The railroad that made a day disappear

ID # 13,527

From the April, 1968 issue of Trains Magazine.

Lackawanna Railroad proudly announces its ALL-NEW LUXURY STREAMLINER The Phoebe Snow

ID # 12,078

From the April, 1950 issue of Trains Magazine.

ID # 10,940

From his grandson, Phil Aubrey.

Lehigh Valley Railroad Steam Locomotive #1140

ID # 6,527

Delaware & Hudson Railroad Steam Locomotive #1018

ID # 5,880

Built by the Schenectady Locomotive Works in 1907, builder # 43,275.

Kenwood Toll Gate, Albany, New York

ID # 1,570

The Greatest Show on Earth

ID # 911

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

In 1919, a few years after Ringling Bros. took over Barnum & Bailey, the two biggest tent shows in the world began operating as a unit. At one time they boasted 100 brightly painted and unusually long railroad cars. This equipment was divided among four sections of what was technically called one train, each section having a separate locomotive. Contrary to popular belief, the first "big top" to use trains for transportation was not Barnum's, but Spalding & Rogers in 1856. Today, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, reduced to a 15-car train, is North America's only railroad circus. As in this much earlier setting, slap-happy clowns and acrobats, snarling tigers, white Arabian horses, elephants from India and gorgeous girls in tights and spangles still ride the rails with the "Greatest Show on Earth."

CIRUS WORLD MUSEUM

Delaware & Hudson Railroad Steam Locomotive #1019

ID # 5,881

Built by the Schenectady Locomotive Works in 1907, builder # 43,276.

Lehigh Valley Railroad Steam Locomotive #1605 at Perth Amboy, New Jersey in 1939

ID # 6,518

Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1904, builder # 24,573.

United Traction Company Trackless Trolley #212

1,567

"Flight of the Fast Mail"

ID # 910

"FLIGHT OF THE FAST MAIL"

This old print shows engine No. 317 of "The New York Central and Lake Shore Railroad Post-Office," about to pick up a mail bag on the fly. This speedy, all-mail exhibition train operated between New York and Chicago in competition with a similar Pennsy run. On the Post Office's first westbound trip, September 14, 1875, the Vanderbilts private car Duchess, for eminent guests, was coupled behind the four white-painted, gold-lettered cars with their bright red mailbags. An Act of Congress July 7, 1838, declared all railroads to be post roads and authorized the U. S. Post Office to make contracts for hauling mail by rail. The first railway post office car, a converted baggage car, ran July 7, 1862, over the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad (now in the Burlington system) in Missouri as a special part of the pony express route.

COVERDALE AND COLPITTS COLLECTION

Atlantic Shore Line Railway Electric Locomotive #100 at Seashore Trolley Museum

ID # 27,019

Built by the Laconia Car Company in 1906.

Union Pacific Railroad Steam Locomotive #58 at Los Angeles, California in March, 1939

ID # 25,489

West River Railroad Steam Locomotive #1

ID # 24,476

Look us over, Portland. We've moved in!

ID # 22,294

From the May, 1971 issue of Trains Magazine.

There's more room on the road for the kind of driving you like...

ID # 15,293

From the December, 1968 issue of Trains Magazine.

Let's spike one rumor about train travel

ID # 12,888

From the September, 1965 issue of Trains Magazine.

New York, Ontario & Western Railroad Steam Locomotive #279

ID # 11,425

Pennsylvania Railroad Steam Locomotive #1679 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

ID # 10,327

Lehigh Valley Railroad Steam Locomotive #1404

ID #6,251

Conrail Diesel Locomotive #7954 at Kingston, New York in September, 1985

ID # 5,372

United Traction Company Trolley #803

ID # 1,560

The Highland Light

ID # 909

VIRGINIA & TRUCKEE

No. 12, the Genoa, and No. 11, the Reno, both eight-wheelers, doublehead a string of Pullmans in this painting by Howard Fogg of the Afternoon Express on the Virginia & Truckee. The V. & T. was the fabulous gold- and silver-mining railroad of Nevada in the late 1870's, during the roaring days of the Comstock Lode. Such trains brought the gaudy new gentry up steep grades from San Francisco to the luxury and excitement of Virginia City. The Genoa, built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1872 and retired but not scrapped in 1912, is a fine example of the 4-4-0 in its prime. The V. & T. ran ancient engines and brightly painted wooden cars with open platforms until 1959. Then the rolling stock went to Hollywood movie studios while the rails joined the sorrowful roster of picturesque but vanished American shortlines.

COLLECTION OF LUCIUS BEEBE AND CHARLES CLEGG

Steam Locomotive #11 leaving Tunnel

ID # 25,436

We're "Double-Dating" Florida this season ...with the DIXIE FLAGLER

ID # 24,390

From the January, 1951 issue of Trains Magazine.

You go great when you go Great Northern

ID # 21,910

From the March, 1949 issue of Trains Magazine.

Fall Brook Coal Company Steam Locomotive #49 "Nickel Plate"

ID # 27,193

Built by the Schenectady Locomotive Works in 1884, builder # 1,875.

Lehigh Valley Railroad Steam Locomotive #1623

ID # 6,519

Strasburg Railroad Steam Locomoive #90 in September, 1972

ID # 5,447

Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1924.

United Traction Company Trolley #824

ID # 1,558

The Highland Light

ID # 908

THE HIGHLAND LIGHT

The Highland Light. a 4-4-0 or American type which William Mason built at Taunton, Massachusetts, in 1867 for the Cape Cod Railroad (now part of the New Haven system), was one of America's most graceful iron horse. Mason created "melodies cast and wrought in metal," according to Matthias N. Forney, himself a great locomotive designer. "He was a wonderfully ingenious man and embodied with his ingenuity a high order of the artistic sense, so that his work was always most exquisitely designed." mason declared that locomotives should "look somewhat better than cookstoves on wheels." A distinctive feature of the Highland Light was the pairs of decorative brackets that joined the hubs of her tender wheels. Mason's ornamental monogram was placed proudly between her driving wheels.

COVERDALE AND COLPITTS COLLECTION

New York, Ontario & Western Railroad Steam Locomotive #52 at Middletown, New York in July, 1947

ID # 21,101

Built by the American Locomotive Company (Cooke) in 1911.

227,000-MILE YARDSTICK

ID # 19,843

From the February, 1948 issue of Railroad Magazine.

Brunswick Maine Train Station 1894

ID # 17,986

KATYDID!

ID # 15,095

From the October, 1966 issue of Trains Magazine.

New GM locomotive meet today's challenge with higher capacity, lower maintenance

ID # 12,944

From the November, 1963 issue of Trains Magazine.

The GREAT MIDWEST...

ID # 11,953

From the May, 1970 issue of Trains Magazine.

Lehigh & New England Steam Locomotive #8

ID # 11,344

Reading Railroad Steam Locomotive #2000

ID # 10,313

Lehigh Valley Railroad Steam Locomotive #1819

ID # 6,516

Unknown Train near Binghamton, New York on May 31, 1970

ID # 5,451

United Traction Company #904, North Albany Yards

ID # 1,550

Trouble with the Buffalo

ID # 906

Canadian Locomotives, 1836-1860 37¢ Samson 0-6-0 Type (First Day Cover)

ID # 6,436

Because the mid-1980's will mark the centennial of "The Last Spike" and the 150th anniversary of the first Canadian railway, the Canada Post Corporation will commence a series of train stamps. This is a continuation of the stamp series featuring Canadian transportation, which was begun in 1975 with ships and followed by airplanes. The stamps will recall the days when the railroad was "an image of man, a tradition, a code of honour, a source of poetry, a nursery of boyhood desires, a sublimest of toys, and the most solemn machine - next to the funeral hearse - that marks the epochs in a man's life." The first Canadian railroad, the Champlain and St. Lawrence, opened for business on 21 July 1836. On that date the Dorchester, a locomotive imported from England, pulled two coaches from La Prairie to Dorchester (later St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu) and back. Like many early Canadian lines, the Champlain and St. Lawrence was a portage railway, a short cut between the Richelieu River and Montreal, saving ninety miles of river travel. Mine railroads also gained prominence at this time. In 1838 the Samson, the first locomotive in the Maritimes, began running from the Frood coal mine to the Pictou wharf. By 1850, British North America boasted about sixty-six miles of railway. A construction boom over the next ten years raised the total to 2065 miles. By 1860, an uninterrupted stretch of track connected Sarnia, Montreal, and the Atlantic coast at Portland, Maine. Most contemporary Canadian railroads hoped to tap the lucrative American market, but failed to do so. They depended heavily on government financing and foreign capital, lacked sufficient customers, and suffered financial headaches. Most locomotives, such as the Birkenhead-type Adam Brown, were still imported. Nevertheless, in the 1850's some Canadian railroads began building their own to meet North American conditions. Among these was the Toronto, the first locomotive manufactured in Canada West, built in Toronto in 1853. The locomotive stamps were designed by Ernst Roch of Montreal. The format chosen, which presents the locomotives in profile against a plain background colour, are ideal for presenting the mechanical complexity that makes locomotives so visually interesting. The principal challenge of designing these stamps was to simplify the engines to make a sufficiently strong graphic statement at stamp size without sacrificing significant detail.
Canada Post Corporation. [Postage Stamp Press Release], 1983.

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern Railroad Steam Locomotive #250 at Hattiesburg, Miss in August, 1939

ID # 5,448

Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1924.