I found this pin at a flea market. Checked a number of sites to try to identify it, but came up empty. It’s well made. It even has a stabilizing pin just below the back pin (takes a butterfly clasp). There are no markings on the back.
and miscellaneous stuff
Pounding Mill tunnel #3
I forgot this tunnel when I was posting the Pounding Mill tunnels (on the Clinch Valley Main between Pounding Mill and Cedar Bluff VA. This is number 3.
Cmonsters
These were on a couple of boxcars down in Bulls Gap yard:
The second one is longer because I wanted to include the chalked in comment…
Yeah, It’s Tweetsie
You know I’d post Tweetsie some time or other. So, here goes:
Built in 1957 up near Greer Branch north of Blowing Rock, Tweetsie Railroad is a popular destination (more on that later). This shows old (1917/Baldwin/9-6-0) #12, formerly of the fabled ET&WNC railroad. The card is from the early 60s.
Here’s what it enthusiastically states on the back:
“TWEETSIE’S LOCOMOTIVE #12, CROSSING DEAD HORSE TRESTLE: Tweetsie Railroad; Eastern America’s most exciting travel destination. Full size steam locomotives daily carry fun loving tourists thru three miles of scenic mountains, where trains are attacked by renegade Indians and robbed by outlaws. Authentic western town features live entertainment at Tweetsie Palace, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway at Blowing Rock, North Carolina.”
For the deltiologists:
Color-King Natural Color Cards, W. M. Cline Co., Asheville, N.C. Inventory number 14958A
Photogaphed in Natural Color by Jack W. Bowers (who was, apparently, a quite popular photographer in Asheville)
Found several of these cards in an unlikely little antique/car repair shop near Asheville.
What the…
Several years ago, and maybe still, this was parked behind a store in Yuma VA. I have no idea what it was used for. My buddy says that’s a flat head truck engine that powered it.
The IRR on it could mean Interstate Rail Road.
Bulls Gap Railroad Museum
On the way to Morristown today, we decided to drop by the Bulls Gap Railroad Museum. The last time we’d visited, it was in a small building down by the rail yard. Now, it’s in a much larger and brighter building across the tracks at 153 South Main.
Bill Haskins was holding down the fort today:
On the screen behind him is a graphic representation of all the activity in the rail yard.
Here’s a long shot of the museum – the large model train layout is on the right.
No admission charge. Open seven days a week. Lots to look at and souvenirs for sale.
It’s located at 36 15 11.31N, 83 05 09.50W. Telephone is 423.393.4429.
Here’s the link to their Facebook page
N&W’s Number 375
This is a Mary Jayne’s Railroad Specialties card from the early 90s. It was printed in Covington VA, where Mary Jayne Rowe lived.
As with the MJRS airline cards, I’d like to know how MJR chose the pictures for this series and for her airline series. She’s passed on, so I can’t tell her how much I’ve enjoyed these cards.
Virginian 507
I found this postcard in an antique shop a little north of Tazewell/New Tazewell TN on 25. The card’s not all that rare and it’s got some water damage, but it’s a good picture and it’s from a publisher I’d never heard of. And that would be Audio-Visual Designs of Earlton, NY. Earlton is a suburb of Coxsackie…really, Coxsackie. Although the picture was taken in 1957, I think it was printed in the 80s. That’s when this company appears to have been active.
More on this locomotive: click here
I didn’t pay $4.50 for it, either.
Pullers and Movers
At the Bell County Coal Company (now a Revelation Energy outfit) near Middlesboro KY, these two yard units were sitting idle.
I think this is a variation of an ALCO RS-2 EMD GP-series locomotive (see the comment below):
And this is a mobile railcar mover…not moving anytime soon, though:
Southern Passenger Station, Morristown, Tenn.
The Southern passenger station in Morristown TN pre-1906 (when his card was mailed). For the time, the printer was generous with the area on which to write a message, since, as an undivided back card, you could only write the address on the back. I still find it amazing that this card was mailed at 2:30 pm on October 3, 1906, and arrived in Bristol at 7:30 that evening.
Isabella writes that they are laid over in M’town until 2:30, but will be spending the night in Asheville. I wonder if the train that took this card to Bristol also took Isabella and her companions on to Asheville.
Kidding my older brother, I mentioned that I thought one of the people posed there at the station looked a bit like him. He was not amused.
The card was published by Rose & Rice and is on a slightly heavier stock that one usually sees in postcards.
Incidentally, there’s a Jennie Rose Rice (1867-1946) buried in Jarnagin Cemetery in Morristown.
Michigan Central Railroad
I picked up this card mainly because I didn’t know anything about Michigan Central Railroad, but soon realized that this is an interesting card. The picture was shot from the Ontario side of Horseshoe Falls. The picture shows Falls View. Michigan Central Railroad trains had been stopping here since 1885 to let passengers take in the scenery. I read that this place, in the mid to late 1700s, was known on maps as “Grand View”.
The card was mailed from Youngstown NY (north of the Falls) to Tioga Center, now just Tioga, NY, in July, 1938. Tioga is in the south of the state, between Elmira and Binghamton.
The message was pretty thoroughly erased, but it seems to be the usual “having a wonderful time” thing.
ET&WNC Excursion Flyer, maybe
This flyer is 8.5 x 14. I bought this at a local flea market. The dealer had maybe 10 of them. He said they had come from an ephemera auction lot and was asking $20, firm, for one of them. I walked away first, but, intrigued, I came back and bought this one out of curiosity. Is it real? The paper appears to be brown tinted, not aged. On the back, down at the bottom, in pencil, is “3.00”, which probably means some other dealer thought it was only worth that. Under a 10-power loupe, the print looks more like melted toner that it does ink, though I didn’t see any toner splatter (note to all: I’m not an expert at this). One other point: the morning I bought this was damp and foggy. The young man helping the dealer was holding one of these when some water dripped onto it. He didn’t seem to care. If I had been holding ephemera worth $20, I would have cared, for sure.
Since it references the movie short “Tennessee Tweetsie” that came out in 1939, the first year after that with Sundays on the 14th and 28th is 1941. That would be when the original, if this is a fake, was printed.
Anybody know anything about these flyers?
The Tennessean
The Tennessean train was jointly operated by N&W and Southern with a 24-hour run between Washington DC and Memphis. It made regular trips from 1941 until 1968.
The lady who mailed this didn’t have a particularly good experience:
“Train 8 hrs late arriving at Memphis. Phoned (someone). They will meet me in (something). Coach without heat all night – nearly froze. No food on the train except potato chips and crackers. Thanks for lunch. Love Mother”
The Memphis postmark is incomplete, but has to be from the ’50s, when postcard postage was two cents (1952 – 1958).
Card was printed by E. C. Kropp of Milwaukee.
Trolley?
I took this picture back in 2009. The idea that looking a little closer and taken a few more pictures of something interesting hadn’t dawned on me.
This is, or was, in Hiltons VA. I think was once a trolley car. Just over to the left is where the railroad once came through Hiltons (the line from Bristol to Gate City). I dunno. We find artifacts like this all over the place.
N&W #611
N&W engine 611, built at a cost of $251,544 in 1950. Still going in 1983. This is a Mary Jayne Railroad Specialties train card (there are also airline cards). It was printed in Covington VA, where Mary Jayne Rowe (d. 2015) lived. The MJRS was incorporated in Miami.
Southern Railway Freight Office
Well, it was the Southern Railway Freight Office on Meadow Road in Asheville. Habitat for Humanity occupies the back portion (cropped out in this picture) for storage, I guess, since their retail store is just across the parking lot from this building. This portion appears to be unoccupied.
I especially like the SR medallions in the upper corners. Southern was a deal back then.
Southern Railway bolo
Time hasn’t been kind to this interesting Southern Railway bolo. The plastic over the logo area has been crazed a bit and slightly stained in one area, but it’s still a nice little bit of history.
I can’t imagine wearing a bolo with a logo. But, if you were an employee of the Southern, I guess it worked.
Old Fort Depot
This is the old depot, now a tourism center, is in Old Fort NC.
The caboose there is open to the public and still retains some features of this crew car, including this advisory (in stencil caps) above the toilet:
CAUTION
TOILET WILL NOT
OPERATE PROPERLY
WITHOUT 60 POUNDS
MIN. ON TRAIN LINE GAUGE
The stove is still there, a work desk, three, I think, couches that could be used as beds, and so forth. Old Fort is about 7 miles east of Black Mountain on Hwy. 70.
Norfolk & Western Streamliner
Found this in an antique store last year and forgot about it. As far as I can tell, this is from the early 50s, an N&W J-type out of Roanoke Shops.
On the back:
Norfolk and Western Railway’s streamline, all-coach, daylighter along New River in Virginia
Attribution, etc.:
Pub. by Roanoke Photo Finishing Co., Roanoke, Va.
K-158-D-12 44420
Dextone Made Direct from Kodachrome and Ansco Color by Dexter Press, Pearl River, N. J.
Southern Diesel
“V-901 SOUTH ENTRANCE TO NATURAL TUNNEL, SHOWING THE APPROACH OF A MIGHTY SOUTHERN RAILWAY DEISEL ENGINE, NATURAL TUNNEL, VA.” Yeah, they misspelled “diesel”.
The plate number is E-10246
On the reverse:
The Natural Tunnel, located on U.S. Highway 23, 14 miles west of Gate City, Virginia, in Scott County, is said to be the only Natural Tunnel in the world used by a railroad. Through it the Southern Railroad has hauled many million tons of coal from the rich deposits of Southwest Virginia.
(Kodachrome by Robert Suttle)
In pencil: 1951
Published by Asheville Post Card Co., Asheville, N.C.
Gate City Southern Depot
As you can see, the title of this postcard, a real photo card, is “SOU. DEPOT GATE CITY, VA 1963”. There is no more information anywhere on this card. I bought it maybe 10 years ago from a dealer in Maryland. Since the first SLR cameras began coming into the United States in 1963, it’s entirely possible this was shot with a regular rangefinder camera. Either the lens was soft or the film was slow, either way, the sign about halfway down the building should be readable, but it isn’t, even at 10x magnification. It’s out of focus.
The Clinchfield Special
This post card, never mailed, shows the tender with the livery of 1968 with Clinchfield in gold letters.
On the back: THE CLINCHFIELD SPECIAL – The most famous little steam engine of railroad history, built Aug. 1882, is puffing again through the Appalachian Mountains. It sounds nostalgic episodes of history with its whistle echoing through the mountains. Old No. 1 pulled first food, medicine and rescue workers to Johnstown, Penn. flood area May 1889, and the first refugees out.
Train Concessions Operated by
Y’s MEN’S CLUB OF ERWIN, TENN.
Color Photography by
Earle M. Walker
640 Holston Place
Erwin, Tenn.
Vertical Division line: Pub. by Earle M. Walker Photographer, 640 Holston Place, Erwin, Tenn. 37650
Published by Dexter Press, Inc. West Nyack, New York
Plate #53303-C
Note: in the PLACE STAMP HERE box, there is a small “69” in the lower right. This may be the date the card was printed.
Inman School Train
Inman is an unincorporated community in Wise County VA. This is a divided-back postcard that was allowed between 1907 and 1914. A website had this card for sale and, without attribution, stated it was “1910’s”. Close enough. I think this is an Interstate Railroad steam engine, but I can’t be sure.
On the back, scrawled in pencil (it was never posted) “Hello CB Ans soon CDM”
Addressed to Miss Blanche Gladson, RR #4 Rogersville Tenn.
If you want to know more about Miss Blanche, go here. If it’s still not the top entry, look for “Rogersville Postcards” in the menu.
The Tunnel With No Name
This tunnel could be called the Deane DTC This is Rockhouse Creek tunnel (see below: locals called it “Love’s Branch tunnel”). It’s rudimentarily faced off, both portals and located near Democrat KY at 37 13′ 45″ N, 82 48′ 55″ W on County road 1048, just off Love’s Creek. The tunnel is maybe 400′ long, with a curve to the east. I don’t know what purpose was served by the two horn-like things on the north portal (see comment by Jon Hirsch).
Blogging the Railroad Tunnels 