What Kind of Driving Gear is That?

If you look carefully, you will notice that the driving mechanism on this

locomotive does not look like the usual drive bar pushing the wheels around, like the standard steam locomotive that we are used to seeing. This Shay Locomotive has a gear-driven drive system that is extremely useful for going up very steep grades like those found in the mountains of eastern Tennesee. For a detailed explanation of how the Shay locomotive works, I recommend this website: https://www.shaylocomotives.com/trucks/trucks.htm The next website has provided the history of the locomotive on the front of this post card. I summarize the content below. http://hawkinsrails.net/shortlines/brim/brimstone.htm The locomotive on the front of this post card was built by Lima Locomotive & Machine Company (one of 1,557 built by this company) in August of 1910. It was commissioned as Lima #2366. The wheel arrangement is that of a Class C Shay 3 truck locomotive. It was energized by coal that heated water into steam that powered the drive train. It was originally sold to Raleigh & Southwestern RR as #35; then it went to Smokey Mountain RR in 1921; in 1938 the W.M. Ritter Lumber Company took possession; they sold it to Brimstone in 1942. After Brimstone, the locomotive went to the Tennessee Valley Railway Museum then to the Yolo Short Line and finally to the Silver Bend Tree Farm in 1995. And this website gives the history of the Brimstone Railroad, the railroad on which this locomotive is pictured. Again, I have summarized the content below. https://abandonedonline.net/location/brimstone-new-river-railroad/ The Brimstone Railroad was chartered in May of 1942 in eastern Tennesee, by the W.M. Ritter Lumber company of Virginia, and followed Brimstone Creek in northern Tennessee. As typical for a logging route, each hollow featured a railroad branch;switchbacks were used to ascend steep grades via three shay locomotives. The Brimstone Railroad primarily hauled timber and coal, with two underground coal mines located at Hughett and Lone Mountain. Timber was taken to the W.M. Ritter Mill at New River and later to a mill in Verdun. The railroad reorganized as the Brimstone & New River Railroad in 1965, and as the New River Railway in 1966 after the W.M. Ritter Company was acquired by Georgia Pacific Corporation. The line was purchased by the CNO&TP in 1970. Traffic along the New River Railway became increasingly scarce because the high-sulfur coal found in the region had become less desirable and the last active coal mine along the route closed in 1980.

The post card was published by Audio-Visual Designs in Earlton, New York after October of 1983. The address on the back of the post card includes the 5 digit zip code plus the 4 more digits that were added after October of 1983.

Still Around. You Just Won't Recognize It.

On the front of this post card a 2-6-0 Mogul, one of the main stays of the Boston & Maine Railroad, pulling a passenger train on the Central Massachusetts Division between Boston and Clinton.

Here it is just about to cross the Fitchburg Division main line in Weston, Massachusetts in February of 1955. This is about one year before it was replaced by a diesel locomotive. The Boston & Maine Railroad still exists on paper. This website will provide a concise history of the railroad. https://www.bmrrhs.org/history-of-the-b-and-m-railroad/ I have taken excerpts from it below. The article was written by Rick Nowell, Archives Chairman Boston & Maine Railroad Historical Society August 12, 2016 The Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M) was the successor to the Andover and Wilmington Railroad which opened in 1836. Over the next 65 years the B&M gained control (through lease, purchase, or stock ownership) of the Eastern, Boston and Lowell, Connecticut and Passumpsic Rivers, Concord & Montreal, Connecticut River, Fitchburg, Portland and Rochester, and Worcester and Nashua railroads, most of which themselves were agglomerations of shorter, earlier roads. All had their main lines and branches that wove a tight web of steel through northern Massachusetts, southern Maine, the state of New Hampshire, and eastern New York and Vermont. At its peak B&M maintained over 2,300 route miles of track, 1,200 steam locomotives, and a force of 28,000 employees. The road’s principal shops were located at North Billerica, Mass. and Concord, N.H. Major freight yards were built at Boston, East Deerfield, Rigby, and Mechanicville. In 1955 financial operator Patrick B. McGinnis gained control of the Boston and Maine. His principal contribution to B&M history was to oversee the completion of dieselization, the discontinuance of many passenger routes and runs, and the closure and sale of railroad stations and equipment. Ultimately he was convicted of and imprisoned for taking kickbacks on equipment sales. In the late 1950s and 1960s profitability was elusive; Government insisted that the B&M should keep commuter and long-distance passenger trains running in the face of mounting deficits and decreasing patronage and made it impossible for the B&M to break even. Bankruptcy came in 1970, but ironically it seems to have been the catalyst that the B&M needed to reinvent itself. Alan Dustin (president 1974-84) reduced operating expenses and plowed the savings back into track improvements. The sale of rights of way in the commuter zone to the MBTA (1976) provided cash to satisfy creditors and in 1980 the B&M had its first profitable year, on an ordinary income basis, since 1957. An improving outlook led to the purchase of the B&M by Timothy Mellon’s Guilford Transportation Industries in 1983 and its emergence from bankruptcy. In 1999, in cooperation with Norfolk Southern, Pan Am began running a dedicated intermodal train between Ayer and Mechanicville. This evolved into an agreement with Norfolk Southern in 2008 to own, as a joint venture named Pan Am Southern, former B&M track between those two points, and elsewhere, using NS money to upgrade the track and to finance improved distribution facilities. The Boston and Maine Corporation still exists. Although its name is no longer used the rail system the B&M began 180 years ago lives on in a form suited to the needs of our time.

This post card is part of my 333 post card collection of Audio-Visual Designs post cards. The photograph was taken by "Skipper" Clark.

Small and Mighty

That is a very interesting looking locomotive on the front of this post card. It

is classified as an 0-6-0. Its class of engines was used for switching. That is exactly what the railroad company that owned it used it for. The BEDT stand for Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal. They basically shuttled train cars along the shores of Brooklyn, New York. This website gives very detailed information about the BEDT. Take the time to read through the materials. http://www.trainweb.org/bedt/BEDT.html#Flow%20Chart Philip M. Goldstein put a lot of time and effort in researching what is on this website. The name Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal as we know it, had its true beginnings in 1906 as a Navigation Company, and in the very beginning was incorporated as such under the Transportations Corporations Law of the State of New York on June 20, 1906. It was not until the November 5, 1915, after all the franchises and certificates of conveniences were finally approved; that all the properties, railroad, marine equipment and other assets were formally consolidated and incorporated under the name by which we know it and as a Freight Terminal operation; with a railroad, tugboats and carfloats. "The Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal" was probably the first private terminal for public use in the Port of New York. According to well authenticated report, this terminal had it's beginning in 1876. This organization has three terminals. The main terminal is located on the East River in Brooklyn and includes frontage between North Third and North Tenth Streets. Of the branch terminals one is on the Tidewater Basin in Jersey City and the other known as the Queensboro Terminal, on the East River, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets in Long Island City. The success of the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal could be measured by many factors, not the least of which being haulage, gross revenue, expansion and appearance. For example, in 1912, according to the "Report of the Committee on Terminals and Transportation of the New York State Food Investigating Commission" published 1913, the track capacity of the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal increased from 357 cars to 426 cars. In 1914: it hauled over 150,990 tons of freight, for 1,200 shippers and 1,400 consigners and operated over 10.33 miles of track in New York & New Jersey. It operated 10 locomotives, 4 tugboats, 19 carfloats and employed 458 employees. In 1920. These reports tell us that the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal handled 59,022 cars, over 9.24 miles of a track (a decrease of .63 miles form the previous year) with a gross income of $853,507.01. There were 115 employee injuries and 1 employee fatality listed for the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal for that year. For the next 60 years the BEDT had its ups and downs, but survived. Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal filed the required ICC "Notice of Intent to Abandon Service" on April 8, 1983; and on August 12, 1983, operations at Kent Avenue Yard ceased altogether with the switching of a few covered hoppers at the Bulk Flour Terminal. The operations of New York Dock at Bush Terminal would not fare any better during this same time frame, and after several previous attempts at downsizing; it ceased operations on August 17, 1983.

This is what we call a Real Photo Post Card. It is an actual photograph that is printed right onto a Post Card backed paper. You can see in the stamp box area that this process was used by Kodak. I am guessing that the post card, at one time, belonged to Robert Morris of Brooklyn. The handwriting, in pencil, tells us that it is the BEDT #12, in Brooklyn, NY, on April 10, 1955. There are two items that I cannot decipher but the bottom tells us that the locomotive was built in 1919.

Not "Old Maude", but a Relative!

The locomotive on the front of this post card is one of Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s mighty class EM-1 articulated steam locomotives.

It heads up a string of hopper cars as it roars through Corriganville, Maryland on April 29, 1955. It was built by Baldwin in 1944 as one of thirty for service on the Cumberland Division. It was mentioned that this locomotive is an articulated steam locomotive. This website gives some good information about what being articulated means: https://www.american-rails.com/articulated.html An articulated steam locomotive is defined as any design which has at least two sets of drivers, with the lead set having the ability to swivel independently from the rigid frame to more easily negotiate curves. This technological development allowed steam locomotives to grow in size prodigiously. With builders and railroads no longer limited to the size of a locomotive's wheel base, arrangements became longer, larger, heavier, and more powerful. The first use of the articulated steam locomotive in the United States was, as mentioned above, on the B&O in 1904 which collaborated with the American Locomotive Company to create an 0-6-6-0 design listed as Class DD-1 #2400 and given the name "Old Maude." The steamer was manufactured as a true compound, Mallet and for the most part the railroad was pleased with the experimental locomotive. The Mallet design was first introduced by Anatole Mallet (pronounced "Mal-lay") of Switzerland when he constructed an articulated locomotive in France during the 1870s that featured an independent, swiveling front driver that was not mounted rigidly to the rest of the frame.

The post card was published by Audio-Visual Designs in Earlton, New York after 1963. There is a zip code included in their address and zip codes were introduced in 1961.

A Camel Pulling a Train?

The locomotive on the front of this post card is a “Ten-Wheeler”.

However, it is unlike any “Ten Wheeler” that I have ever seen – in person or in my post card collection. This one was built in 1873 at the Mt. Care shops of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. This is a “Davis Ten-Wheeler” and a later edition of the famous Winans “Camelback” design. This locomotive was retired in 1900 and now is part of the collection at Perdue University in Indiana. This website will give you some background on the “Camel” locomotives: https://borail.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/9B6B74B9-B2EF-4872-B677-952454751722 The "Camel" locomotives, which were named for their unique shape and cab location, became a trademark of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) during the mid-19th century. The "Camel" became one of the first coal-burning locomotives produced in large quantities. Eccentric builder, Ross Winans, created the original design of the locomotive in 1848. Challenged to design a locomotive that would burn coal more efficiently, Winans' solution was to construct a large firebox behind the locomotive's mainframe, forcing the engineer's cab to be positioned above the boiler. The "Camel" was designed for productivity rather than for crew comfort. The engineer was often too hot as he sat above the boiler, and faced slim survival chances during a derailment. The fireman was also uncomfortable, as there was little shelter to protect him from the weather. A more critical problem the crew faced was a lack of communication resulting from their separated positions. During the 1850s, Master of Machinery, Samuel Hayes, adapted features of the 0-8-0 "Camel" design for a fleet of "Ten Wheelers." His locomotives needed to move passenger trains over the mountains of western Virginia. Successor Master of Machinery, J.C. Davis, also combined the 4-6-0 wheel arrangement with the "Camel" design. Over a ten-year period, Davis turned out over 100 heavier versions of the "Camel."

The post card was published by CharmCraft out of St. Louis, Missouri. It was incorporated on February 6, 1948 and was dissolved on January 14, 1974. It did have a previous name of the “St. Louis Greeting Card Company”. It is a “Plastichrome” post card printed in Boston, Mass. By Colourpicture Publishers, Inc. They existed from 1938 to 1969. They were a major publisher and printer of linen view-cards of the United States based in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts between 1938 and 1969. They later went on to publish photochromes and small spiral bound picture booklets under the name trade name Plastichrome in the 1950's.