Extending some 130 miles in a generally southeasterly direction from its source at Tuscarora Springs in the anthracite coal region of Schuylkill County to its point of confluence with the Delaware River in Philadelphia, the Schuylkill River has played a central role in shaping the character and aspirations of Philadelphia and the regional hinterland through which it

flows. The train on the front of this post card is crossing the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, just before the river joins the Delware River. The river’s watershed of about two thousand square miles lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. Native inhabitants had been camping and fishing on the banks of the Schuylkill for as much as fourteen thousand years before the first Europeans arrived. The area was first settled by the Unalachtigo who settled in bands along the rivers and creeks of southeastern Pennsylvania. They referred to the river as Ganshowahanna, meaning “Falling Water” or Manayunk, which meant “where we drink.” A navigator, Arendt Corrsen of the Dutch West India Company, gave the river its modern name in 1628, when he became the first European to navigate it. Many streams flowed into the Schuylkill, including the Wissahickon, Plymouth, Sandy Run, Skippack, Pennypack, and Perkiomen Creeks, prompting the construction of dams and mills to produce grain, lumber, oil, paper, and powder and enhance trade. The presence of natural rapids, however, presented obstacles to boats. After several failed attempts in the 1780s and 1790s to fund improvements that would make the rapid-filled Schuylkill navigable, Philadelphia businessmen finally convinced the Pennsylvania legislature in 1815 to approve the charter of the Schuylkill Navigation Company to construct a slack water navigation system of canals, dams, and pools between Philadelphia and Pottsville to the northwest in Schuylkill County. The system opened to navigation in 1824, and with an extension to Port Carbon four years later it generated the shipment of newly discovered riches of anthracite coal. Although supporters of the new system envisioned it primarily as a means of securing the flow of natural products to Philadelphia, especially grain (which local businessmen feared might otherwise be sent to Baltimore by way of the Susquehanna River), coal quickly dominated the business. The information present above was taken from this website: https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/schuylkill-river/ I also published a post card regarding the Schuylkill River on February 16, 2022 then on November 15, 2023 and again on September 23, 2014.

The post card was published by the Post Card Distributing Company out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was only in existence from 1911 to 1919. Their logo was a backside view of the statue of William Penn, the founder of Philadelphia.

Waiting Patiently

The Pennsylvania Railroad ran both electric and steam locomotives on their

lines. The locomotive on the front of this post card is waiting for a power swap that occurred at South Amboy station. The electric locomotives would bring the train this far, then hand over the consist to the steam locomotives for the rest of the trip. This happened from 1938, when the Pennsylvania Railroad extended electrification from its New York-Washington D.C. The trade off was made between GGI electrics and steam locomotives until 1957, when the Pennsylvania Railroad switched the final steam locomotive for diesels. Penn Central, and its successor railroads continued the switching of power until 1988. This is when the rest of the line was electrified and the switching was no longer required. The article on this website has a great story of a gentleman who was able to participate in a historic recreation of the power switch: https://www.railwayage.com/news/njt-40th-anniversary-express-south-amboy-power-swap-redux/

The post card was published by Audio Visual Designs out of Earlton, New York. It has a 5-digit zip code, so we know that it was published after 1963. The picture was taken in 1954 by Richard R. Wallin.

Main Lines of Commerce

The location of this autumn scene is about six miles west of Johnstown,

Pennsylvania. In the foreground, the Pennsylvania Railroad's main line tracks between East and West parallel the scenic Conemaugh River, and on the far side are tracks of the Sang Hollow Extension Branch. From this website we learn the following information about Sang Hollow: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/prrthsdiscussionweb30239/sang-hollow-branch-t1074.html Sang Hollow extension was sort of the fourth track on the four track mainline. The Sang Hollow Extension was (and still is) used to service power plants near Seward (but on the other side of the valley) but it was also an extension of the Conemaugh Division which was used as a one way freight only bypass of Pitcairn yard and much of Suburban Pittsburgh. Because of Sang Hollow, slow moving westbound frieghts could depart the Mainline a few miles further east at Johnstown instead of New Florence. The Mainline was reduced to three tracks through the unstable Conemaugh Gap between Johnstown and Seward creating a traffic bottleneck. The Sang Hollow Extension relieved this congestion. If the Mainline was not overly congested at the time, freights kept to the Main, which returned to four tracks at Seward, and, if they were bypassing Pitcairn, entered the Conemaugh Division via Con-Pitt Junct. Con-Pitt is now an interlock for just three tracks (there were six once): two for the Mainline and one for the Sang Hollow/Conemaugh Division.

The post card is published by American Colortype. They were a publisher of books and tinted halftone postcards that included views, greetings, expositions, and various military subjects. They merged with the Rapid Electrotype Company of Cincinnati to become Rapid American. They had offices in New York and Chicago and existed from 1904 to 1956.

The World's Fastest... or is it only a copy?

The world's fastest run by a railroad train was made by the Broadway Limited of the Pennsylvania Railroad on Monday, June 12, 1905, when it ran 127.1 miles an hour between AY tower and Elida, Ohio. The Broadway Limited was pulled by coal-burning steam Locomotive 7002, and although many swift runs have been made in recent yers by steam, electric and diesel locomotives, none has equaled the 127.1 mile-an-hour record run established 1905. At the Chicago Railroad Fair of 1949, Locomotive 7002 stands on a section of P.R.R. standard roadbed with rails weighing 155-pounds to the yard - heaviest in the world. Here is an interesting tid-bit about the locomotive on display on this post card. It is taken from this website: https://www.steamonamerica.com/new-blog/3g8bafaezxdez9s-kdrgg-s7c4y-65fh3-6ggef-blzx6-ymc4m-jjdzx-58l4h-7m7hc-hf876-zhhx4-grnd2-4afhz-bpx24-aba86-erpnb-77hj9 7002’s original number was 8063 and was built in 1902 in Altoona and the original one was built also in 1902 in Altoona. On June 11th, 1905, 7002 made an historic run. It hauled the Pennsylvania Special as a replacement locomotive in Crestline, Ohio to Chicago. The train started in New York City. It went up to 127.1 miles per hour. The Pennsylvania Special would be renamed The Broadway Limited in 1912. In 1935 it was sadly scraped. 8063 was renumbered to 7002 so that it could be placed on display at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 and the Chicago Railroad Fair in 1948 and 1949. While on display, it was hailed as “The World’s Fastest Steam Engine”. It came to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in December of 1979 and was placed on display until 1982 when it was chosen to be restored as a stand in for Canadian National 89 which needed to be restored at the time. 7002 was used mostly on the half-hour trains. It doubleheaded with 1223 on several different occasions. Like 1223 in 1989, 7002 was tested but the firebox was to thin for safe operations. The last time it ran was on December 20, 1989 and it hasn’t been operating since then. I have absolutely no information about who published the post card, although I would suspect it was either the Pennsylvania Railroad or the Chicago Railroad Fair that did so.

Getting Ready to Retire

The front of this post card shows a locomotive with only three more years left in its life. The words on the back of the post card say, “Pennsylvania 713. 0-4-0 No. 713, Pennsylvania RR Class A5s, travels down the street in Atlantic City, NJ, April 25, 1954. Forty-seven locomotives of this class were turned out by the Pennsy’s Juniata Shops.” I researched both the A5s locomotives and the Juniata Shops. Here are the results. The Pennsylvania Railroad's class A5s was the largest class of 0-4-0 steam locomotives. The Pennsylvania Railroad built 47 in its Juniata Shops between 1916–1924. They were all retired by 1957. One is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania The information below is a combination materials gleaned from Wikipedia and this website: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/railroad/shs1c.htm#:~:text=The%20Pennsylvania%20Railroad%20began%20the%20construction%20of%20a,1952%2C%20this%20structure%20became%20the%20diesel%20engine%20shop. In the 1920s many railroads in the United States of America had retired 0-4-0 steam locomotives, because they were too small for switching duties. This was not the case on the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Pennsylvania Railroad was keen on this wheel arrangement due to complex street and tight industrial trackage across its broad network. For some of these lines, the Pennsylvania Railroad needed a large 0-4-0 to handle the larger switching activities the railroad had. Although the class B was designated for steam locomotives with the 0-6-0 wheel arrangement, these steam locomotives could not fit the tight and complex street, dockyard and industrial trackage the Pennsylvania Railroad had in its possession. As early as 1948, the A5s steam locomotives started to be replaced by higher horse powered and heavy-duty diesel switchers. Over the next year, these switchers were gradually replaced by diesel locomotives. Finally in 1957, the Pennsylvania Railroad converted from steam to diesel power and the end of an era was finished. The Pennsylvania Railroad began the construction of a second machine shop at Juniata in 1917. This structure, completed in 1918, served as a tank shop to repair and construct locomotive tenders. The Juniata shops contained two blacksmith shops, boiler shop, two machine shops, tank shop, two welfare buildings, and an erecting and machine shop. These shops constructed and repaired locomotives with more than 4,200 people working there. These shops could repair four locomotives a day and build twelve locomotives a month. By 1922, various railroad shops and departments occupied fifty acres and were housed in hundreds of buildings. The work force, during this time, varied from between 15,000 to 16,000 people. The Pennsylvania Railroad expanded the Juniata Works in 1924 and 1925 by construction of a fifty-stall erecting and machine shop at the east end of the existing shops along with a three-story storehouse and a small flue shop. This all was part of an effort to move the locomotive works away from the area of the Altoona machine shops around Twelfth Street. This is another of the 333 Audio-Visual Designs Publishing Company post cards that are in my collection.

Push-me, Pull-you

Turn the calendar back to November 8, 1954, go down to the river bank at

Paxinos, Pennsylvania, and watch Pennsylvania Railroad’s train S-390 go by. In this picture the train is being pulled by Baldwin-built Decapod 4644. It is pulling 119 cars and two more Decapods (numbers 4629 and 4639) are pushing them. Paxinos is Northumberland County, Pennsylvania about the middle of the eastern third of state. Paxinos, founded in 1769, was named for a Shawanee Native American chief. The town is known in the area for its music store, which has a distinctive mural of a guitar player. You can see the mural in the circle on the cover of their facebook page. Today the Shamokin Valley Railroad has a station in Paxinos. This railroad has four interchanges with other railroads: Norfolk Southern Interchange, Canadian Pacific Interchange, the Reading Blue Mountain & Northern Interchange and the Lycoming Valley RR, North Shore RR, Union County Industrial RR Interchange. It also has four other train stations in Sunbury, Weigh Scales, Shamokin, and Carbon Run Pennsylvania.

The post card is published by Audio-Visual Designs in Earlton, New York. It was published after October of 1983 because the Zip Code contains the 5-digit plus 4-digit identification system. I have 333 post cards published by Audio-Visual Designs; by far, this is the largest group in my collection.

Historic Station in Pennsylvania

Continuing on the theme of gifted post cards from a friend... This one is of a train station in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. This is some historic information about the station taken from this website: https://www.greatamericanstations.com/stations/elizabethtown-pa-elt/ The Elizabethtown depot first opened to the public in 1915, and was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR). Strategically sited with entrances on the north and south sides of the embankment that supports the railroad right-of-way, the station easily served residents of the Masonic Homes and the town. Visually, the depot clearly references the architecture of the nearby Masonic Grand Lodge Hall which was designed in the Collegiate Gothic style by the well-known Philadelphia-based firm of Zantzinger, Borie & Medary. The cornerstone of the Grand Lodge Hall was laid in 1911; two years later, the architects were hired by the PRR to draw up plans for an improved passenger station. The one story structure features a steep, gabled slate roof and a tall chimney. Walls of rough Holmesburg granite are laid in a random ashlar pattern that is accented by smooth-cut Indiana limestone used for window and door trim as well as coping. The passenger waiting room, which features warm, rich wood paneling and decorative roof trusses, is brightened by sunlight that enters through a tall window on the west façade. Passengers exit the station to access staircases to the platforms, as well as the tunnel to the south side of the embankment. The station site also includes a free-standing tower that houses an elevator to transport passengers between the station grounds and the platforms located on the top of the embankment. Wikipedia adds this information to the mix: Because of the construction of an embankment at nearby Bainbridge Street, the Pennsylvania Railroad was forced to build a new station at West High Street in 1900. After 15 years, the Pennsylvania replaced the station. The post card was mailed on March 29, 1915. This makes me wonder if this isn't a picture of the first station that was built at Elizabethtown. So, it is either a historic picture of a station that is no more, or it is a historic first picture of the new station.

I have no information from the back of the post card about either the publisher or the printer. But, here is a scan of the back just in case someone is interested.

Still Standing after 130 Years!!

The picture on the front of this post card is from between 1890 and March 1, 1907. For many years the train traffic across Main Street in Springfield, Massachusetts crossed at grade level. This blocked traffic and caused

some backups of vehicle traffic. Part of this was because the trains moving west quickly came to wye after crossing main street. The wye helped them either to go north or to go south along the Connecticut River. Negotiating the wye could not be done at a high speed so the longer trains took longer to cross Main Street. In 1890 the city built a bridge over Main Street so the trains could do their thing and the vehicles could do theirs. The arch bridge is still there today. This is what someone posted on line:

On March 1, 1907 the United States Postal Service allowed people to put their messages (not only the address) on the flip-side of the post card. So this card is from between 1890 and March 1, 1907. The back of the post card reveals that it is part of a series - No. 740 out of

I don't know how many. It was published by The Springfield News Company. The card itself was printed over in Germany, like so many post cards of the day. You will notice that in the bottom left of the card the United States Postal Service reminds the sender that this side can only contain the address. That is why the picture on the front has a rectangular blank space on the right-hand side, instead of a larger picture.

One Hundred and Twenty Years Ago Today - My Oldest Post Card

I am so happy that I can share this post card - sorry - mail card with you. It is the oldest card that I have in my collection. The card is a souvenir from a local newspaper. The dating of the card comes, not from a cancellation mark on the back from some lettering on the front:

The two pictures on the front of the card are of two train stations in Philadelphia.

From Wikipedia:
In 1889, the Reading Railroad decided to build a train depot, passenger station, and company headquarters on the corner of 12th and Market Streets. The move came eight years after the Pennsylvania Railroad opened its Broad Street Station several blocks away at 15th and Market Streets, and one year after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened its 24th Street Station at 24th and Chestnut Streets. The chosen location was occupied by an open-air market that had been in continuous operation since 1853. After loud complaints and much negotiation, the railroad agreed to purchase the markets for $1 million and move them to a new structure: the Reading Terminal Market, located to the rear (north) of the headhouse at 12th and Filbert Streets. This required the train shed and all of its tracks to be constructed one story above street level, with the Ninth Street Branch to bring trains in and out.
The headhouse was designed in 1891 by Francis H. Kimball, and the train shed by Wilson Brothers & Company. Construction began that same year, and the station opened on January 29, 1893. At the time, the train shed was one of the largest single-span arched-roof structures in the world.

Also from Wikipedia:
The original Broad Street station, pictured here, was designed by Wilson Brothers & Company under authority of the old Philadelphia. Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (established 1836 from merger of four smaller lines dating to 1831). It was purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad in the same year of its completion in 1881. It was one of the first steel-framed buildings in the United States to use masonry, not as structure, but as a curtain wall. Initially, trains arrived via elevated tracks built above Filbert Street. By 1885 the land between the station and the Schuylkill River had been purchased and cleared, and a 9-block viaduct constructed. Broad Street Station was dramatically expanded by renowned Philadelphia architect Frank Furness, 1892-93.

This is the back of the card. You can see that it is considered to be a "Mail Card" not a post card. On May 19, 1898, Congress passed an act allowing private printing companies to produce postcards with the statement “Private Mailing Card, Authorized by Act of Congress of May 19, 1898.” Private mailing cards now cost the same amount of money to mail as government-produced postcards: 1¢. The words “Private Mailing Card” distinguished privately printed cards from government printed cards.

Messages were not allowed on the address side of the private mailing cards, as indicated by the words “This side is exclusively for the Address,” or slight variations of this phrase. However, if the front of the postcard did not contain an image, it could bear a message. If the front did have an image, then a small space was left on the front for a message.

In December 1901, the Postmaster-General issued Post Office Order No. 1447, which allowed the words “Post Card” instead of the longer “Private Mailing Card” on the back of postcards. Private printers were now also allowed to omit the line citing the 1898 Private Mailing Card Act. However, messages were still not allowed on the address side of postcards. By this time, the front of most postcards had images, which eliminated it as a space for messages. Because of the absence of message space on the address side of postcards, this era of the Post Card Period is also known as the Undivided Back Period.

Following the Rabbit Trails...

Colette and I won a trip to Los Angeles through a radio station that we listen to and support. We stayed in a hotel in the financial district about 6 or 8 blocks from the Union Train Station. Across the street from the hotel was the enticing little Caravan Book Store. It had displays in the windows and inside the store, itself that screamed at me, “Come visit!” So we did. We met a nice gentleman who directed me to the train section of the bookstore. It included a few groupings of post cards. As I thumbed through them I realized that I already had most of them in my collection. He even had some Byron Harmon post cards from the Canadian Rockies near Field, British Columbia. We had a discussion about trains and I bought two post cards from his collection to add to mine.

This is one of them. I was attracted to it for two reasons; first, it had a train on the front and, second, it was from Lima, Ohio. My paternal grandfather was born in Lima, Ohio.
I have researched the train station. There were five stations in Lima, but I cannot figure out which one was known as the Union Depot. I found this in Wikipedia: Allen County's first railroad line was built by the Indiana Railroad in 1854 and later subsumed into the Pennsylvania Railroad system. By the early twentieth century, Lima was a transportation center with links to five railroads, and its economy was highly dependent on the industry-leading Lima Locomotive Works.
Then I tried to find out about the publisher: the M. Weixelbaum Co.

Searching the web I found that there have been many Weixelbaums in the United States. The closest I could come to this company was the following. This is the result of me putting together many puzzle pieces; I am not sure of exactly how accurate the picture is, but, here goes… M. Weixelbaum was born on June 19, 1883 as Milton Weixelbaum the son of Jewish parents Adolph and Jennie. He had at least one brother, probably Jesse. Milton married Elnora Betz in 1912; they had no children by 1926. He must have either gone into business with his brother(s) or they inherited the business. In the local paper there is a reference to applying for a job at the Weixelbaum Brothers Co. 20 West High Street.
I found things published by him as early as 1906. They were post cards of Muncie, Indiana. This particular post card is from the Divided Back Era (1907 – 1915). I can date it even more specifically because the postmark on the back says that the card was mailed on August 20, 1910. That makes this post card 105 years old two days ago.