Inside the Cab of a Narrow Gauge

The picture on the front of this post card is showing the engineer

and fireman attending to their duties on the narrow gauge railroad (Pine Creek Railroad) located inside the Allaire State Parkin in New Jersey. The following information was gleaned from this website: http://www.thortrains.net/JerseyRR/pinerr1.html The Pine Creek Railroad is part of the New Jersey Museum of Transportation, located at Allaire State Park. Pine Creek has the distinction of being one of the few real railroads whose trackage is an oval, like the common toy train set. It is a "narrow gauge" railway, meaning that the distance between the rails is narrower than the standard gauge of US railroads. Narrow gauge trackage is used for industrial, mining, logging, and operations in difficult terrain. It all began in a sand pit. Around 1950, under pressure to convert to diesel power, the Raritan River Sand Company in Nixon, New Jersey, contemplated scrapping their steamers. Meanwhile, railroad enthusiasts James Wright (who worked for his family's sand company) and Jay L. Wulfson (manager of the Mayfair Dress Company in South River, New Jersey) formed Wright & Wulfson, Inc., and bought a Baldwin 0-4-0T to become Pine Creek No. 1. Together with Pierre "Pete" Rasmussen (an agent for the Central Railroad of New Jersey), Wright & Wulfson founded the Pine Creek Railroad Museum in 1952. They purchased a 2.5-acre plot of commercial real estate in New Jersey and set about building a little narrow-gauge railroad using rail rescued from abandoned sand pits. They began attracting other railroad enthusiasts willing to volunteer their time, and eventually they cobbled together a passenger coach and ran the railroad as an amusement attraction. In 1956 they purchased another locomotive from Raritan River Sand—this time a Porter 0-4-0T saddle tanker. Then, Pine Creek leased Ely-Thomas Shay No. 6 from owner Edgar Mead. The volunteers had also formed the New Jersey Museum of Transportation, Inc., a new not-for-profit organization. Pine Creek No. 1 was sold to Disneyland in California, whereas Copper Creek No. 3 and the two homemade coaches became the property of the Busch Woodlands Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Wulfson and Rasmussen then donated all of the remaining rolling stock and other assets to the New Jersey Museum of Transportation. The museum had already been contemplating relocating to another location so as to expand their operations, but in 1962 moving became critical when, owing to a land reassessment, they were hit with a 300% property tax hike; Allaire State Park in Wall Township, Monmouth County became their new home. A charter was drawn up in December 1962 that formalized the creation of the not-for-profit Pine Creek Railroad Division of the New Jersey Museum of Transportation, Inc. Work on the new roadbed began in 1963, making use of rail provided by Trooper Alden T. Cottrell, Chief of the Bureau of Forests and Parks, who obtained it from an unused siding that ran to the county jail. While a search was reportedly undertaken to find an existing trestle that could be moved, no further mention of the bridge can be found, and when the golden spike was driven on 20 June 1964 (with New Jersey Governor Richard Hughes performing the honors), the loop of track had shrunk to just a little over half a mile.   By 1967 the Pine Creek Railroad had come a long way: the station was refurbished, a new enginehouse was built, a Raritan River caboose was converted into living quarters for the resident machinist, the Railroadiana shop opened, a small diesel was acquired, and the Ely-Thomas Shay was running the loop, as reported by the NJMT Newsletter editor at the time, Theodore F. Gleichmann. Thanks to the efforts of many volunteers, the railroad has been in continuous operation ever since, and the Museum has featured an ever-changing roster of unique and historically significant railroad artifacts.

This information was taken from the Audio-Visual Designs' website: The post card was one of the first post cards published by the publisher, Audio-Visual Designs out of Earlton, New York. 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. In 1997, the business was purchased by us (Joe & Colleen Suo) and moved to the present Herkimer, NY location. We have maintained and expanded the level of quality in our products and services established by the founder.