post card was mailed on February 17, 1918.

Little Joes

The last three weeks have focused on electrical locomotives on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad (Milwaukee Line); in this time we have seen two generations of the locomotives by used by the Milwaukee Line. Today we see the third, and final, generation of electrical locomotives they used. It is known officially as the General Electric EF-4 or EP-4 (depends on if it is being used for Freight or Passenger service). Each locomotive had 12 axles (8 of which were with power) with a 2-D+D-2 configuration. They were powered by 3,300 volts DC from overhead wires using the pantograph system for electrical connection. Each locomotive could develop 4,300 kilowatts of power (over 5,000 horsepower). That is enough energy to light up 43,000 one hundred watt light bulbs. The Milwaukee Line had 12 of these in service from the 1950s to June 15, 1974. General Electric actually built twenty units; the other eight sibling engines went to Brazil's Companhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro and to the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad. They are called Little Joes because the units were originally built for use in the Soviet Union (whose leader was Josef Stalin). The Cold War set in before the units were completed and the United States government would not allow them to be delivered to the Soviet Union. General Electric looked around for other buyers and the Milwaukee Line purchased its twelve for about $1 million. These units proved their value in the Rocky Mountains as they pulled train after train dependably over the passes and through the snow. The last two week's posts included pictures of the Olympian Hiawatha being pulled by older generation electric locomotives. The passenger train was soon handed over the the Little Joes once they arrived. Only one of these locomotives still survives. It is on static display at Deer Lodge, Montana; the same location at which this cover picture was taken on June 23, 1970. The locomotive in the picture is number E74; the one on display is number E70.

The post card was published by Audio Visual Designs, based out of Earlton, New York. This could be the youngest post card about which I have blogged to date. The address on the back includes a zip code, so the card cannot be any older than January 1, 1963. But, looking up the history of the publisher we find that the company 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.

I also have this post card, which is on of the "Little Joes" that was purchased by the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad, as mentioned above. This picture of #801 was taken in 1965.

Too Cold for Steam

Last week we discovered that the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul Railroad electrified part of its route in the Cascade mountains of Washington. Today we see that the idea was borrowed from farther east on the same line. Operating conditions in the mountain regions of Montana proved difficult. Winter temperatures of −40°C made it challenging for steam locomotives to generate sufficient steam. The line snaked through mountainous areas, resulting in "long steep grades and sharp curves." Electrification provided an answer, especially with abundant hydroelectric power in the mountains. Between 1914 and 1916, the Milwaukee implemented a 3,000 volt direct current overhead system between Harlowton, Montana, and Avery, Idaho, a distance of 705 kilometers.

The post card for today shows one of the second generation locomotives that traversed these mountains. The locomotive is of a different class than the two engines of the previous two weeks' posts. This one looks to be the second generation of electrical locomotives used by the railroad. The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road) classes EP-1 and EF-1 comprised 42 box-cab electric locomotives built by the American Locomotive Company (Alco) in 1915. Electrical components were from General Electric. The locomotives were composed of two half-units semi-permanently coupled back-to-back, and numbered as one unit with 'A' and 'B' suffixes. As built, 30 locomotives were assigned to freight service, classified as EF-1 and numbered 10200–10229. The remaining twelve locomotives were assigned to passenger service as class EP-1, numbered 10100–10111, with higher-speed passenger gearing. The design was highly successful, replacing a much larger number of steam locomotives, cutting costs and improving schedules. General Electric self-proclaimed this electric locomotive to be the “King of the Rails” in a silent promotional film from 1915. From Wikipedia

In 1919, with the arrival of a newer generation of passenger power, the EP-1 locomotives were converted to EF-1 freight locomotives, and renumbered 10230–10241. The picture of the train in the post two weeks ago had the engine number 10294 - so close!! These numbers In this role, they served until the 1950s, when the arrival of the Little Joe locomotives began to replace them in freight service. More about these replacements next week.

The post card was published by a company owned by Curt Otto Teich. He and his company were both innovators and prolific in post card publishing. In business from 1893 to 1978. It's hard to date early Curt Teich postcards as they were not well documented. After 1913, dates began to appear occasionally in the order books kept by the company and from 1922 on, production dates were well documented. Their U.S. factories turned out more cards in quantity than any other printer. They published a wide range of national view-cards of America and Canada. Many consider them one of the finest producers of White Border Cards. The Linen Type postcard came about through their innovations as they pioneered the use of offset lithography. In 1974 the Teich Company was sold to Regensteiner Publishers also in Chicago. The Teich Company continued to operate in the same building and continued printing Teich postcards until 1978 when the plant closed.