Different Publishers or Copycat?

These two post cards are pictures of the Twentieth Centry Limited leaving Chicago, Illinois. If these two post cards are not one a copy of the other, you can sell me a bridge in Brooklyn.

This post card was published by The Acmegraph Campany. It was mailed on August 24, 1914. They were a post card publishing company in Chicago from 1908 to 1918. They published other printed materials, too, but I am interested in their post cards. This website has a listing of many of their post cards that were recording the history of Chicago: http://chicagopostcardmuseum.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-will-chicago-postcard-information.html

This post card tells us nothing about the printer or the publisher. It tries to distract us from this fact by printing information about the train pictured on the front of the post card. It says, "51. THE TWENTIETH CENTRUY LIMITED - The Twentieth Century Limited on the Lake Shore & New York Central lines is the fastest long distance train in the world. Put into service June 14th, 1902, on the 20-hour schedule, and in 1904 put on the 18-hour schedule, which is the schedule of the train at the present time. All conveniences found in modern hotels is to be had on the train, including porters, maid and tailor who will press clothes on request. You can also secure a shave and bath on the train, including sea salt. The train is electric lighted throughout and is provided with every luxury for modern travel." I got distracted when reading the description. It is funny that there is a tailor who will press clothes on request. I don't know why they had to stress the "on request". I had a vision of a tailor wandering through the train making people take off their clothing so he could press them. Maybe.................... Here is what the backs look like: TOP ONE

BOTTOM ONE

Is this Part of a John Denver Song?

The train on the front of this post card is entering Wheeling, West Virginia. If you look very closely - I used a magnifying glass - you can see two boys greeting the train as it leaves the tunnel. https://eastwheelingreunionassoc.com/b-o-railroad-in-wheeling/eastwheelingreunionassoc.com The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reached Wheeling in 1818. Eighteen years later Wheeling was designated a US Port of Entry. In addition, the people of Wheeling were determined to have Wheeling become the western terminus of the B&O Railroad. They were well aware of the importance the railroad would have to the city’s urban development. The mountainous, 379 mile distance from Baltimore to Wheeling was seen as insurmountable by many engineers. The Allegheny Mountains intimidated all but the heartiest of railroad engineers. Newspapers reported that the route from Cumberland to Wheeling was so bad that even a buffalo couldn’t make the trek “without shaking out its teeth.” On Christmas Eve 1852, the last spike was driven on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between Baltimore and the Ohio River. The event occurred at Rosby’s Rock near Moundsville. The Baltimore and Ohio—known as the B&O—changed the course of West Virginia history. It produced the first coal boom in the northern part of the state and led to the rapid growth of towns like Harpers Ferry, Martinsburg, Grafton, Parkersburg, Wheeling, and Clarksburg. During the Civil War, it played into the military strategies of both sides, and its tracks were repeatedly damaged and then repaired. When West Virginia statehood leaders carved out the new state’s borders, the eastern panhandle counties were included primarily to keep the B&O in West Virginia and outside of Confederate Virginia. After the war and well into the 20th century, the B&O was a major force in the economies of West Virginia and the nation. By mid-century, though, it was suffering economically. In 1973, the B&O name disappeared when it was merged with the Chesapeake and Ohio and Western Maryland railways to form the new Chessie System, which is now CSX Transportation. Even though I know nothing about the publisher or the printer of this post card, I will show you the back of it here:

You can see that it was mailed in September of 1911.

Really? The Toonerville Trolley?

The hand-written caption at the bottom of this post card reads, “The ‘Toonerville Trolley’ at the Grand Coulee Dam, Wash., taking tourists from the Vista House to the Powerhouse.” The Grand Coulee Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Columbia River in the state of Washington. Constructed between 1933 and 1942, it was built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation water. Construction began on July 16,1933 and it concluded on June 1, 1942. Evidently, soon after it was opened, and as part of the public relations campaign to convince the public of the need for the dam, they built a short railroad to take tourists on a tour of the dam. This train was called the “Toonerville Trolley”. That is what you see on the front of this post card. Researching something with a name like “Toonerville Trolley” in it is very difficult. There are so many paths to follow! Toonerville Trolley was part of a popular comic strip and many things became known as the Toonerville Trolley. I did find another post card on line and this caption was part of the front of the card. “Tourist Train, Grand Coulee Dam. One of the world’s shortest railroads – less than a half mile long – hauls more than 200,000 people each year from the Vista House to the power house for a personally conducted tour of the world’s greatest power producer.” The tourist train did not last very long. While doing more research, I found a picture from October 21, 1949. The caption reads, “Locomotive for tourist railroad being removed as first step in abandoning route for river-channel improvement work.”

This post card was printed using EKC paper. That process lasted between 1939 and 1940. This and the copyright date in the lower right-hand corner of the picture (1947) tell us the age of this post card. It was published by Western Souvenirs.

This Locomotive is not a Fake

You are looking at an authentic picture of a North Western Limited train - according to the message on the back of the post card.

This message is taken from the back of the post card. It describes why the picture on the front of the post card is this particular train. "The North Western Limited is one of four daily trains between Chicago, St. Paul and Minneapolis, via the double-track, block signal route of the North Western Line. It leaves Chicago northbound, and Minneapolis and St. Paul southbound every day in the year. The train equipment is electric lighted throughout and consists of buffer, smoking and library car, Pullman drawing-room and private compartment sleeping cars, and free reclining chair cars. The dining car service includes a splendid table d'hote dinner on the departure from Chicago. Other meals a la carte." This website adds more information about the railroad, itself: https://www.american-rails.com/twin-cities-400.html Of all the many granger railroads which sprawled out across the Midwest, the Chicago and North Western Railway is likely the best remembered of all. The train on the front of this post card featured modest, but very classy and tasteful interior designs (including lounges and parlor cars) and when it was streamlined in 1939 in a handsome livery of bright yellow and green (a paint scheme that would become the trademark of the 'North Western'). When the railroad was merged unto the Union Pacific in 1995 it was one of the oldest railroads in the Midwest, its name unchanged since 1859.

This post card was mailed on August 14, 1908 at 3:00 PM in Vancouver, British Columbia. That is Edward VII, King of England at the time, on the stamp. The post card was published by Raphael Tuck & Sons. This British company with offices in London, Paris and at 122 Fifth Ave, New York, operated between 1866 and the 1960's. They were founded in London, selling pictures and frames. Raphael Tuck was joined by his three sons in 1871 and published their first Christmas greeting card. In 1893 they were granted a Royal Warrant by Queen Victoria and most of their cards proudly proclaim "Art Publishers to Their Majesties The King and Queen". Adolph Tuck, one of the sons, produced their first picture postcard in 1894 of Mt. Snowden in Wales, which was sold to tourists visiting the site. They entered the postcard market in the United States in 1900 with an office in New York. American artists designed many of the postcards, but the cards were printed in Europe (Germany, Saxony, England) and then returned to the states for sale. Unfortunately, like many other postcard printers and manufacturers of their time, the history, records, original paintings and postcards of Raphael Tuck & Sons were destroyed during the bombing blitz of London during World War II. Raphael Tuck & Sons were prolific printers and produced Books, Postcards, Greeting Cards, Die Cut Cards, Fringed Silk Cards, Scrapbooks, Puzzles and more.

Is this Locomotive a Fake?

The train pictured on this post card is called “The Limited Express”. This really does not tell us much of anything about the train itself. The definition of a “limited express” is that it has fewer station stops than a regular passenger train. The locomotive in the picture may be a made-up locomotive. The number on the front stands out too well to be a normal number plate on a steam locomotive. It isn’t a Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive because their numbers were on a keystone plate. For the New York Central Railroad Number 231 was a yard switcher. I looked up several other railroads that served Chicago, but I could not find a Number 231 that matched the one in this picture.

This post card does not have an obvious date for its origin. However, the front has the same look as a post card printed before March 1, 1907. Before then, you could not write a message on the back of the post card – only an address. The kind printers would leave a bit of white space on the front of the card (it also saved them ink costs) for you to write your short message. The back of the post card says that it was printed between 1907 and 1915. This is known as the Divided Back Era of post cards. The sender could write a message on the left and add the address to the right-hand side of the back of the card. That is what we are seeing here, on this post card. It was published by the V. O. Hammon Publishing Company out of Chicago, Illinois (this post card was published out of the Chicago office) and Minneapolis, Minnesota. They existed from 1900 to 1923. They were a major publisher of halftone lithographic view-cards of the Great Lakes region. They also published novelty cards. Most of their cards tend to have a distinct look as they were printed in crisp RGB colors with small red block lettering. The V.O. Hammon Publishing Company, publisher of pictorial postcards, is listed in the Minneapolis, Minnesota city directory from 1904 until 1923.