From New England to Liverpool to Edmonton

The train on the front of this post card is making a freight run in Chester, Massachusetts.

May 24, 1841 saw the opening of the railroad through the town. The locomotive is a "Santa Fe"-type of engine because the Santa Fe railroad was the first one to use this wheel arrangement. The Whyte wheel classification makes it a 2-10-0. It is running on the tracks of the Boston & Albany Railroad (B&ARR) The information below about the railroad is taken from this website: https://www.historicnewengland.org/explore/collections-access/capobject/?gusn=171267 The Boston & Albany Railroad Company was formed in 1868 by the consolidation of the Western Rail-Road Corporation and the Boston and Worcester Railroad Corporation. In 1883, the Boston & Albany acquired track then owned by the New York and New England Railroad as far as Newton Highlands, and in 1884, began the construction of a line northwest to its mainline creating a commuter loop. "The Circuit," as this route was called, officially opened in May 1886 providing double-track operation from downtown Boston through Brookline to Newton Highlands, then north into Riverside and four tracks on the mainline from Riverside back to downtown so that commuter and mainline operations did not conflict. By 1889 as many as 35 trains traveled the Circuit daily, providing superior commuter service. The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad leased the Boston & Albany for 99 years from July 1, 1900. This lease passed to the New York Central Railroad in 1914. Throughout this era, the Boston & Albany kept its own branding in the public eye. The New York Central merged into the Pennsylvania Central on February 1, 1968.

The post card seems to have been part of someone's collection of train post cards. I have several in my collection, now, that used to be part of this collection. The picture is copyrighted and published by Railway Photograph out of Liverpool, England. They must have been in a hurry when they printed this one. On the back, the words POST CARD are cut off at the top and you can see the missing parts of the letters down at the bottom.