Where is the Storm?

The three Alco RS2 locomotives are wearing the “Lightning Stripe” paint

scheme of the New York Central Railroad. This picture was taken in 1961, toward the end of the era in which this design was used by the company. The lightning stripe paint scheme was a distinctive feature of their diesel locomotive. This design was very popular in the company in the 1940s to the 1960s. The design is characterized by a series of vertical and horizontal stripes. They were used on many classes of New York Central locomotives, both freight and passenger. Typically, the stripes were dark grey for passengers and black for freight locomotives. The design was a key component of the New York Central’s branding. It was used in several different forms, including the famous “cigar band” oval. The lightning strip scheme was a visual representation of the New York Central’s identity. You can find out more about these lightning stripes in the following websites: https://groups.io/g/NYC-Railroad/topic/lightning_stripe_scheme_and/18455571 https://railroad.net/dates-of-nyc-graphics-t48322.html And here is the back of the post card:

Focus on the Train!!

The train you are looking at on the front of this post card (bottom right-hand corner) is a New York Central train running on the River Subdivision. Today it is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of New Jersey and New York. The line runs from the North Bergen Yard in Hudson County, New Jersey, north to Ravena, New York, along the alignment of the West Shore Railroad, a former New York Central Railroad line. This information is from Wikipedia. The post card is not focused on the train, however. It is focused on the Storm King Highway - I know, What is wrong with them? This website gives us information about the highway: https://www.bing.com/maps?q=Storm+King+highway&form=ANNTH1&refig=e722dc6ff90e4ea4acb6441c88a628c0 The Storm King Highway is a three-mile segment of New York State Route 218 between Lee Road in the Town of Highlands at the south end and the Cornwall-on-Hudson village line in Orange County, New York, in the United States. It was built in 1916 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 in recognition of its accomplishment in civil engineering.

The post card was published by Ruben Publishing Company out of Newburgh, New York. This website catches us up on the information about Mr. Ruben and his publishing company: https://www.doaks.org/research/library-archives/dumbarton-oaks-archives/collections/ephemera/names/ruben-publishing-co The Ruben Publishing Co. (also Ruben's, Newburgh, N.Y. and J. Ruben, Newburgh, N.Y.) was founded by Jacob Ruben (1882–1974) in Newburgh, New York. Ruben opened a stationery business there in 1906, although his publishing business is listed at various Newburgh addresses, including 13-15 South Johnson Street, 39 Johnston Street, 95-97 Ann Street, and 76 Broadway. Ruben was a Russian-American émigré who became a well-known commercial photographer in the Hudson River Valley area near Newburgh for over four decades until after the Second World War. He was especially well-known for his tourist photographic postcard sets, which he published under his company name. He also photographed new real estate developments, bridge and road building projects, and other civic projects.

Definitely NOT Twins!!

The two locomotives in these two post cards belonged to the same railroad company: The New York Central Railroad Company. The top locomotive was built in 1926 by the American Locomotive Company in Schenectady, New York as one of 100 class L-2a Mohawk-type locomotives. Here it is at Harmon, New York in December of 1949. The bottom locomotive was also built by the American Locomotive Company. It was built eleven years later. In 1941 the locomotive was streamlined to match the Budd stainless steel passenger equipment that it was intended to pull for the “Empire State Express”.

Here is some history of the New York Central Railroad as found on this website: https://www.britannica.com/topic/New-York-Central-Railroad-Company New York Central Railroad Company, one of the major American railroads that connected the East Coast with the interior. Founded in 1853, it was a consolidation of 10 small railroads that paralleled the Erie Canal between Albany and Buffalo; the earliest was the Mohawk and Hudson, New York state’s first railway, which opened in 1831. Cornelius Vanderbilt joined it to the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway in 1873, extending his system from Buffalo to Chicago. He added the Michigan Central in 1871. Under his son William, the Central acquired the New York, West Shore, and Buffalo Railroad on the west side of the Hudson River in 1885. The system grew until it had 10,000 miles (16,090 km) of track linking New York with Boston, Montreal, Chicago, and St. Louis. After World War II the New York Central began to decline. Between 1946 and 1958 it dropped four of its six fast daily passenger runs between New York and Chicago. Efforts to merge with its chief competitor, the also ailing Pennsylvania Railroad Company, culminated in 1968 with the creation of the Penn Central Transportation Company—a merger that later included the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, in 1969. The new colossus had 21,000 miles (33,790 km) of track. The merger failed, however, and the new road was forced into bankruptcy in June 1970. Passenger services were taken over by the federally established National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) in 1971. The company’s other railroad assets were merged with five other lines in Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) in April 1976, although the New York–Washington route was later transferred to Amtrak. Both post cards are part of my 333 card collection of Audio-Visual Designs out of Earlton, New York. The were both published after 1963. They have the 5-digit zip code in their addresses.

A Real Classy Classic

The Empire State Express train was part of what was called The New York

Central and Hudson River Railroad. In 1914, the name was changed to just the New York Central Railroad. At the time, the Empire State Express Train would become the flagship train of the The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. This website gave me the information below: https://classicnewyorkhistory.com/history-of-new-yorks-empire-state-express-train/ Long before there was Amtrak in New York, there was the Empire State Express train. The legendary New York Empire State Express train was a locomotive that traveled from Buffalo, New York to New York City’s borough of Manhattan and back. The train was one of the United States’ earliest long distance passenger trains that ran at high speeds. The Empire State Express began its first daily run on December 7th 1891. The train got the name the Empire State Express not because it was a non stop train between Buffalo and Manhattan but rather because of the short amount of time it took to travel between the two cities. For a trip that was separated by the distance of four hundred and sixty one miles, the Empire State Express train was able to complete that trip in between seven and eight hours. In present time that may not seem that impressive, but in 1891 it was a spectacular feat to accomplish. From 1881 to 1941, the Empire Express train made over forty thousand trips between Buffalo and Manhattan. The train was upgraded periodically with more heavy duty cars and faster locomotives like the J Class 4-6-4 Hudson. Eventually the train was completely re-configured adding stainless steel cars from the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company. You can see an example of this in my blog post on January 11th, earlier this year. The Empire State Express train continued to run throughout the 20th Century. In 1999, the name was dropped from the train by Amtrak which decided to give just numbers all its trains. While the rail line it once broke the record on still exists (it’s now owned by Amtrak) and the connections are still utilized by passengers, the Empire State Express train will go down in history as one of the most important pioneers in New York State’s public transportation network.

The post card was published by A. C. Bosselman, & Company of New York. It was a large company producing postcards for the U.S. market primarily. Most cards are views but they also published comics, greeting cards. holiday souvenir cards and many cards for the various world's fairs and celebrations that occured during the first decade of the 20th century. They existed from 1901 to 1919 at 100 Grand Street, New York, New York. Their post cards were printed in Germany, until World War I broke out.

The Empire Express

The following information was gleaned from this article: https://www.american-rails.com/york.html#History

The modern New York Central Railroad map was a collection of predecessor properties which merged or were acquired over many years. The earliest component was one of the industry's pioneers, the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad (M&H). The M&H was incorporated on April 17, 1826. The M&H holds historical significance as one of the earliest railroads ever chartered and built, opening 16 miles between Albany and Schenectady on August 9, 1831. At first, it primarily handled only passenger traffic since New York had recently opened the Erie Canal. Six other small roads comprised what later became the NYC's main line between Albany and Buffalo. These systems included the Utica & Schenectady, Syracuse & Utica, Auburn & Syracuse, Auburn & Rochester, Tonawanda Railroad, and Attica & Buffalo. At the time in which the company was still known as the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad as it would not become known as the New York Central System until around 1914. The Empire State Express's creation was thanks to George H. Daniels who was then the railroad's General Passenger Agent but had only been with the company since 1889. On May 10, 1893 the train broke a land speed record of 112.5 mph using 4-4-0 #999. Interestingly, the rather small American, at just 37 feet in length, maintained the record for an entire decade. Over the years the train lost a bit of its allure, especially after the 20th Century Limited was unveiled as the line's flagship ran to Chicago. However, during the streamliner era the NYC upgraded the Empire State with such status, including a sleek and matching steam locomotive that truly made the train stand out. That is the train you see on the front of this post card.

The picture is actually a painting that is kept as part of the Merrill Collection at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California (all rights are reserved). The post card was published by Pomegranate Publications out of Petaluma, California.

The Post Card is a Impressive as the Train it Promotes

The train depicted on the front of this post card is the 20th Century Limited Express. The 20th Century Limited was an express passenger train on the New York Central Railroad (NYC) from 1902 to 1967.

The train traveled between Grand Central Terminal in New York City and LaSalle Street Station in Chicago, Illinois, along the railroad's "Water Level Route". NYC inaugurated the 20th Century Limited as competition to the Pennsylvania Railroad, aimed at upper-class and business travellers. It made few station stops along the way and used track pans to take water at speed. In 1938, streamlined train sets designed by Henry Dreyfuss were added to the route. The 20th Century Limited was the flagship train of the New York Central and was advertised as "The Most Famous Train in the World". It was described in The New York Times as having been "[...] known to railroad buffs for 65 years as the world's greatest train", and its style was described as "spectacularly understated". The phrase "red-carpet treatment" is derived from passengers' walking to the train on a specially designed crimson carpet. The amazing part of this post card is that it is as fancy as the train that it is showing off! First, the picture of the train itself is embossed on the card. When I run my fingers over the card I can feel the 3-D effect of the embossing. The dark spots (on the front tracks, on the front and sides of the train, and in the smoke) are actually little pieces of glitter that has been glued onto the card. The title of the card and publisher are also embossed into the card. This card is over 107 years old and the glitter is still there as strongly pronounced as ever!!

I do not usually publish a very large picture of the back of the post card, but I am making an exception this time. Look at the picture of the train; that is the result of the embossing process. This post card is from the pre-March 1, 1907 era. One is only allowed to write the address on the back of the post card. The information about the publisher of this post card comes from: Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City http://www.metropostcard.com/publishersi.html This major publisher produced a wide variety of color halftone lithographic cards in series that were printed by Emil Pinkau in Leipzig, Saxony. Each city or location of their color card sets were assigned the same number prefix. They also published an unnumbered series of chromolithographic fine art cards that were printed in Dresden. Many of their early cards do not have their name on them, only their distinct eagle logo. Their best known cards are from a very large set that captured scenes throughout the City of New York. These cards tended to use brighter than average colors and were titled in a very distinct font. Similar cards, but with more subdued writing, appeared afterwards depicting scenes from the surrounding regions such as Long Island. Illustrated Post Card Company of 118 Chambers Street in New York was printing millions of cards at a time when picture postcards were at the peak of their popularity. Another address given for them is 520 West 84th Street, New York and they operated from 1905 to 1914. They published a wide variety of color halftone lithographic cards in series that were printed by Emil Pinkau in Leipzig, Saxony. Each city or location of their color card sets were assigned the same number prefix.Their best known cards are from a very large set that captured scenes throughout the City of New York. These cards tended to use brighter than average colors and were titled in a very distinct font. Similar cards, but with more subdued writing, appeared afterwards depicting scenes from the surrounding regions such as Long Island. In 1909 they stopped importing cards from Germany and began printing their own. A large number of black & white cards were produced in a more open halftone with some being poorly hand colored. These black & white cards were numbered consecutively.

North Shore Limited

The train pictured on the front of this post card is the “North Shore Limited”,

operated by the New York Central Railroad. It began operations on May 30, 1897 to compete with the Pennsylvania Railroad’s “Pennsylvania Limited”, which started its runs ten years earlier. It ran from New York City to Chicago in 24 hours. It was the New York Central’s first luxury passenger train. The “20th Century Limited” sprang up because of the success of the “North Shore Limited”. The train stopped operating in 1956 as the automobile took over the preferred method of transportation by the population of the United States. Amtrak now uses the name “North Shore Limited” for one of its trains that makes the same connections as its namesake used to make. There have been two derailment crashes of trains at or near the location seen on this post card. Both were due to excessive speed. In 1903, a westbound newspaper train derailed on a sharp curve, probably the one in the picture on this post card, killing the engine crew. In 1940, a much more serious crash at the same location of a fifteen car passenger train killed 31. This part is from Wikipedia: Little Falls was first settled by Europeans around 1723, when German Palatines were granted land under the Burnetsfield Patent. It was then the westernmost European settlement in the colony of New York. The need to portage around the falls promoted a trading location on the site of the future city. It was the first settlement in the town.[4] The settlers were attacked during the French and Indian War, but rebuilt their farms. The small settlement here was destroyed by Iroquois Indians, mostly Mohawk, and Tories in June 1782. The village was not resettled until 1790, and it was known at times as "Rockton" and "Rock City." Little Falls was incorporated as a village in 1811, and reincorporated in 1827. The City of Little Falls was chartered in 1895. The old New York Central Railroad Depot, which stood east of Second Sheet and north of the tracks, was built around 1833 and was torn down in 1899 after the present passenger station was placed in operation.

The post card was published in Mechanicville, New York by Charles W. Hughes, a publisher of lithographic view-cards depicting scenes of upstate New York, Vermont, and western Massachusetts. In 1923 they purchased the negatives of J.S. Wooley and began producing printed postcards from them. Hughes' postcards were printed by C.T. American Art, Chicago. It is from the White Border Era of post cards, so it was published between 1915 and 1930.

Rome, New York - Athens, Georgia - Paris, Tennessee

While the song may cover several cities, this blog will only talk about one:

Rome New York and the train station that is there. Today, the train station on the front of this post card is serviced by Amtrak. Hoever, the station was built between 1912 and 1914 by the New York Central Railroad south of the city proper to replace the former structure downtown. Such a move was necessitated by a track realignment. The one-and-a-half-story brick building was constructed in a Neoclassical style and includes columns flanking the vestibules, decorative grillwork and large arched windows. The waiting room includes a bowed ticket window and a series of delicate triple-globed bronze chandeliers. At the rear of the waiting room are paired symmetrical staircases with ornate openwork iron railings up to the near platform. In 1988, Amtrak conveyed the station to the city of Rome. Amtrak proposed to close the station in 1996, but the city resisted and instead found federal funds to renovate the station. The $4 million reconstruction was finished in 2004. Rome, New York was founded along an ancient Native American portage path known as the Oneida Carrying Place, Deo-Wain-Sta, or The Great Carrying Place to the Six Nations (Iroquois), or the Haudenosaunee in their language. These names refer to a portage road or path between the Mohawk River to the east, which flows east to the Hudson River; and Wood Creek to the west, which flows into Lake Ontario. Rome is the second-largest city by area in New York State, and the 140th largest city in the United States. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 75.7 square miles (196 km2), of which 74.9 square miles (194 km2) is land and 0.8 square miles (2.1 km2) (0.99%) is water. Rome is one of two principal cities in the Utica–Rome Metropolitan Statistical Area, which lies in the "Leatherstocking Country" made famous by James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, set in frontier days before the American Revolutionary War.

The post card was published by WM. Jubb Co., Inc. out of Syracuse, New York. My internet search found many other cards also published by this compny, but I could find very little history. I did find out that the company was a publisher of view-cards depicting scenes from western New York State. Their white border cards manufactured in the United States were printed on a textured paper similar to that of linen cards. They were were produced in a variety of styles and techniques ranging from early black & white images to colorful linens and modern chromes. His later chromes were printed by Dexter Press. This post card was printed by Curt Otto Teich during his C.T. American Art phase.

The 20th Century Limited: 81 years ago today

The following is taken from the website: http://www.american-rails.com/20th-century-limited.html They wrote up a much better description of the Twentieth Century Limited than I ever could.

"The New York to Chicago corridor was one of the most hotly contested passenger markets east of the Mississippi and New York Central’s 20th Century Limited competed with Pennsylvania Railroad's Broadway Limited for top honors, a rivalry which persisted for decades (based from historic traffic figures the Century did have a slight edge over the Broadway). Few trains have carried the aura of Central's original streamlined version of the Limited, which featured perhaps the greatest example of shrouding ever applied to a steam locomotive. As flag bearer of the "Great Steel Fleet" the Limited's service was second-to-none, matched only by the Broadway. As interest in rail travel waned after World War II and a merger with Pennsylvania looming by the late 1960s NYC chose to discontinue its once proud creation fearing service would slip unacceptable levels."

The summary on the back of the post card reads: "The Century is more than a train - more than a thing of steel and steam and electricity - more than an achievement of American engineering genius. Through thirty-three years of continuous service, the 20th CENTURY LIMITED has come to represent the spirit of American transpotation."

The post card was published by the New York Central Lines, the railroad company that dominated the passenger train service between New York City and Chicago. This post card was mailed 81 years ago today, September 28, 1936.