So, Is It Soo or Saulte?

The locomotive on the front of this post card belongs to the Soo Line

Railroad. It is a Pacific type engine which means its wheel configuration is 4-6-2. Here it is viewed in Bruce, Wisconsin on June 21, 1959. It is a ten car special passenger train and it was a special train, because it was this locomotive's final run. This website gives some very detailed history of the Soo Railroad. I have shortened it very much. https://www.american-rails.com/soo.html Despite maintaining a respectable 4,700-mile network linking the Twin Cities with Chicago/Milwaukee the Soo Line was dwarfed by Midwestern giants Chicago & North Western, Milwaukee Road, and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. The Soo Line was created for a singular purpose, to improve the Twin Cities' transportation choices. All railroads reaching the Twin Cities did so via Chicago. As the lone eastern gateway this meant freight rates were controlled by that city. To correct this problem several businessmen came together for the purpose of constructing their own railroad. On September 29, 1883, the Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie & Atlantic Railway was incorporated. The railroad's target was Sault Ste. Marie within Michigan's Upper Peninsula. This town was based along the south bank of the St. Mary’s River, which allowed for interchange with Canadian lines through Ontario and southern Quebec. On June 11, 1888 the Minneapolis & Pacific, Minneapolis & St. Croix, and Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie & Atlantic merged to form the new, 737-mile Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railway. It officially became the "Soo Line Railroad" in 1961. The picture was taken by A. Robert Johnson. I could find no information about him on the internet.

The post card was published by Mary Jayne's Railroad Specialties, Inc. She was a very nice lady. I have 243 of her post cards in my collection. Her company is my second largest supplier. Here is a snippet from one of her obituaries: Mary Jayne Rowe of Covington, Va., — who disseminated railroad history bit-by-bit through the U.S. Mail via her railroad postcards — died on Oct. 9 at the age of 82. She leaves behind her husband of 59 years, John Z. Rowe. Rowe’s company, Mary Jayne’s Railroad Specialties was incorporated back in May 1973. At the time, the Rowes owned a land surveying company in South Florida, but the postcard sideline soon blossomed into a business in its own right. Mary Jayne’s became a publisher and reseller of thousands of railroad cards. By the time the St. Petersburg Times ran a picture of Rowe’s table at a local postcard show on the front of its features page in 1978, it ran with the caption, “Mary Jayne Rowe’s specialty is train cards—7,500 of them!” This was taken from this website: https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/14-mary-jayne-rowe/