A Real Classy Classic

The Empire State Express train was part of what was called The New York

Central and Hudson River Railroad. In 1914, the name was changed to just the New York Central Railroad. At the time, the Empire State Express Train would become the flagship train of the The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. This website gave me the information below: https://classicnewyorkhistory.com/history-of-new-yorks-empire-state-express-train/ Long before there was Amtrak in New York, there was the Empire State Express train. The legendary New York Empire State Express train was a locomotive that traveled from Buffalo, New York to New York City’s borough of Manhattan and back. The train was one of the United States’ earliest long distance passenger trains that ran at high speeds. The Empire State Express began its first daily run on December 7th 1891. The train got the name the Empire State Express not because it was a non stop train between Buffalo and Manhattan but rather because of the short amount of time it took to travel between the two cities. For a trip that was separated by the distance of four hundred and sixty one miles, the Empire State Express train was able to complete that trip in between seven and eight hours. In present time that may not seem that impressive, but in 1891 it was a spectacular feat to accomplish. From 1881 to 1941, the Empire Express train made over forty thousand trips between Buffalo and Manhattan. The train was upgraded periodically with more heavy duty cars and faster locomotives like the J Class 4-6-4 Hudson. Eventually the train was completely re-configured adding stainless steel cars from the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company. You can see an example of this in my blog post on January 11th, earlier this year. The Empire State Express train continued to run throughout the 20th Century. In 1999, the name was dropped from the train by Amtrak which decided to give just numbers all its trains. While the rail line it once broke the record on still exists (it’s now owned by Amtrak) and the connections are still utilized by passengers, the Empire State Express train will go down in history as one of the most important pioneers in New York State’s public transportation network.

The post card was published by A. C. Bosselman, & Company of New York. It was a large company producing postcards for the U.S. market primarily. Most cards are views but they also published comics, greeting cards. holiday souvenir cards and many cards for the various world's fairs and celebrations that occured during the first decade of the 20th century. They existed from 1901 to 1919 at 100 Grand Street, New York, New York. Their post cards were printed in Germany, until World War I broke out.