Following the Theme of the Last Two Posts

Just sit back and enjoy the picture on the front of this post card. The train on the front is also from the Southern Railway and the picture is, no doubt, from the North Carolina mountains.

Blue Ridge Mountain Wonder

Southern Railway history: The earliest portion of the Southern Railway was the South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Company, which was chartered in 1828 to build from Charleston, S. C., to Hamburg, S. C., on the north bank of the Savannah River. Its purpose was to bring trade to the port of Charleston from inland points and divert trade that would otherwise move down the Savannah River to the port of Savannah, Ga. When the 136-mile line opened in 1833, it was the longest railroad in the world. By 1857 it was part of a line from Charleston to Memphis, Tenn.—at the time the longest connected system of railroads in the world. (Two of the railroads involved, the Georgia Railroad and the Western & Atlantic, are now part of CSX Transportation.)

he Richmond & Danville Railroad was the nucleus of the Southern Railway. It was chartered in 1847 and completed in 1856 from Richmond, Va., west 141 miles to Danville, Va. Its charter allowed it to acquire and control only railroads with which it connected directly. In 1880 interests connected with the R&D incorporated the Richmond & West Point Terminal Railway & Warehouse Co. (“Richmond Terminal”) to acquire railroads that did not connect directly with the R&D. The majority owners of the R&D and the Richmond Terminal decided the existence of the Richmond Terminal was unnecessary (by then, the R&D’s charter had been amended) and in 1886 leased the railroads controlled by the Richmond Terminal to the Richmond & Danville; then the Richmond Terminal acquired the Richmond & Danville. In 1863 the R&D purchased a majority of the stock of the Piedmont Railroad, under construction from Danville to Greensboro, N. C. The line opened in 1864, and the R&D leased it in 1866. In 1871 the R&D leased the North Carolina Railroad, which was opened in 1856 from Goldsboro through Greens­boro to Charlotte. The R&D contracted to construct the Northwestern Railroad of North Carolina from Greensboro to Salem, and assisted the Atlanta & Richmond Air-Line Railroad with the construction of its line between Atlanta and Charlotte. Both those routes were opened in 1873. The Atlanta & Charlotte Air-Line Railway was organized in 1877 as the successor to the Atlanta & Richmond. In 1881 the R&D purchased the Virginia Midland Railway from the Baltimore & Ohio to get a direct Danville–Washington route about 20 miles shorter than the route through Richmond. The Virginia Midland had begun as the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, opened from Alexandria, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington, D. C., southwest to Gordonsville, in 1854. Through trackage rights on a C&O predecessor and further construction, it reached Lynchburg in 1860. It came under control of the state of Virginia in 1867, and in 1872 the Virginia & North Carolina Railroad was organized to consolidate the Orange, Alexandria & Manassas Gap (successor to the O&A) and the Lynchburg & Danville Railroad, under construction be­tween the cities of its name. The Baltimore & Ohio obtained control and named it the Washington City, Virginia Midland & Great Southern Railroad. The extension to Danville was completed in 1874, and in 1880, a cutoff from Orange to Charlottesville was opened. The company was reorganized as the Virginia Midland Railway in 1881. In 1886 the R&D leased the Western North Carolina Railroad, which had been constructed from Salisbury west through Old Fort (1869) and Asheville (1879) to a connection at the Tennessee state line with the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia.

The Georgia Pacific Railway was chartered in 1881 to build a from Atlanta to a connection with the Texas & Pacific at Texarkana. It was opened as far as Columbus, Miss., in 1887. It was leased to the Richmond & Danville in ­January 1889, shortly before it completed its line as far as the Mississippi River at Greenville, Miss. The Mississippi portion of the GP, which had remained a separate entity, was cast off as the Columbus & Greenville in 1920. In 1892 the Richmond Terminal and the railroads it controlled (Richmond & Danville; Virginia Midland; Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta; Western North Carolina; Georgia Pacific; and East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia) entered receivership. The banking house of J. P. Morgan came to the rescue. In 1869 two railroads out of Knoxville, Tenn., the East Tennessee & Virginia and the East Tennessee & Georgia, were consolidated to form the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad. The East Tennessee & Virginia was built from Bristol, Va., to Knoxville, 131 miles, between 1850 and 1856. The East Tennessee & Georgia opened a line from Dalton, Ga., to Knoxville, 110 miles, and a branch from Cleveland, Tenn., to Chattanooga in 1859. In 1881 the ETV&G acquired and constructed lines from Dalton to Brunswick, Ga., and ­Meridian, Miss. Three other major routes were more or less affiliated with the ETV&G: Chattanooga–Memphis, Mobile–Selma, Ala., and Louisville–Lexington, Ky. Southern Railway The Southern Railway was chartered in 1894 to acquire the properties of the Richmond ­Terminal. The system comprised lines from Alexandria, Va., to Columbus, Miss.; from Chat­tanooga through Atlanta to Brunswick, Ga.; from Memphis through Chattanooga to Bristol, Va.; from Selma, Ala., to Rome, Ga.; and from Danville, Va., to Richmond. The Southern acquired other railroads; among the larger ones were the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway in 1895 and the Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis Consolidated Railroad in 1898. The Southern acquired a number of subsidiaries over the years. Many retained independent status, and the continued existence of these subsidiaries was attested to by initials on locomotives and cars. In the 1970s the Southern was notable for staying out of Amtrak, continuing to run its remaining passenger trains and gradually trimming service to just the Washington-Atlanta-New Orleans Southern Crescent. Amtrak took over operation of that train on Feb. 1, 1979. On March 25, 1982, the Interstate Commerce Commission approved the acquisition by Norfolk Southern Corporation, a newly organized holding company, of the Southern Railway and the Norfolk & Western. Merger took place on June 1, 1982. At the end of 1990 the Norfolk & Western Railway became a subsidiary of the Southern Railway (it had been a subsidiary of Norfolk Southern Corporation),

and the Southern Railway changed its name to Norfolk Southern Railway. I have two post cards with the exact same picture on the front. The backs are somewhat different from each other. I have scanned the backs of both postcards. Although they were both printed by the same printer (Curt Otto Teich) and published by the same publisher, the backs are different. I believe that the top one is older than the bottom one; I say this because the top one contains the price of the postage. It was the same for a very long time, then, with the changes it became more accurate to not post the prices.

Climbing the Hill at Top Speed

On August 20, 1977, Number 610 hiked up the grade at Bristow, Virginia at 50 miles per hour. Ronald N. Johnson was there to capture the picture on the front of this post card.

The 2-10-4 “Selkirk” was built by Lima Locomotive Works in 1927. This particular locomotive is a former Texas & Pacific locomotive on lease to the Southern Railway. The Texas & Pacific Railroad was granted a federal charter in 1871 to operate a railroad via the most direct and eligible route along the 32nd Parallel from Marshall, Texas to El Paso, Texas and on to San Diego, California. It merged with the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1976. The following two websites provided the information below about the Southern Railway: http://www.srha.net/public/History/history.htm https://www.american-rails.com/southern.html One of America's great transportation companies was the Southern Railway. Southern Railway is the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined since the 1830s. The nine-mile South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Co., Southern's earliest predecessor line, was chartered in December 1827 and ran the nation's first scheduled passenger service to be pulled regularly by a steam locomotive -- the wood-burning "Best Friend of Charleston" -- out of Charleston, S.C., on Christmas Day 1830. When its 136-mile line to Hamburg, S.C. was completed in October 1833, it was the longest continuous line of railroad in the world. Southern Railway was created in 1894, largely from the financially-stressed Richmond & Danville system and the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad. The company owned two-thirds of the 4,400 miles of line it operated, and the rest was held through leases, operating agreements and stock ownership. Southern also subsequently controlled the Queen & Crescent Route (Alabama Great Southern; New Orleans & Northeastern; Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific; and for a time the Alabama & Vicksburg), and the Georgia Southern & Florida, which were operated separately. By the time the New Orleans & Northeastern (Meridian-New Orleans) was acquired in 1916 under Southern's president Fairfax Harrison, the railroad had attained the 8,000-mile, 13-state system that marked its territorial limits for almost half a century. In 1953, Southern Railway became the first major railroad in the United States to convert totally to diesel-powered locomotives, ending its rich history in the golden age of steam. When CSX was formed in 1980 Southern and Norfolk & Western realized they must merge to remain competitive, completing the union in 1982. Today, much of the Southern remains an important component under Norfolk Southern.

The post card was published by the Audio-Visual Designs out of Earlton, New York after 1963. I know it is after that year because the company address includes the five-digit zip code. This is one of 333 post cards in my collection published by Audio-Visual Designs.

Best Friend of Charleston

As mentioned last week, here is a post card with the “Best Friend of Charleston” on the front. The following is from Wikipedia:

The locomotive was built for the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company by the West Point Foundry of New York in 1830. Disassembled for shipment by boat to Charleston, SC, it arrived in October of that year and was unofficially named the Best Friend of Charleston. After its inaugural run on Christmas Day, the Best Friend was used in regular passenger service along a six mile demonstration route in Charleston. For the time, this locomotive was considered one of the fastest modes of transport available, taking its passengers "on the wings of wind at the speed of fifteen to twenty-five miles per hour. The only mode of travel that was any faster was by an experienced horse and rider.

On June 17, 1831, the Best Friend earned a rather grisly first — it became the first locomotive in the US to suffer a boiler explosion, seriously injuring the engine's crew. The explosion is said to have been caused by the fireman tying down the steam pressure release valve; he had tired of listening to it whistle, so to stop the noise he closed the valve permanently (another account has the fireman placing a stout piece of lumber on the safety valve and sitting on it). The blocked valve caused the pressure within the boiler to exceed its capacity, and it exploded. The resulting blast was said to have hurled metal fragments over a wide area and killed the fireman.

This post card was published by the Audio Visual Designs. The indication of this is the strip that separates the address side from the message side of the post card. Their name and address forms that line. The company still exists today. The following is an excerpt from their website at http://www.audiovisualdesigns.com/about.asp

Founded in 1964 by the late Carl H. Sturner, Audio-Visual Designs has been a leader in providing high quality railroad images products for over 4 decades. The business was originally located in Earlton, NY. The name was derived by the products sold at the time – audio soundtracks of trains well as visual items (post cards, books, & calendars). The first All Pennsy Calendar was published in 1966 and for many years used exclusively the photos of Don Wood, a long time friend of Carl's. In the late 80's, Carl started showcasing other photographer's work as well. Railroad Christmas cards were added to the line of products early on and with a few exceptions have featured real photos of trains in action. Three railroad books have been published by Audio-Visual Designs: I Remember Pennsy, Locomotives in My Life, and The Unique New York and Long Branch: all of which were projects worked on by Carl and Mr. Wood. Audio-Visual Designs has also published books for other non-railroad related organizations.

By the time of his untimely passing in 1995, Carl had grown Audio-Visual Designs into an established icon in the railfan community - providing an enjoyable aspect of both the railfanning and model railroading hobbies. We serve many excursion railroads, museums, and hobby shops with stock post card images, greeting cards, custom products and the All Pennsy Calendar.
In 1997, the business was purchased by us (Joe & Colleen Suo) and moved to the present Herkimer, NY location.
This post card belongs to the modern era of Poly-Chrome post cards.

Let's Go to the Blue Ridge Mountains

The pioneering South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, Southern's earliest predecessor line and one of the first railroads in the United States, was chartered in December 1827 and ran the nation's first regularly scheduled steam-powered passenger train – the wood-burning Best Friend of Charleston – over a six-mile section out of Charleston, South Carolina, on December 25, 1830. Next week I will blog about a post card in my collection that is a picture of a replica of the Best Friend of Charleston. This post card is a picture of a train (no. 11) on its way from here to there on the Southern Railway. The Southern Railway was a US class 1 railroad. It was the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined beginning in the 1830s, formally becoming the Southern Railway in 1894.

It was placed under control of the Norfolk Southern Corporation, along with the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W), in 1982, and was renamed Norfolk Southern Railway in 1990. This train on the post card is passing through the Blue Ridge Mountains. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, starting at its southernmost portion in Georgia, then ending northward in Pennsylvania.

I am thinking that it is passing through the state of North Carolina. I base this on the information below that I found on the internet:

Items summarized here:
• "The Warm Springs, Madison County, Western North Carolina," by Howerton, W.H. and Klein, M.C.
• "Asheville--the Ideal Autumn and Winter Resort City," by Southern Railway (U.S.). Passenger Traffic Department
• "Autumn and Winter in the Land of the Sky," by Southern Railway (U.S.). Passenger Traffic Department
Dated from approximately 1880 to 1915, the documents summarized here advertise the beauty and appeal of western North Carolina, which has historically supported a significant tourism industry. Scholar Richard D. Starnes notes that North Carolina, like other Southern states, "offered the scenic landscapes and moderate climate Gilded Age visitors demanded, and entrepreneurs emerged to provide these tourists with accommodations, entertainment, and good southern hospitality". Tourism in western North Carolina flourished in the early nineteenth century, writes scholar Karl A. Campbell in his review of Richard D. Starnes's Creating the Land of the Sky: Tourism and Society in Western North Carolina. Before the Civil War, "the Asheville area already had a reputation as a travel destination," but it was after the War that the area's "healing springs and reputation for a healthy climate, combined with new railroad construction" helped tourism in western North Carolina truly blossom.

The post card is from the White Border Era (1915 - 1930). It was printed by Curt Otto Teich's company for the publisher Southern Post Card Company of Asheville, North Carolina. This would also back up the thought above about the picture being from North Carolina. Here is a close-up of the logo for the publisher:

The publisher has a different post card number (B-266) than the printer. Knowing the printer's number (A-37902) we can know the year that our post card was printed.

There is a chart of the numbers the company used and what year they were printed. The list tells us that numbers A-32236 to A-45599 were printed in 1913. This is just before the beginning of the White Border Era. Curt Teich was quite the innovator so this makes sense to me.

Where Are We?

This week we are going to a part of the United States that I don’t think I have blogged about yet. We are going to the very southwest tip of the state of Virginia. We are going into the Appalachian Mountains near the town of Duffield in Scott County. This post card is a picture of a train coming out of a tunnel. “Not unusual,” you say. “There are lots of tunnels on railroads in the United States.” You are correct; but, this tunnel was made by natural forces. No one had to use a blasting cap, dynamite, nitroglycerine or other explosives. No one had to risk a life to make this tunnel.

It was first written about by a Lt. Col. Stephen H. Long who explored the area and the tunnel in 1831. He later published an article in a geology journal in 1832.

The tunnel is more than 850 feet long and as tall as 100 feet high. It was carved through a limestone ridge over thousands of years. William Jennings Bryan, one of the lawyers involved in the “Scopes Monkey Trial”, a great orator, and the forty-first Secretary of State (under Woodrow Wilson) called it the "Eighth Wonder of the World."

A railroad was constructed through the natural tunnel in 1893. The first train, operated by the Virginia & Southwestern Railway Company, passed through the tunnel in the following year. In 1899, the tunnel line was purchased by the Tennessee & Carolina & Iron and Steel Company. In 1906 Southern Railway acquired the tracks and created a passenger line, the Natural Tunnel Line, which took the passengers through the tunnel. Today, the line is still in use but it is now run by Norfolk Southern and CSX and is only used to transport coal.

The size of the picture on the front of the post card should give you a hint about the age of the card. See last week's blog for a bigger hint. As I zoom in on the picture on the front of the card, you can see that the railroad built a platform onto which passengers could disembark and gawk at the natural wonder and beauty that surrounded them. This is similar to what the Union Pacific did on the trestle that crossed over the Great Salt Lake in Utah. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago.

I don't know anything about the photographer, the printer or the publisher of this post card. I believe that it is probably related to this Drug Store:
Bunting’s, its past and present owners said, launched in the wake of the Civil War in 1869. A city directory from 1896 lists a “Bunting & Son” drugstore at 420 Main St. – which became State Street in the early 20th century. By this time, the business was already a local institution, as suggested by an ad that ran in 1903: J.H. Winston, a lawyer, was advertising his firm with no more specific address than “over Bunting’s Drug Store.”

The post card is from before March 1, 1907, known as the Undivided Back Era.

It is a very clear example of why they would name it the UNDIVIDED BACK era. There is no line down the middle of this post card!