Climbing the Hill at Top Speed

On August 20, 1977, Number 610 hiked up the grade at Bristow, Virginia at 50 miles per hour. Ronald N. Johnson was there to capture the picture on the front of this post card.

The 2-10-4 “Selkirk” was built by Lima Locomotive Works in 1927. This particular locomotive is a former Texas & Pacific locomotive on lease to the Southern Railway. The Texas & Pacific Railroad was granted a federal charter in 1871 to operate a railroad via the most direct and eligible route along the 32nd Parallel from Marshall, Texas to El Paso, Texas and on to San Diego, California. It merged with the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1976. The following two websites provided the information below about the Southern Railway: http://www.srha.net/public/History/history.htm https://www.american-rails.com/southern.html One of America's great transportation companies was the Southern Railway. Southern Railway is the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined since the 1830s. The nine-mile South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Co., Southern's earliest predecessor line, was chartered in December 1827 and ran the nation's first scheduled passenger service to be pulled regularly by a steam locomotive -- the wood-burning "Best Friend of Charleston" -- out of Charleston, S.C., on Christmas Day 1830. When its 136-mile line to Hamburg, S.C. was completed in October 1833, it was the longest continuous line of railroad in the world. Southern Railway was created in 1894, largely from the financially-stressed Richmond & Danville system and the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad. The company owned two-thirds of the 4,400 miles of line it operated, and the rest was held through leases, operating agreements and stock ownership. Southern also subsequently controlled the Queen & Crescent Route (Alabama Great Southern; New Orleans & Northeastern; Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific; and for a time the Alabama & Vicksburg), and the Georgia Southern & Florida, which were operated separately. By the time the New Orleans & Northeastern (Meridian-New Orleans) was acquired in 1916 under Southern's president Fairfax Harrison, the railroad had attained the 8,000-mile, 13-state system that marked its territorial limits for almost half a century. In 1953, Southern Railway became the first major railroad in the United States to convert totally to diesel-powered locomotives, ending its rich history in the golden age of steam. When CSX was formed in 1980 Southern and Norfolk & Western realized they must merge to remain competitive, completing the union in 1982. Today, much of the Southern remains an important component under Norfolk Southern.

The post card was published by the Audio-Visual Designs out of Earlton, New York after 1963. I know it is after that year because the company address includes the five-digit zip code. This is one of 333 post cards in my collection published by Audio-Visual Designs.