Early Railroad Postcards

Once again I decided to delve into my postcard collection and construct another historical posting to my blog site.  Since I’m a railroad ‘fan’…especially the old rolling stock…it was a natural topic for me to explore.  This is especially true when you consider the railroad industry’s impact on the growth of the United States.

The first postcard in this grouping shows a steam locomotive pulling a passenger train and crossing the bridge across the Hudson River near Mechanicsville New York.  This card was sent in 1906 to Miss Phoebe Millbank in Schenectady NY from someone with the initials H.M.F. in Mechanicsville.

Actually, it appears to me that The Hugh C. Leighton Co. Postcard Company got the spelling wrong.  Someone, perhaps their printer in Hamburg Germany, added an ‘s’ to Mechanicville NY.  I couldn’t locate any history regarding the railroad but Mechanicville was a major railyard and repair center into the 1920s.

Note:

The commercial development of US railroads began in the mid-1820s.  By 1880, the country had 17,800 freight locomotives and 22,200 passenger locomotives in service.  As the nation’s population only numbered about 50,200,000, that means that there was one locomotive in service for each 1,255 people!

This postcard, printed in Germany for A.C. Bosselman and Co. in NY City, shows a ‘new’ electric locomotive pulling passenger cars on the New York Central Railway.  It appears to have been mailed in 1909.  It was sent “From a friend” to Master Garrett Dillenback in Albany New York.

Electric trains were all about the environment…and safety.  Several cities passed laws in the early 1900s forbidding the operation of steam locomotives within city limits.  This was primarily because of severe accidents caused by terrible visibility in tunnels and rock cuts given the smoke and steam from coal fired locomotives.  New York passed such a law in 1903 and it went into effect in 1908…which ties into the date on the postcard.

Electric Locomotive #6000 shown in the postcard was built in 1904 and it was the prototype for the ALCO-GE S-Motor Class.  Believe it or not, even after being replaced by more powerful locomotives, old #6000 continued to operate, shuttling deadhead rolling stock and pulling the occasional shorter commuter train.  She actually wasn’t completely retired until the early 1970s!  To see a photo of her sitting in a field in 1912, waiting for restoration, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Central_S-Motor#/media/File:NYC-100-front-quarter.jpg.

This postcard showing Omaha’s second Union Station, was sent to Mr. E.G. Anderson in Chicago by an M. Leonard in 1909.  I suspect that the postcard itself is a bit older as there aren’t any automobiles shown in the picture despite all the street traffic.  By 1909, cars were showing up everywhere… FYI, the passenger trains came in under the rail shed at the rear of Union Station. 

This version of Omaha’s Union Station was completed in 1899.  It was replaced by the ‘new’ depot, which is now a museum, in 1939.

Take note of that packed trolley car in front of the depot.  By 1890, the Omaha metropolitan area has more miles of trolley track than any city in the USA except Boston.  By 1910, there were 126.5 miles of track with 600 employees and 445 trolley cars in service.  In 1907, it was estimated that the trolley system carried 51 million passengers throughout the Omaha NE -Council Bluffs IA metropolitan area.

The next postcard was sent in 1908 to Mr. E.G. Anderson in Room 7, 209 Adams Street in Chicago Illinois from HJB in Davenport Iowa.  It was sent in 1909.  The card shows the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Shops that were located in West Burlington Iowa.  Part of these maintenance and repair shops date back to 1882…and they still stand.  With over 570,000 square feet of space, as of February 2016, the buildings are mostly deserted but they are used and guarded by the Burlington, Northern and Santa Fe Railroad to store some locomotives.  Otherwise, the last 300 jobs here were transferred to other locations in 2004.

How pervasive were the railroads at their height?  A good example relates the heavily settled Midwestern Corn Belt.  Over 80 of all farms were within 5 miles of a railway.   This proximity facilitated the shipment of grain, hogs and cattle to national and international markets.  Actually, only the agricultural sector of the economy employed more people than the railroads did…

In our current environment with instant communications, social media and smart phones, it’s easy to forget what communications were like in the ‘old days’.  In effect, postcards were the e-mails or more appropriately ‘Twitter’ messages in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  This postcard was mailed on July 12, 1909 to Mr. E. G. Anderson on Park Avenue in Chicago. (Apparently he was no longer renting a room on Adams Street)

In any case, was apparently sent by Mr. Anderson’s father as the message begins with “Dear Children”.  It seems like mother got their letter and was expecting a visit from the children…so much so that father went down to the Rockford Railway station to meet the “Q” train from Chicago.  Alas, no family disembarked…

The card itself shows the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway bridge over the Rock River at Janesville Wisconsin.  This bridge was originally constructed in 1896 and then it was widened in 1908 to accommodate 2 tracks.  It’s apparently still in use as I found several photos of it on line.

This card was sent by one humorous fellow in Davenport Iowa to his friend Mr. Eric Anderson c/o the CB and Q (Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad) Tel Offices at Adams and Franklin Street in Chicago Illinois.  I’m guessing that although this postcard was mailed in 1911, it’s the same ‘Anderson’ as previously noted via the preceding 3 postcards…  In any case, his friend tells him to “Stick to your word and study ‘wire work’.  You will never regret it.  There is a good future for ‘wire chiefs’ ahead”. 

I did have to determine what a ‘wire chief’ was back in the day.  Apparently, they were the ultimate decision-maker in assigning emergency tasks to linemen, installers, signalmen and splicers to remedy problems and restore services.

The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Passenger Station shown on the postcard is apparently long gone.  A parking lot has replaced it and apparently only one passes this spot today… If you can’t read our humorous senders notes on the front of the car, he states that the arrow (below the 2 people) “points to Walter Dan trying to sell a gold brick”.

My postcard saga with Eric Anderson continues!  At this point, June of 1914, he’s living at 1928 Park Avenue in Chicago.  Eric’s life is apparently moving forward as the card was sent to him from Harrisburg Pennsylvania, ‘With Love” by Ruth.  Her handwriting isn’t the best, and she’s had a hard time sleeping on the train.  Apparently she was on her way to Philadelphia and she sent this card at a stop along the way.

The postcard shows the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Rockville Bridge…the ‘longest stone bridge in the world’, at Harrisburg.  This bridge, which crosses the Susquehanna River about 5 miles north of town, was completed in 1902.  It still is the longest stone masonry arch railroad viaduct in the world.  Laurie and I have seen this impressive structure!  It has forty-eight 70 foot long spans and is 3,820 feet long.

When I purchased these postcards several years ago, I had 2 objectives.  They had to be old and they still had to have stamps on them.  I never realized until now that I was basically tracking Eric Anderson’s life for over 10 years!

 

This card was mailed on April 9, 1919.  Eric had moved again...  This time he was living at 1930 Washington Boulevard in Chicago.  Had he moved up in the world?  I’ll never know… In any case, this postcard was ‘long distance’ compared to the previous cards.  It was sent from Long Beach California from someone (can’t read the writing) who lived in Pasadena.  It reads “Greetings from this land of sunshine, flowers and beauty”.

The picture on the postcard shows the California Limited on the Santa Fe Railroad going up the Cajon Pass near Riverside California.  Even though it was a passenger train, it took 2 locomotives to get the job done.  The Cajon pass is a 3,777 foot high mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California.  The rail line was built through the pass in the early 1880s.

The California Limited, advertised as the “Finest Train West of Chicago”, made its first run between Chicago Illinois and Los Angles California in November of 1892.  This run and its title train were withdrawn from service in June of 1954.  The California Limited featured “Fred Harvey Company” meal service and later trains offered air conditioning, a barber, beautician, clothing press and even a shower bath.

My last postcard for this posting 1) isn’t to or from Eric Anderson, and 2) it is relatively ‘new’, having been mailed to Mrs. Tuple in Reedsburg Wisconsin on Route 1 in September of 1954.  Pictured are the Vista Dome Twin Zephyrs that used to make the run between St. Paul/Minneapolis Minnesota and Chicago Illinois two times each day.  The Burlington Railroad operated a large number of distinctive, articulated stainless steel streamlined passenger trains that were known as the Zephyrs.  These trains were the most famous and largest fleet of streamliners in the USA.  The first of these trains, the Burlington Zephyr, made a famous ‘dawn to dusk’ run from Denver Colorado to Chicago IL in May of 1934.

In 1947 the Burlington replaced the old Zephyrs with these new dome-car trains.  Each train consisted of a baggage-club-lounge car, 4 dome coaches, a diner and a dome-parlor-observation car.  The latter included a private drawing room with 5 seats.  The dome coaches seated 54 people on the main level and 24 in the dome.

The Burlington Zephyr Chicago – Minneapolis route was canceled in 1971 with the advent of Amtrak.  Even with 9 stops between Chicago and Minneapolis, during the 1930 and into the 1950s, these trains made the trip in about 6 hours and 40 minutes.  Today, using the Interstate highways, the drive will take 6 hours and 10 minutes…without stops.  To learn more about the Zephyr train phenomena and to learn where you can see one on exhibit, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Zephyr.

The railroads helped build America, moving untold quantities of freight and millions of passengers over the years.  In 1900, the United States had a population of 76,200,000 and about 225,000 miles of track in operation.  As of 2014, we have about 332,600,000 million people and about 161,000 miles of track remaining including sidings, freight yards and other miscellaneous trackage.  About 134,000 miles of ‘route’ trackage still remains in service…but the population has increased by more than 400%.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave