Slowly Being Retired and Replaced

The locomotive pictured on the front of this post card is one of 40 that were

built by Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Great Northern Railway. They were built between 1918 and 1919 and all retired from service between 1956 and 1958. The photo of this locomotive was taken on April 21, 1956 while it sat in storage. These locomotives were being replaced by GP-7 diesel locomotives made by Electro-Motive (a division of General Motors) on the railroad. Just as the steam locomotive was used for switching service, their replacements were, too. This website gives a nice, short history of the Great Northern Railway and James J. Hill's involvement in its making. https://www.mnopedia.org/thing/great-northern-railway The Great Northern Railway was a transcontinental railroad system that extended from St. Paul to Seattle. Among the transcontinental railroads, it was the only one that used no public funding and only a few land grants. As the northernmost of these lines, the railroad spurred immigration and the development of lands along the route, especially in Minnesota. On September 18, 1889, Minnesota entrepreneur James J. Hill created the Great Northern Railway from the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific and the Minneapolis and St. Cloud. On February 1, 1890, the Great Northern assumed control of his other railroad companies, among them the Montana Central Railway and the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba. From these beginnings the Great Northern Railway became a transcontinental railroad across the northern part of the United States. I have written about the Great Northern in past blogs, so I won’t take up your time here. Next week, I will share two post cards of locomotives that worked for the Great Northern Railway.

The photo was taken by Robert Anderson of Ironwood, Michigan and the post card was published by Bob Fremming in August of 1957.

Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad

The passenger train rounding the bend on Little Traverse Bay, as shown on the front of this post card, belonged to the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad.

Wikipedia does provide a longer and more detailed history of the railroad; I have condensed this history here. Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad according to Wikipedia: The company was formed on January 18, 1854. The company opened service between Bridge Street in Grand Rapids to Cedar Springs, Michigan, on December 25, 1867, a distance of about 20 miles (32 km). Six months later, in July of 1868 it had 2 engines in service: the Pioneer and the Muskegon. At that time the company also utilized a single passenger coach and single baggage car, six box cars, 24 flat cars and five hand cars. On June 21, 1869, the last rail connecting Cedar Springs to Morley, Michigan was laid. The track from the south into Grand Rapids was completed September 13, 1870. The line extended north to Big Rapids, Michigan, by October 1, 1870, and a train first traveled between Fort Wayne and Big Rapids on that date. In June 1871, the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad Company took control of the road and property of the Cincinnati, Richmond and Fort Wayne Railroad Company, extending the line south to Cincinnati. The line between Paris and Petoskey, Michigan, was completed November 25, 1873. The railroad was opened to Mackinaw City, Michigan, and the Straits of Mackinac on July 3, 1882. The total length of the line at this time was 529 miles (851 km). As of July 1888, the railroad had expanded its fleet to 66 locomotives and 3,100 cars. Its gross earnings were close to $2.3 million in 1887. In 1891 the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad featured the longest North-South line in the country. The railroad served to accelerate the settlement of Northern Michigan, which was largely a wilderness in the mid-19th century. On July 2, 1896, the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad reorganized as the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railway. That is the railway that owned the train on the front of this post card. By 1907 four passenger trains were running north to and from Mackinaw City daily. Passenger train fares were not enough to support the railroad and ridership declined. In 1909 the railroad reported a profit of 24.4 cents for every passenger for each mile carried; by 1921 the railroad was losing 19.5 cents per passenger mile. The Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad was bought by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1918.

The back of the post card has been ruined by some dark stain. The good news is that, whatever it is, it did not leak through to the front of the card. The post card was published by Alton G. Cook (1862 – 1923) from Petoskey, Michigan. Here is a quote from an article I found about Mr. Cook’s business. “His latest booklet is entitled Summer Resorts on Little Traverse Bay and is one of the handsomest souvenirs ever published of Petoskey and Northern Michigan. In addition to all of these, Mr. Cook finds time to take pictures for the G R & I Railroad company for the quantities of advertising matter they send out every year. The making of post cards, which he began about five years ago has proved one of the most successful lines he has yet undertaken and, as he is continually working to improve and enlarge it, it is hard to predict what he will accomplish in the future. He runs an exclusive Post Card Store at 208 Midway which is said to carry the most complete line of cards of any in this region.”

The Firefly by Frisco

This locomotive on the front of the post card was one of only three 4-6-2's

built by the Frisco machine shops in 1939. Our friends at Wikipedia tell us this about the engine, its two sisters and the passenger train they pulled, “The Firefly”. The Firefly was a streamlined passenger train operated by the St. Louis – San Francisco Railway (the "Frisco"). At various times, it served St Louis, Missouri, Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Kansas City, Missouri, and Fort Scott, Kansas. It made its maiden run on March 29, 1940, and ended May 22, 1960. It was Frisco’s first streamliner, and the first streamliner to be built in the southwest. The Frisco decided to fit its steam locomotives with a cowling, described as a torpedo-type jacket giving it the appearance of a bullet-like projectile traveling down the track. The engines were converted by Frisco itself in Springfield, with the first one, No. 1026, being completed in May of 1938. The engine was not new; it had originally been built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1910 as an ordinary 4-6-2 “Pacific”. Two other engines, Nos. 1018 and 1031, both also Baldwin 4-6-2’s from 1910, were later converted for the Firefly service as well. This website tells us some of the history of the Railroad to which the locomotive on the front of this post card belonged: http://frisco.org/mainline/about-the-frisco-railroad/ The St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (affectionately known as the “Frisco”) was a St. Louis-based railroad that operated in nine Midwest and southern states from 1876 to 1980. The railroad stretched from Kansas City to Pensacola and St. Louis to Oklahoma City and Dallas, having some of the most iconic motive power, logos and slogans in the history of railroading. The Frisco was also renowned for excellent passenger service led by some of the best-looking steam locomotives ever built, and celebrated for fast freight hauling behind steam locomotives of its own design as well as diesels in the later era. Born as a branch of the great Pacific Railroad project of the mid-19th Century, the Frisco became a separate entity that helped to feed the population of a growing nation, helped build its factories and ship those factories’ products, helped win two World Wars, and helped to carry Americans East and West, North and South in style and comfort. In the 104 years of its separate existence, it became a major corporation that provided the best service possible to its customers while treating its employees like a big family, never losing the homey touch. The Frisco merged with, and was assimilated into, the Burlington Northern on November 21, 1980, but most of its lines are still in service today with the BNSF or various short lines.

This is a Real Photo Post Card. It was taken by A. D. Wellborn. I could find nothing about the photographer on the internet.

To Russia with Love, NOT!

The picture on the front of this post card was taken on August 25, 1956. They are locomotives working for Eagle Picher. In 1927, the Eagle-Picher Lead Company was one of the largest white lead and zinc companies in the United States. Its assets exceeded $45,000,000, with ore refineries in Kansas and Oklahoma as well as Missouri. However, the locomotives in the picture are much older than the 1956 picture. These are ex-Frisco

locomotives and were some of the last true Russian Decapods in existence at that time. Here is the history on each of the locomotives as taken from this website: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,4762780 This website (in orange, below) has a book about the Russian Decapods. I have taken some information from the first page. If you are interested, I am sure it will make for some fascinating reading. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43518384 In the early 1900s Russia ordered a huge fleet of 2-10-0 type locomotives known as Decapods. A. I. Lipetz, the chief of the locomotive division of the Russian Mission on Ways of Communication, managed the design and construction in the US. They were originally built for the 5-foot gauge Russian State Railways to haul 1300 metric tons at a speed of 8 to 10 miles per hour over grades of .8%. The Bolshevik revolution forced cancellation of undelivered locomotives, so the builders sold them to American railroad companies. Eventually, the locomotives served on at least 42 different railroads, mostly in the east and south. These locomotives were considered by some to be the ugliest locomotives ever built. They had low drivers, very high boilers and enormous steam domes. Some American railroads made cosmetic adjustments to change the appearance of their Decapods.

The post card was published by Bob Fremming of Dallas, Wisconsin. The picture was taken by Richard Wallin of Kirkwood Missouri. I searched the internet over and over and found no information about either of these people.