May I have your Autograph, Please?

The picture on the front of this post card is of the back end of the famous movie train Emma Sweeney.

The “Silver Vista” – the coach at the end of the train – is seen here on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in southwestern Colorado. This is one of the last narrow-gauge railroads left in the United States. The train operates in the Summer from Alamosa to Durango and to Silverton through some of Colorado’s grandest scenery. The move in which the train was featured was called “A Ticket to Tomahawk”. This website https://www.drhs315.org/emma-sweeney-2/history/ gives some very good history about the train and the making of the movie. I have included some excerpts from the website below. In 1949 Twentieth Century Fox produced the color film “A Ticket to Tomahawk”. The premise of the movie, set in 1876, was that to save the franchise of the Tomahawk & Western Railroad, a train must reach Tomahawk along with at least one paying passenger by a fast-approaching deadline – and the competing stage line will do everything it can to prevent it. The problem is that 40 miles of track from Epitaph are missing, because the rails from England were lost at sea. The plan is to pull the train (just the locomotive Emma Sweeny) over the mountains with a team of mules. Anne Baxter is the deputy marshal whose must protect the train. Dan Dailey is the reluctant paying passenger. Walter Brennan is the engineer, and Arthur Hunnicutt is the fireman. Rory Calhoun leads the gang that is supposed to stop Emma Sweeny. Mary Loos and Richard Sale, wife and husband, as well as avid railroad fans, wrote the script, and Richard Sale directed the film. The filming in the San Juans took place over about six weeks during August and September of 1949. The film premiered in Durango and Denver in April of 1950. The 1899 Schenectady locomotive Rio Grande Southern Railroad’s locomotive #20 (4-6-0, Ten-Wheeler), originally Florence & Cripple Creek locomotive #20, acted as Tomahawk & Western’s locomotive #1, the Emma Sweeny. It was adorned with a false funnel stack, a long wooden pilot, a link and pin coupler, and an oil or kerosene headlight box over the electric light with a set of six-point antlers on top. The fancy and colorful paint scheme included three-masted sailing ships on both sides of the tender. The train consist (part of which you can see on this post card) was Rio Grande Southern Railroad caboose 0409 lettered as “Route of the Bloody Basin Cannonball,” Denver and Rio Grande Western flat 1026, boxcar 3745, and combination car 212, all repainted and re-lettered. The train with Rio Grande Southern Railroad #20 was used in shots in Silverton, Animas Canyon, and on the old, wooden Rio Grande Southern Railroad trestle over Lightner Creek.

The post card was published by the Sanborn Souvenir Company, Incorporated in Denver, Colorado. It was printed by Dexter Press, Incorported out of West Nyack, New York. They used their exclusive "Genuine Natural Color" process for the printing. I scanned the back of the post card against a brown background so that you can see that the corners are rounded.

The American Car & Foundry Company has been busy!

The car pictured on the front of this post card is the first of 400 R-10 subway cars built after World War 2 by the American Car & Foundry Company.

Here, it poses for its portrait at the builder’s plant. These 400 cars, delivered in 1948 and 1949, were intended for joint Independent-Brooklyn Manhatten Transit service but they were used initially on the New York City built Independent Lines. I posted a picture earlier this month (June 4, 2025) of another car that was built by this company. Here is the link to that post: https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/2934863145319975648/1792440136948994381 In this post I will focus on the builder of the car. I have taken the information below from this website which gives great information about the history of the American Car & Foundry Company: https://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/builders/amercar&foundry1.htm By 17 March 1899, when the American Car & Foundry Company (AC&F) came into being at New York City, a few all-steel cars were being built, most cars were still built largely of wood, though with an ever-increasing amount of steel. Hopper cars were early made entirely of steel, with gondola and flat cars following (though with wood floors). House cars first had steel frames with wooden sheathing. It would be almost the time of the 1st World War before the majority of box cars, tank cars and passenger cars were made entirely of steel. There were 13 independent car builders consolidated into AC&F in 1899. During the previous year, those 13 had accounted for 53% of all freight cars built outside the railroads’ own shops. Additional companies were added in ensuing years such that there were 18 by 1920. AC&F was incorporated in New Jersey, with capital of $60 million. The initial Directors of the company were W.K. Bixby of Missouri Car & Foundry, George Hargreaves of Michigan-Peninsular Car Company, J.L. Swyser of Ohio Falls Car Mfg. Company, Fred H. Eaton of Jackson & Woodin Mfg. Company, J.J. Albright of Union Car Company, H.B. Denton of St. Charles Car Company and Charles T. Schoen of Pressed Steel Car Company. William Keeny Bixby (1857-1931) is credited with forming the American Car & Foundry Company. Born in Adrian, MI, he began his railway career in 1870 as a night watchman and baggage man for the International Great Northern Railroad at Palestine, Texas. He was soon promoted to the post of general baggage agent in San Antonio. He next moved to St. Louis, where he became printing and stationery buyer for all the Gould lines. After several years he became a lumber agent for the Missouri Car & Foundry Company of St. Louis. He was promoted to Vice-President within two years and later became its President. As head of Missouri Car & Foundry, Bixby engineered a consolidation with the Michigan-Peninsular Car Company of Detroit, then added 12 other independent car builders to become the American Car & Foundry Company, of which he was the first President, serving from 1899 to 1901. He thereafter became Chairman of the Board, then retired in 1905.

The post card was published by Audio Visual Designs (AVD) from Earlton, New York. AVD was started in 1964 by Carl Sturner for the sole purpose of providing railfans with sound recordings of locos and trains as well as with photochrome postcards of trackside photos. These stunning color images were taken all over the country by some well-known photographers such as David Sweetland. The history and product line of AVD can be found on the company's website at https://www.audiovisualdesigns.com/

A Real Team Effort

This information below may sound familiar. I posted about the Horseshoe Curve back in February of this year. Here is the link to that post: https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/2934863145319975648/5578340278373810654 The famous Horseshoe curve on the Pennsilvania Pailroad's four track main line to the West, is still regarded as one of the world's most striking examples of railroad construction work. Located near the centre of the state, about 5 1/2 miles west of Altoona, the view to the south, stretching across Pennsylvania to the East and West incline of the Allagheny Mountains, near the Maryland border, is considered to be the most beautiful and impressive in the state. This website is the official website for the National Historic Landmark: https://www.railroadcity.org/horseshoecurve

Today I would like to focus on the companies involved in getting this post card into the hands of the public. There are three of them, Curt Otto Teich's company, The Minsky Brothers from Pittsburgh, and the United News Company. Each had a unique role to play.

First, it was printed by Curt Otta Teich. This is a "C.T. ART-COLORTONE" card. The process used to print this card was registered by Teich's company with the United States Patent Office. This post card is a sample of, in my opion, one of the finest of the "linen card" era. The texture of the front of the card is amazing; yet, the picture is sharp. The code (8A-H2199) at the top-middle of the card's back tells us that it was printed in 1938. The A tells us that it is from the 1930s and the 8 says specifically 1938. The H tells us that the method used for printing the card was the ART_COLORTONE method. That is the company's logo at bottom-middle of the card's back.

Second, the publisher, the one who asked Curt Otto Teich's company to print the card, was the Minsky Brothers and Company out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This company was around from 1935 to 1948. They published mostly linen cards with pictures of Pennsylvania.

The Third group that had a hand in this post card's existence was the company whose logo is in the bottom, left corner of the back of the post card - partially obscuring the Minsky Brothers name. Based in New York between 1908 and 1969 this was a wholly owned subsidiary of the American News Company they became major distributors of postcards and other printed items through their newsstands at hotels, rail and subway stations. Their cards were published by a variety of different companies including American News, Curt Teich, Robbins Brothers, and Valentine & Sons. Sometimes only their logo appears on a card, but it is often hand stamped on cards not originally published for them. That is the case with today's post card!!

How did Cyrus K. Holliday earn getting his name on a railroad car?

The picture on the front of this post card is of a car built in March of 1921 by the American Car & Foundry Company in St. Charles, Missouri. It was built for the Soo Line Railroad and acquired in 1962 by Tom Sefton and a group of private investors. It is now owned by the San Diego Trust & Savings Bank. It is on display at the former Santa Fe train station in San Diego.

The name on the side of the car is “Cyrus K. Holliday”, one of the founders of the Atchison, Topeks and Santa Fe Railroad. The information below is taken from the website https://www.american-rails.com/holliday.html The article there written by Adam Burns provides this information: Cyrus Holliday was born on April 3, 1826, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania the youngest of seven children. His father died when he was about 4 years old, so his mother took the family to live with his older sister in Wooster, Ohio. He attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania from 1848 to 1852. That is when he started his experience with the railroads. He was hired to help build one from Meadville, Pennsylvania to the Ohio border. That company went under but his payment included bonds that helped to finance his move to Lawrence, Kansas and then to the town that he helped to set up – Topeka. He recognized the huge potential of railroads for the development of the Wild West and devoted his energy and resources to this cause. His railroad's origins began humbly in Lawrence, Kansas hotel room when he wrote up the charter for the Atchison & Topeka during January 30-31, 1859. According to this document the system would connect its namesake towns and then head towards Santa Fe, New Mexico before continuing to the west coast and reaching out to the Gulf of Mexico. It was officially chartered on February 11, 1859. On November 23, 1863 the company's name was changed to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. The task of building the railroad officially kicked off at a small ceremony in Topeka along Washington Street on October 30, 1868. The Santa Fe brought significant changes to Kansas and the American Midwest. It provided a much-needed transportation link for people and goods, bringing growth and prosperity to several areas. Holliday died on March 29, 1900, in Topeka, Kansas.

This post card was published by the bank that owns the car: the San Diego Trust & Savings Bank. Their motto is "Where money matters...but, people count" The little logo at the top tells us that the bank has celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1989.