I've Been Everywhere, Man!

The locomotive on the front of this post card has had quite the history. The information below is taken from this website: https://locomotive.fandom.com/wiki/North_Pacific_Coast_No._12_(Sonoma)

North Pacific Coast No. 12, named Sonoma is a 4-4-0 "American" type steam locomotive it was built by Baldwin in 1876 for the 36” gauge North Pacific Coast Railroad. It was named “Sonoma”. It probably hauled both passenger and freight trains on the eighty mile line between Sausalito and Duncans Mills, CA. In 1879, #12 was sold to the Nevada Central Railroad, renumbered #5 and named “General J. H. Ledlie” after the civil engineer then working for the railroad, who had also participated in building the transcontinental railroad as a Union Pacific employee. The locomotive worked as switcher and road engine until the Nevada Central line was abandoned in 1938. The locomotive stayed in storage for nearly forty years until it was moved to the newly built Central Pacific Railroad Passenger Station in 1977. Today the locomotive is on public display at the California State Railroad Museum while restored to its 1876 appearance by the museum, it is also displayed coupled to some narrow gauge passenger cars. The history of the Central Nevada Railway is taken from this website: https://utahrails.net/utahrails/nevada-central.php Nevada Central Railway was built between Battle Mountain (on the Central Pacific) and Austin (Clifton), Nevada. It was completed in February 1880 as a 3-foot narrow gauge railroad. Union Pacific purchased control of the road in June 1881 was part of a grand scheme to built its own line across Nevada, and to tap the booming mining business of central Nevada. The mining boom soon collapsed, and in October 1884, Union Pacific allowed the Nevada Central to default on its interest payments, forcing the road into bankruptcy. After its 1884 bankruptcy, the original owners of the Nevada Central prior to Union Pacific ownership, the Stokes family, took back ownership and reorganized the company as the Nevada Central Railroad in 1888. On January 31, 1938 all operations ended on the Nevada Central Railroad. The railroad operated 92.3 miles of line between Austin and Battle Mountain, Nevada, a station on the Southern Pacific-Western Pacific shared mainlines in central Nevada. The federal ICC had authorized the abandonment on December 20, 1937; all carload traffic was embargoed on December 31, 1937, and all operations ceased on January 31, 1938. Although common carrier operations ended, as well as the railroad's status as a public utility, its physical property was not to be abandoned, but would be sold for its salvage value and disposed of for the benefit of the railroad company.

It looks like the post card is a self-published post card by Shirley Burman, Photographer. She operated at 2648 Fifth Avenue in Sacramento, California – where this locomotive is currently on display. From our good friends at Wikipedia: Shirley Burman (born 1934) is a railroad photographer, historian of women's work in the railroad industry, and creator of the traveling photo exhibition, Women and the American Railroad. Burman received a BA in Art from the University of California-Davis in 1972. She was an illustrator for the California State Parks in 1974, and a documentary photographer for the U.S. federal government in 1976. She resumed employment with the California State Parks in 1978 as a photographer for the California State Railroad Museum's restoration projects. Since 1983, Burman has been a self-employed railroad photographer and designer. Together with her late husband, the railroad photographer Richard Steinheimer, she produced a book, Whistles Across the Land, in 1994. She lives in Sacramento, California. Burman established a non-profit corporation called The Women's Railroad History Project. It is a repository for oral histories, photographic and artifact collections, and other historical research. Selections from Burman's international traveling exhibitions Women and the American Railroad TM were compiled into a 1995 wall calendar "Women and the American Railroad."

How Do You Pronounce Schuylkill?

The Little Schuylkill Navigation Railroad was a 30 mile long set of tracks whose purpose was to bring coal from Tamaqua to Port Clinton, Pennsylvania. It also carried passengers to and fro.

The train pictured on the front of this post card is dumping the coal into a barge to be brought to market. The most information that I found about this railroad was in a letter to the president of the company from a lawyer dated July 3, 1941. The president was asking for an opinion as to whether or not the railroad was subject to paying into the Unemployment Insurance system of the time. Here is an excerpt from the letter: The Little Schuylkill Navigation Railroad and Coal Company was incorporated September 14, 1829, under an act of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for the purpose of making a lock navigation on the East Branch of the Schuylkill River. By special act of April 23, 1831, and supplementary acts, however, the company was authorized to build and operate a railroad instead of a canal. It constructed a railroad, as authorized, and opened it for operation on November I5, 1831. The Little Schuylkill Railroad between Tamaqua and Port Clinton was completed and began operating with horse drawn coal and passenger cars which were pulled along wooden rails with steel straps attached to the top. The opening of this railroad was considered an engineering marvel of the time and was celebrated with a great deal of fanfare. This was only the 3rd rail route to be constructed in America at the time. The road was operated directly by the company from that date to April 1, 1863, when the entire road was leased by the company to the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company. On December 1, 1896, this lease was terminated and the property was as of that date leased to the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, successor to the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, for a period of 999 years. On January 1, 1924, the lease was assumed by the Reading Company, successor to the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, and the Reading Company has continued since that date to operate the line of railroad of the Little Schuylkill Navigation Railroad and Coal Company in interstate commerce, as lessee under that lease. In view of the conclusion reached by the Board in that decision with respect to the carrier status of the New London Northern Railroad Company, it is my opinion, for the reasons stated therein, that the Little Schuylkill Navigation Railroad and Coal Company is now, and at least since August 28, 1935, has been, a carrier by railroad subject to Part I of the Interstate Commerce Act, and for that reason is an employer under the Railroad Retirement and Railroad Unemployment Insurance Acts. The railroad merged with the Reading Railroad in 1952, thereby ceasing to exist. By the way, Diane Herner from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania says, “Those of us from Philadelphia say ‘Skookle’.” The post card was published by the Tamaqua Historical Society in Tamaqua. https://www.tamaquahistoricalsociety.org/train-rides

Their website,says that each year, the historical society sponsors and conducts train rides departing from the Tamaqua Station during the Summerfest and at Christmas time. The train rides are presented in cooperation with the Reading and Northern Railroad. They have a facebook page if you would like to follow them. You can find it by searching on facebook or through the link on their website.

This One Got in Just Under the Wire!

The train on the front of this post card is supposed to be the "Continental Divide by Moonlight".

I know. It doesn't look like a night time scene. But, a good student of science knows that the moon (though not a full moon) is up during the daytime. Maybe the publisher is trying to catch us!! The post card was mailed in Colorado and the publisher is from Denver. So we know the continental divide to which they are referring is in that state. However, there are eight places where a railroad in Colorado crosses the continental divide. We can discount one of them because it is a mining operation. Four of the crossings are by narrow-gauge railroads, so we can set them aside (I am presuming that the picture is of a transcontinental train since it is on a post card). Two of them are through tunnels. That leaves the Rollins pass as the pass that is pictured on this post card. It was a very popular route for the trains crossing the United States. In 1928 the overland pass was replaced by the Moffatt Tunnel. From Wikipedia: The abandoned rail route over Rollins Pass was nominated for and accepted into the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 because of significant events and engineering feats accomplished by railroading efforts in the early 20th century. In 1997, additional areas on the pass were added to the National Register of Historic Places to include achievements made by John Q.A. Rollins and his toll wagon road that traversed the pass. In 2012, Rollins Pass was listed as one of the most endangered sites in Colorado.

This post card was published by Williamson-Haffner. They were a publisher of lithographic souvenir books and view-cards of the American West. While their views were largely based on photographic reproduction, many scenes were artist drawn. They also produced comic postcards. They only existed in Denver, Colorado from 1905 to 1910. This post card was mailed in 1909. It just made it in time before the publisher disappeared - just under the wire! In fact it was mailed on February 12, 1909 so it will be 113 years old on Saturday. Just for the fun of it, here is the logo of the publisher:

I've Got Nothing!

I am just plowing through Volume Four of my post card collection. This beautiful picture of a train along a river is in that volume.

It is the volume in which I have random post cards from the steam era in the United States. They don't fit into the categories of the other volumes, so I put them into here. This post card is the next one in line to be published in this blog. Here is the challenge. There is absolutely no information on the front or the back of this post card that tells me anything about the train on the front, the state in which the picture was taken, or the name of the railroad. The fact that it has a white border tells me that it was printed some time between 1915 and 1930.

In the bottom, left corner of the back the number "300" is printed. I assume that this was one of a series of post cards printed. Also on the back, is the post mark. It tells me that the post card was posted to the mail on October 17, 1919 at 11 AM from somewhere in Kentucky. It is also being sent to someplace in Kentucky. Just as there is no information about the train on the front, there is nothing about the printer or the publisher. I've got nothing!