One Hundred and Twenty Two Years Ago

Today's blog entry is dedicated to my good friend Aline, whose birthday is today. She is MUCH younger than this post card, but she does speak French. Why do I add this little tid-bit you ask? Read the rest of the posting:

Almost everyone who is into trains must know about this famous accident that happened in Paris. And, of course, I have a post card that commemorates the event. Unfortunately, the post card is not from 1895. It is from, at the earliest, 1963; it contains a 5-digit zip code to New York on the back. Zip codes were introduced to the United States in January of 1963.

The official title of the incident on the front of this post card is "Montparnasse Derailment". I can make out the words "CHEMIN DE FER" and "DE L'OUEST" on the side of the building. What we see in the picture is then engine.

The whole train consisted of the locomotive (No. 721), three luggage cars, a post office car, and six passenger coaches. The only person hurt in the accident was a woman on the street below who was struck by some of the falling concrete as the engine burst through the wall.

I just received another post card in the mail 16 days ago with a picture on it depicting the same accident. A good friend of ours was in Europe. While she was in Paris at the Musee d' Orsay where she picked up this post card. On the back of the post card she writes, "I suspect I will see Colette before either of you see this!" She was right. Colette had coffee with her on October 2nd; we received this card on the 6th of October.

This incident happened on October 22, 1895 - One Hundred and Twenty Two Years Ago today.

One Hundred and Two Years Ago Today

This post card was mailed to his father one hundred and two years ago today by Bert. I know this because the message reads: "Dear Father, This is certainly a beautiful city and a good place to live. Things are very lively here & so many tourist the street are certainly black. Your son Bert."

The post card was published by the Van Ornum Colorant Co. centered in Los Angeles, California.

From 1908 to 1921 they published lithographic view-cards, mostly depicting scenes of southern California. Their corporate symbol on the back of this post card is also the divider between the message and the address. It is a stylized palm tree, like so many that one can see in Southern California.

ANGEL'S FLIGHT was open from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. daily. The round trip fare was 5 cents. I have, in my collection of collectables, a certificate with the history of Angel's Flight and a promise to rebuild once Bunker Hill's community renovations are done. We purchased it on one of our trips to downtown. It is probably 50 years old itself. That is nothing compared to the age of this post card!

Built in 1901 by Col. J. W. Eddy, was a commercially operated miniature cable railway transporting passengers up and down the steep slope of Bunker Hill, between Hill and Olive Streets. The line climbed 315 feet up the 33 1/3 percent gradient from its starting point just south of the entrance to the Third Street Tunnel. Colonel Eddy promoted the line, which

opened in 1901. He had been a friend of Abraham Lincoln before the Civil War. Angels Flight was built to allow residents of the wealthy Bunker Hill neighborhood to get to and from the business district near the Plaza. Eddy also set up a telescope and later a tower to attract tourists. It was an observation tower that rose 100 feet above the tunnel mouth, and commanded a view of the San Gabriel Mountains. You can see it in the middle of the post card against the sky.

Two thirty-inch gauge counterbalanced cars, seating thirty-eight passengers each, operated on the line. The track had three rails with a passing siding in the middle. Only up-bound passengers had to pay. The city required the company to maintain a parallel stairway for people who didn't want to pay.

The Bunker Hill neighborhood gradually declined over the years until the 1960's when the city decided to "renew" it. The city promised to save the line's equipment and to rebuild it. The last day of service was on May 18, 1969. In early 1995, construction began at a new location, 4th and Hill Streets, using the original rail cars, station house, and the two end station arches. The original driving mechanism was put back, but is no longer used. The trestle and track structure are new. The line reopened on February 24, 1996. It was quickly shut down again when a person died on the funicular. The Angel's Flight can still be seen today, but it is not in use.

One Hundred and Five Years Ago

Most of this below is from our favourite source of information: Wikipedia. This is a picture of a train sitting at the station in Parry Sound. Parry Sound is a town in Ontario, Canada, located on the eastern shore of the sound after which it is named. Parry Sound is located 160 km south of Sudbury and 225 km north of Toronto. It is the seat of Parry Sound District, a popular cottage country region for Southern Ontario residents. It also has the world's deepest natural freshwater port, which makes it a great spot for a railroad terminus.

The body of water that gives the town its name was surveyed and named by Captain Henry Bayfield in the 19th century, in honour of the Arctic explorer Sir William Edward Parry. In 1857, the modern town site was established near the Ojibwa village of Wasauksing ("shining shore") at the mouth of the Seguin River. In the late 19th century, rail service was established, making the town an important depot along the rail lines to Western Canada.

Via Rail's Canadian (the train route from Toronto to Vancouver and back) transcontinental passenger train serves the Parry Sound railway station three times a week both east and westbound. Westbound passenger as well as Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway freight trains are carried over the Seguin River by the Parry Sound CPR Trestle, a visible presence in the center of town.

The post card was mailed One Hundred and Five Years Ago today. It is a note from Helen to Mrs. Smith testing to see if she has the correct address.

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.

One Hundred and Four Years Old Today

The Royal Gorge (also Grand Canyon of the Arkansas) is a canyon on the Arkansas River near Cañon City, Colorado. With a width of 50 feet (15 m) at its base and a few hundred feet at its top, and a depth of 1,250 feet (380 m) in places, the 10-mile-long canyon is a narrow, steep gorge through the granite of Fremont Peak. It is one of the deepest canyons in Colorado.

On April 19, 1878, a hastily assembled construction crew from the Santa Fe began grading for a railroad just west of Canon City in the mouth of the gorge. The D&RG whose end of track was only ¾ of a mile from Canon City raced crews to the same area, but were blocked by the Santa Fe graders in the narrow canyon.

By a few hours they had lost the first round in what became a two-year struggle between the two railroads that would be known as the Royal Gorge War.

Unfortunately, I do not know anything about the printer of this post card. The only tell-tale sign of who this could be is the logo partially covered by the postmark and cancellation stripes. This logo is on so many of my post cards, and yet, I cannot definitely say who it belongs to. Some day....

I have two other post cards that are the same as this one. One has the publisher of it as being the Gray News Company of Salt Lake City, Utah. The message on that post card, mailed in 1912 says, "We are still in state of many wives". That is the entire message!!

The post mark on the top, middle of the card with the picture and the first message, above, is from 104 years ago today at 1:30 AM. It was sent from Montrose, CO to Rutherford, NJ. The address is written right-side up, but the message is upside down. It basically says that the sender is on her way to Jake's, she hopes the receiver is feeling better, that she will get over the see mother (maybe they are sisters) and that the sender hopes to be home toward the end of November.

Today in history: the picture on this post card's date

The engine on the front of this post card is an EMD FP7A. The EMD means that it was manufactured by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors. The FP7A is the model of engine. The FP7A model was designed to be a diesel engine that carried a steam generator as part of the cab. This allowed the engine to pull and heat passenger trains. This model was also an improvement over the previous EMD E-units because the company changed the wheel configuration to give the engine better traction pulling up grades. The engine was rated for 1,500 horsepower.

The company started building the FP7A units in June of 1949 and the final one rolled out of the factory in December of 1953 after about 380 of these engines were built. This particular engine on the post card was one of the last ones. It was built in December of 1953 as part of order number 3169-A2. Its serial number is 19065. Originally built for the Alaskan Railroad as number 1512, this picture shows it as part of the Wyoming & Colorado Railroad on September 23, 1989 – 28 years ago today and almost 64 years after it rolled into service.

I have looked on the internet and I can find a picture of the same engine in service. The picture is dated January 1, 1996. The engine was serving the Wyoming Scenic Railroad in that picture. Let’s hope that it has had a long and fruitful life and that someone is still enjoying it today.

I found this information about the publishing company on their website: 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.

Pick An Orange As You Go By

This post card is published by the M. Kashower Company out of Los Angeles. It is from the "white border era" of post cards, which means it was printed between 1915 and 1930. That puts it in the right time zone because the company only existed from 1914 to 1934.

It is a stylized picture of a steam train passing through an orange grove in southern California. I lived in So. Cal. for many years starting in 1959 and I can attest that, while this is certainly stylized, it is possible that a similar photo could have actually existed, including the mountain in the background.
This route (The Golden State Limited) began running on November 2, 1902 from Chicago to Kansas City to El Paso, then it went on to New Mexico and Arizona and finally arrived in Los Angeles. It was a partnership between the Rock Island Line and the Southern Pacific. The journey was 2,762 miles long, making it the longest route in the United States. Canada had a route longer, so this was the second longest train route in North America. It took about 63 hours to complete the journey from Chicago to Los Angels. The Golden State Limited used Pullman passenger cars exclusively. The route began as a seasonal experience, but in 1910 the Golden State Limited began to run all through the year until its demise in 1968. Limited was dropped from the name in May of 1947.