I found two post cards of the Reader Railroad recently. Here’s a link: Reader Railroad
It’s really annoying. I thought I had a handle on the dating of these cards, but, when I told a colleague about it, I realized that I had been totally wrong. The cards were printed by Koppel Kolor (or Color) Cards in Hawthorne, New Jersey. The company’s main building appears to have burned down in the mid 80s.
Update on the dating for these cards: mid-1960s. See comment below courtesy of thedigitalphilatelist
The Audio-Visual Designs Company did a lot of railroad-related postcards in the latter half of the 20th century. Railroad-line.com states that the company was famous.
The lower bridge was built in the late 1890s by the Virginia & Southwest Virginia rail road (V&SW). That line was absorbed into the Southern Rail Road in 1916, just a year after this card was mailed.
The upper one, the Copper Creek Viaduct (a word the Marx Brothers had fun with in The Cocoanuts) was built by the C.C. & O in 1908. The stated height now is 185′ , measuring from the river below.
You barely read the writing down the length of the viaduct, but I believe it says “crossed this just today” or something to that effect.
The post card itself appears to have been printed in Germany before WWI.
This is looking south at approx. 36.0720N, 82.3987W.
The card was printed by Curt Teich in Chicago. It’s one of the “C” series of post cards issued between 1905 and 1926. The Curt Teich records for this period are scanty and this number isn’t listed anywhere that I can find. Nicely printed, though, and hand colored at the factory before the separations were shot for the print run.
Blogging the Railroad Tunnels 