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.

Speed, Luxury and Comfort

The locomotive in this picture (which is a painting, not a photograph) certainly looks sleek. It is the train belonging to the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad called the "Hiawatha". This website tells us the following about the history of the "Hiawatha". https://www.american-rails.com/hiawatha.html In 1935 the Milwaukee Road introduced the Hiawatha, sometimes referred to as the Twin Cities Hiawatha, a passenger train that would spawn a whole fleet of famous trains by the same name. The original operated between Chicago and the Twin Cities and officially began service on May 29, 1935; one of the first streamlined trains ever to be introduced in the U.S. Originally powered by 4-4-2 Atlantic-type steam locomotives (later 4-6-4 Hudson-types) the train was entirely streamlined, including the locomotive, and home-built in the Milwaukee Road's own shops. They became so successful the railroad found itself short on demand and to meet such eventually operated two versions of the train, the Morning Hiawatha and the Afternoon Hiawatha. These trains regularly cruised over 100 mph with hardly a bump or shudder during the ride; both trains could make the jaunt between the two cities in roughly seven hours.

The post card was published by Dover Publications in 1996. This is everything I know abou the publisher.

From Over the Blue Ridge Mountain to Under the Berkshires

Last week we took a trip up and over the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. This week we are heading north. The name of "Berkshire" was chosen for the 2-8-4 type based on the Lima Locomotive Works testing on the Berkshire Hills of the Boston & Albany Railroad. After the Class A-1 successfully outperformed a Class H-10 Mikado, the Boston & Albany Railroad became the first to order the new Berkshires.

The train emerging from the tunnel on the front of this post card belonged to the Boston & Albany Railroad. The Boston and Albany Railroad (B&A) was a railroad connecting Boston, Massachusetts to Albany, New York. The connection from Boston to Albany formed the longest and most expensive point-to-point railroad yet constructed in the United States. Two mergers, on September 4, 1867 and December 28, 1870 brought the three companies, along with the Hudson and Boston Railroad, together into one company, known as the Boston and Albany Railroad. The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad leased the B&A for 99 years from July 1, 1900. In its early years, the railroad pulled both passenger and freight trains through this tunnel. Later in its history it become part of the New York Central Railroad system, then part of Conrail, and today its rails are owned and operated by CSX for freight. This website provided the most information about the tunnel that I could find: https://bridgehunter.com/ny/columbia/state-line-tunnel/ The tunnel in the picture was bored from under the Taconic Range and Tunnel Hill Rd on today’s CSX Berkshire Subdivision. It is a Rock Tunnel that is 580 feet in length. It is commonly called the “State Line Tunnel”, just at the title on the front of the post card calls it. However, contrary to popular belief, the tunnel does not cross the state line nor is it located at a railroad high-point. It is located several miles west of the political boundary and there is a steady eastbound grade up to Richmond Summit in MA. The north bore dates to about 1840 and was once double track. The south bore was added during the line-wide 1912 upgrades for a third track. The north bore was subsequently single-tracked and eventually vacated when Conrail single-tracked much of the Boston & Albany in the late 80s.

The post card was published by The Union News Company. That is their logo in the bottom left-hand corner. The company was based in New York between 1908 and 1969 this was a wholly owned subsidiary of the American News Company [I have several post cards published by them, too] they became major distributors of postcards and other printed items through their newsstands at hotels, rail and subway stations. Their cards were published by a variety of different companies including American News, Curt Teich, Robbins Brothers, and Valentine & Sons. Sometimes only their logo appears on a card, but it is often hand stamped on cards not originally published for them. It was printed by the Hugh C. Leighton Company. 1906 – 1909 Portland, Maine. A printer and major publisher of national view-cards, especially scenes of New England. They printed most of their cards in four distinct styles employing halftone lithography. Most used a simple soft yet highly recognizable RGB pallet. While some cards were printed at their plant in the U.S. most were manufactured in Frankfort, Germany. Almost all their cards were numbered. They merged with Valentine & Sons in 1909. Another set of cards in halftone lithography were printed in a wider range of colors using a very bright pallet. Their titles appear in bright red. A very distinct card set was printed in a limited but brightly colored continuous tone lithography with a dominating orange and matte finish. The intensity of coloring on these cards can vary widely, which renders some very beautiful while other copies of the same image can be extremely garish. This technique only seems to have been used on view-cards of southern Maine. Other techniques were employed as well including collotypes and some hand colored cards but these can only be found in small numbers

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.

Ten Wheels. Count Them. Ten Wheels

The picture on the front of this post card shows a steam locomotive with ten wheels; there are four on the pilot and six driving wheels. The Whyte Classification of steam locomotives categorizes locomotives by the wheel arrangements and gives them a "nick name". For example, a 2-6-2 wheel arrangement is also called a "Prairie" locomotive; or, the 4-10-0 is called a "Mastodon".

The locomotive in this picture is a 4-6-0 or a "Ten Wheeler". Not very imaginative. This website (a treasure trove of knowledge) tells us the following about Ten Wheelers. https://www.american-rails.com/wheeler.html Like the Consolidation, the 4-6-0 "Ten-wheeler" was another steam locomotive design that helped to displace the common American. The Ten-wheeler is perhaps the only design to derive its name simply from the number of wheels it carries (ten) with a 4-6-0 arrangement. The 4-6-0 was developed as early as the late 1840s first appearing on the Philadelphia & Reading. Their creation came about because of a need to increase adhesion, which allowed a single locomotive to haul heavier loads. Essentially an American design, the Ten-wheeler’s extra axle allowed for this increase in tractive effort. For the first times in the railroad industry’s short history it now had a specialized locomotive that could be used for specific purposes, in this case hauling freight and passengers over steep grades. As trains became heavier the 4-6-0 ran into the same problem of all models which lacked a trailing axle or truck; without the added support for a larger firebox and a small frame of just three driving axles limiting boiler size the locomotive, eventually, could simply not keep up with the times. The locomotive on the front of this post card belonged to the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad. On January 4th of this year I published this about the Rock Island Line. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chicago-Rock-Island-and-Pacific-Railroad-Company tells us that... The Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad Company, its official name, was also known as the Rock Island Railroad, or The Rock. It was a U.S. railroad company founded on February 27, 1847 as the Rock Island and La Salle Railroad Company to build a line from Rock Island to La Salle, Illinois. Construction began in earnest on October 1, 1851 after the first $300,000 was raised. The first train ran on the tracks on October 10, 1852 between Chicago and Joliet, Illinois. Construction continued on through La Salle, and Rock Island was reached on February 22, 1854. This made it the first railroad to connect Chicago with the Mississippi River. By 1866 its lines extended from Chicago, Illinois to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Management in the late 19th century was extremely conservative, but new interests took over in 1901. By 1907 the line attained its peak length of 14,270 miles (22,975 kilometres) in 13 states, but this rapid expansion impaired its credit and it was reorganized in 1917 and again in 1947. In the 1960s the Rock Island again began to decline. Merger discussions with other railroads failed, and it began bankruptcy proceedings in March 1975. Federal loan guarantees kept it running, but in January 1980 a federal judge ordered the railroad liquidated on the grounds that there was no way of reorganizing it for profitable operation. Its properties were sold off piecemeal in the early 1980s.

The post card was published by Bob Fremming out of Dallas, Wisconsin. This is the fifth post card I am posting that he published. I still cannot find much information about him on line, but he was a prolific publisher. There are samples of his cards on line at Etsy, Ebay, and other auction sites.

These are Handsome Falls in Great Falls

This is a picture of a steam train traversing a bridge that crosses the Missouri River in Montana. The water falls is known today as Rainbow Falls.

However, their original name was Handsome Falls, named by none other than the explorers Lewis and Clarke. The train on the bridge belonged to the Montana Central Railway. It was a railway company which operated in the American state of Montana from 1886 to 1907. It was constructed by James Jerome Hill's St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway, and became part of the Great Northern Railway in 1889. James Jerome Hill, primary stockholder and president of the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway (StPM&M), established the Montana Central Railway on January 25, 1886. Few railroads served Montana at that time. But Butte, Montana, was a booming mining town that needed to get its metals to market; gold and silver had been discovered near Helena, Montana; and coal companies in Canada were eager to get their fuel to Montana's smelters. On September 18, 1889, Hill changed the name of the Minneapolis and St. Cloud Railway (a railroad which existed primarily on paper, but which held very extensive land grants throughout the Pacific Northwest) to the Great Northern Railway. On February 1, 1890, he transferred ownership of the StPM&M, Montana Central, and other rail systems he owned to the Great Northern. For a while the subsidiary railroads still ran under their own names. The Montana Central Railway stopped that in 1907. From the National Park Service website: On June 14, 1805, as Lewis explored the Great Falls of the Missouri River, he encountered “one of the most beatifull objects in nature, a cascade of about fifty feet perpendicular streching at right angles across the river from side to side to the distance of at least a quarter of a mile. here the river pitches over a shelving rock, with an edge as regular and as streight as if formed by art, without a nich or brake in it; the water descends in one even and uninterupted sheet to the bottom wher dashing against the rocky bottom rises into foaming billows of great hight and rappidly glides away, hising flashing and sparkling as it departs the sprey rises from one extremity to the other to 50 f. I now thought that if a skillfull painter had been asked to make a beautifull cascade that he would most probably have pesented the precise immage of this one.” Accordingly, Lewis and Clark named this landmark waterfall “Handsome Falls.”

The picture on the front of the post card was taken in 1902. Today, there is a hydroelectric dam between the bridge and water falls. The post card was printed, and probably published, by Heyn's Elite Studio at 10 – 5th Street North, Great Falls, Montana. They were regular advertisers in the Great Falls Tribune newspaper. The Bulletin of Photography (1916) reported that “Louis Heyn of the Elite Studio sold an interest in his business” to employee Harry J. Keeley.