What is in a Name?

In 1972 the Pacific Great Eastern Railway was renamed to the British

Columbia Railway. The picture on the front of this post card was taken in October of that same year in North Vancouver, British Columbia. The following article was gleaned from the pages of this wonderful website by Adam Burns, which is an excellent source of all knowledge railroad-wise: https://www.american-rails.com/pge.html I recommend that you visit it often.The Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE) was incorporated on February 27, 1912. The PGE was to be privately operated with funds coming from major American and Canadian investors. Initial plans saw the system connecting the major port of Vancouver along the Strait of Georgia with Prince George where a connection would be established with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. The PGE, however, ran into money problems during 1915 when it defaulted on an interest payment and the government took over the property in 1918. it languished as an unwanted stepchild through World War II. The railroad's fortunes finally turned after 1949 when an effort to complete its original planned route began. On November 1, 1952, a train formally arrived in Prince George with an Alco RS3 bearing the shield "Hello! Prince George, We're Here." Four years later, on August 27, 1956, the PGE completed a connection to Vancouver, giving it a through route stretching 462.7 miles. During the 1960s the PGE saw more growth than it had experienced its entire half-century of operation when new construction connected the road to Fort Nelson, 334 miles north of Prince George. Along this main line spurs were also opened including one to Dawson Creek where an interchange was made with the Canadian National Railway. As mentioned in the first line of this article, during 1972 the PGE was renamed as the British Columbia Railway At its peak BC Rail covered 962 miles, including all main lines and branches. The Railroad initially relied mostly on natural resources such as wood products, ore, and agriculture. However, as the railroad was greatly expanded after World War II its freight was vastly diversified from interchange traffic with major connections (Milwaukee Road, Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, Great Northern, Northern Alberta Railways, Northern Pacific, British Columbia Hydro & Power Authority, and Union Pacific) to intermodal and general merchandise. After owning the railroad for more than 80 years the British Columbia government announced in the spring of 2003 that all property except the right-of-way would be sold to Canadian National, which formally occurred a year later, on July 15, 2004. Today, CN still leases the former Pacific Great Eastern/BC Rail system from the British Columbia government.

This post card was published by Mary Jayne's Raillroad Specialties, Inc. Her catalog number for this post card is up in the box for the postage stamp. It tells us that the post card was published December 14, 1985. I had the opportunity to correspond with her before she died. She was a lovely person. The photo was taken by Robert D. Turner

An Anniversary to Celebrate, Soon!!!

There is no train on this post card; at least, I can’t see one. But it is a picture of a gigantic celebration of an event involving a train. This is the inauguration of the first train coming into Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. This was an event worthy of celebrating. Since 1891, Edmonton’s neighbouring city to the south, Strathcona, had had its own train station and the end of the train line. The Calgary & Edmonton Railway had been stopping in Strathcona, on the south side of the North Saskatchewan River for over 10 years.

It wasn’t until 1902 that a train actually entered into Edmonton. This train was owned by the Edmonton, Yukon & Pacific. It was simply a connecting railway between the C & E Railway and the city of Edmonton. The route went down what is now the Mill Creek Ravine's walking and bicycling path and went across the Low Level Bridge into Edmonton. My last blog had some information about the train and the Low Level Bridge.

Three years later, on November 24, 1905 the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) entered Edmonton from the east. That is what they are celebrating on the front of this post card. The entrance of the CNoR into Edmonton.

This post card is foreshadowing the future because the call letters they are using for the Canadian Northern Railway are CNR, of which the CNoR will eventually become a part.

The CNoR eventually owned a transcontinental line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Edmonton. It began as a consolidation of several branch lines around the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) in Manitoba. Two men purchased the shares of all of these lines and established the CNoR in 1899. CNoR's first step toward competing directly with CPR came at the start of the 20th century with the decision to build a line linking the Prairie Provinces with Lake Superior at the harbour in Port Arthur-Fort William (what we know today as Thunder Bay, Ontario) which would permit the shipping of western grain to European markets as well as the transport of eastern Canadian goods to the West. The last spike of the CNoR transcontinental railway was driven January 23, 1915, at Basque, British Columbia.

Unfortunately, along with several other railway lines, the CNoR came upon hard financial times. At first it was absorbed into the Canadian Government Railways (1918) and then into the railway, which is today called the Canadian National Railway in 1923.

This post card was mailed on May 22, 1907 – that makes the card over 106 years old - about a year and half after the celebration depicted on the front of the post card. It was published by the Edmonton Music Company and, like many cards of this time, it was printed in Germany. The message on the back is from a brother to his sister:
“Dear Sister, I guess you will be surprised to hear of me being up here. Will write in a day or so and give you all the news. As ever, your Loving Bro.”

Boy Away from Home

"Trains entering California and Florida through Orange Groves" is a theme that repeats again and again in my post card collection. I posted earlier this year about two post cards with the same scene, one claiming it was in California and the other Florida. This post card is sticking with the California concept. It is certainly a real possibility. When I lived in California there were train tracks that passed next to and through orange groves. I remember one that went through an avocado grove! In the bottom left of the post card, starting the title, is the combination: H-2290. This immediately tells me that this post card was printed so the the Fred Harvey Company could sell it.

In 1878 Fred Harvey was the first to established a chain of restaurants then hotels across the Southwest that provided quality service. Much was done to market the region including publishing large series of postcards depicting Native Americans and local scenery. In 1897 Harvey took over the news stands for the A.T.&S.F. Railroad and began distributing postcards. The Santa Fe Railroad also did a great deal to publicize its Route to the Grand Canyon. A large amount of postcards were produced depicting the canyon and the Railroad’s hotel interests within the National Park.

Fred Harvey himself provided some of the images for these cards until his death in 1901. Between 1901 and 1932 the Company contracted all their cards with the Detroit Publishing Company (that is who printed this post card). These cards have an H prefix before their identification number, but in addition Detroit published many of Harvey’s images on their own. After Detroit closed, many of Harvey’s cards were contracted out to Curt Teich among others.

The message on the back is a son telling his mother that he is okay and in North Bend, Oregon. She lives in Hilltop, Kansas. My short research indicates to me that Hilltop's post office was discontinued in August of 1951. I am not sure if it disappeared altogether, or if it was absorbed into Wichita. There is an area in Kansas that is remembered in Wikipedia as Hilltop, but there is also a district in Wichita named Hilltop.

This is "Hammerhead", but not like in the shark.

The locomotive on the front of this post card, Lehigh Valley No. 211, was originally built by Alco for the Pennsylvania Railroad in December 1953 and was delivered as PRR 8445. It is unique in that it has a raised short hood used to house the dynamic brakes and a steam generator for heating passenger cars. For obvious reasons it soon got the nickname

“Hammerhead.” It is the only survivor of a group of five RS-3s built with a high short hood for PRR and Western Maryland Railway, and one of only a handful of surviving Conrail rebuilds where the Alco prime mover was replaced with an EMD. The information above was taken from this website: https://rgvrrm.org/about/railroad/lv211/#:~:text=Originally%20built%20for%20Pennsylvania%20Railroad%20in%201953%2C%20the,hood%20gave%20Lehigh%20Valley%20211%20its%20%22Hammerhead%22%20nickname. This website, one of my favourite websites about railroads and railroad related information is the source of the details that follow below: https://www.american-rails.com/lv.html The Lehigh Valley Railroad was another of the many Northeastern carriers built to move anthracite coal from eastern Pennsylvania. The direct predecessor of the Lehigh Valley was the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill & Susquehanna Railroad (DLS&S) incorporated on September 20, 1847. Unfortunately, the DLS&S was having difficulty raising capital. Its fortunes finally turned when Asa Packer breathed new life into the operation. Using his financial success, and with the help of investors, he acquired the DLS&S charter and renamed it as the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LV) in 1853. It is unlikely the Lehigh Valley could have survived into the modern era. The LV competed against several carriers in its territory, notably the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western and Erie, both of whom also reached Buffalo, while the latter continued on to Chicago. One can reasonably argue that its long decline began with the stock market's collapse in October of 1929. The Lehigh Valley Railroad posted its last profits during the 1950s. The LV would, sadly, show a profit for the last time in 1956 and paid its final dividend in 1957, The depression not only weakened the railroad financially but decreasing anthracite demand further hurt its bottom line. In 1928 the PRR began acquiring LV stock and continued to do so throughout the years in an increasingly futile attempt to maintain its investment within the declining company. By April of 1962 it, incredibly, controlled 90% of the road. As much as the railroad tried it was unable to reverse its declining fortunes. Its last hope for survival occurred when the PRR and New York Central created the ill-fated Penn Central Transportation Company in 1968. As Penn Central literally fell apart from its first day of service it came as no surprise that just two years later, in 1970, it declared bankruptcy. It was one of the numerous bankrupts rolled into Conrail whereupon its routes were considered superfluous.