Near the End of the Era

The picture on the front of this post card was taken in March of 1961. It has

to be one of the very last pictures of the "Big Red Cars" before they succumbed to the freeway system of Southern California. The parent company, Pacific Electric Railway, though, had a good run.
The company was founded in May of 1901 by Isaias Hellman (president of the Nevada Bank - San Francisco's largest bank at that time) and Henry Huntington (nephew of Collis Huntington - one of "the big four" of the Central Pacific Railroad). Henry was also involved in the building of the Santa Monica Wharf, about which I posted a blog on January 29th. The first leg of the railway opened on July 4, 1902. It was an electric railway that ran down to Long Beach. The plan was to build and link almost all of Southern California with intercity electric railways. The owners (and board members) would know what the routes were before the public and they would use third parties to purchase the land along the right of way. They would then build the line and either sell or lease land along the line to interested businesses and residents. They made a lot of money!!! There were competing lines, but in 1911 the eight existing entities were merged into one, Pacific Electric Railway Company. At their height of operations they had over 2,000 daily runs over more than 1,000 miles of tracks. It all came to an end as the freeway system in the Los Angeles basin and surrounding areas dominated the local transportation of choice. It is hard to put an actual date on the end because there is still a commuter system today. Take a look at the description of the Pacific Electric Railway in wikipedia and you will see what I mean.

This post card was published by the Audio Visual Designs Company. 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.

Still Standing after 130 Years!!

The picture on the front of this post card is from between 1890 and March 1, 1907. For many years the train traffic across Main Street in Springfield, Massachusetts crossed at grade level. This blocked traffic and caused

some backups of vehicle traffic. Part of this was because the trains moving west quickly came to wye after crossing main street. The wye helped them either to go north or to go south along the Connecticut River. Negotiating the wye could not be done at a high speed so the longer trains took longer to cross Main Street. In 1890 the city built a bridge over Main Street so the trains could do their thing and the vehicles could do theirs. The arch bridge is still there today. This is what someone posted on line:

On March 1, 1907 the United States Postal Service allowed people to put their messages (not only the address) on the flip-side of the post card. So this card is from between 1890 and March 1, 1907. The back of the post card reveals that it is part of a series - No. 740 out of

I don't know how many. It was published by The Springfield News Company. The card itself was printed over in Germany, like so many post cards of the day. You will notice that in the bottom left of the card the United States Postal Service reminds the sender that this side can only contain the address. That is why the picture on the front has a rectangular blank space on the right-hand side, instead of a larger picture.

Again, Almost... in New Zealand

This is a follow up posting from last week's tale of New Zealand. Last week was about the streetcars that we almost rode. This week is about the cross-country scenic train that we almost rode.

This is an excerpt from their website: https://www.greatjourneysofnz.co.nz/tranzalpine/
Experience the South Island’s striking natural landscape by taking a train between Christchurch and Greymouth. Along this journey you’ll see epic vistas, travel the edges of the ice-fed Waimakariri River, traverse the Southern Alps, and see miles of native beech forest.
The TranzAlpine is one of the world's great train journeys covering 223 kilometres (139 miles) one-way, taking just under 5 hours. You’ll traverse the majestic Canterbury Plains, to the backdrop of the mighty Southern Alps - the journey of a lifetime.

This is a post card that shows a portion of the train and the ride:

This post card was also published by Kiwi Vista Company out of Auckland.

Almost... in New Zealand

These three post cards are pictures of the trams (streetcars)

that we almost were able to ride. We were on our long-ago-planned retirement trip to New Zealand and Cook Islands when the Corona Virus took over the world's plans. We were in Picton, New Zealand (north end of the South Island) when we decided that we needed to return home (about 3 weeks early) to take care of ourselves and not to put others in harm's way if we did carry the virus in a foreign country. The best travel that we could arrange was to fly from Christchurch

to Auckland; then Auckland to San Francisco; then San Francisco to Vancouver; then, after an overnight in Vancouver to fly to Edmonton - home! All of this was to begin at 10:00 AM on Friday, March 27th. That was the earliest set of flights that we could book on the Sunday we decided to leave New Zealand.

We were scheduled to be in Christchurch anyway to take the "TranzAlpine" Train on the 24th. So we followed our planned schedule and got to Christchurch on the 23rd of March. That day, they cancelled the "TrazAlpine"; we had reservations for the next day. Oh, well. At least they had trams still running... they shut down the trams that night, too. So we stayed in Christchurch, socially isolating ourselves for four days until we could get onto the first plane to start our journey home.
These trams were all abandoned, rescued and restored to fully operational condition. Today, they serve the tourist trade by taking people around downtown Christchurch. The first picture shows the Anglican Cathedral with a sign saying that they are offering a "Jazz Service this Sunday". The steeple is missing today after toppling in an earthquake that struck on February 22, 2011. Here ia a photo I took:

They are still raising funds to restore the cathedral and to make it earthquake resistant. The oldest tram found and restored was built in 1903 - that is a good shot of it in the middle picture, above. The third post card shows a cute street through which the trams drive. It has small shops and restaurants on either side of the tracks. Toward the right side of the picture is a building with more shops and restaurants through which the trams drive. We actually stayed on the left side (from this point of view) of the building in an apartment while waiting to depart New Zealand.

The post cards were published by Kiwi Vista Company out of Auckland. They wholesale post cards, magnets, souvenirs, CDs and DVDs to retailers across New Zealand.

What is a Birney?

The Birney electric street cars (Officially, the Birney Safety Car) were a small, single truck vehicle which was much lighter than conventional

streetcars of the time. They were mass produced by the J G Brill Company (almost 200 in 1916) and sold by the thousands (4,200 by 1920) because they were inexpensive, and could be operated by a single motorman, without the assistance of a conductor. This was a selling feature because The Great War caused a shortage of labour. They also required less maintenance. They had two electric motors on the single truck so it had lots of quick response and pick up. The Birney also introduced the use of pneumatically balanced and interlocked doors. If a door was stuck open, or a passenger or other object blocked the door, the motors could not be started. The controls on the Birney Car also included an early application of the "deadman control". This device removed power from the car's motors and applied the air brakes if the controller handle was released for any reason, causing the car to come to an abrupt stop. Many cities began to sell off their fleet in the years after the war, due to their low passenger capacity (30 people) and light weight, which resulted in too many derailments, and made it difficult to navigate through snow. Production ended in 1930 after more than 6,000 cars were sold.

This particular Birney (#313) is owned by The Spring Valley Electric Railway in French Lick, Indiana. The post card was published by Transit Cards.com, they are no longer in business and I can find no history on them.

I do, however, have information on this next publisher. Taken from their own website: "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."

This is a picture on the front of the post card showing another Birney Car,

this one from Fort Collins, Colorado. It was built in 1919. It was restored by the Fort Collins Women's Club as a civic project. This picture of car #21 is while it is at West Mountain and Roosevelt Street on its way to City Park. The photo was taken on June 10, 1989. The Fort Collins Municipal Railway is still running today. $2 for adults, $1 for seniors and children, free for children under 3. http://www.fortcollinstrolley.org/welcome.html