Travel Posters on Postcards - Rail America [Part 1]

From our postcard collection ...

Introduction ...

One of the most desirable things to add to a collection of train and/or railroad memorabilia is a vintage travel poster published by one of the major railroad companies back in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. The posters, which are rare and hard to find in good condition today, were designed to draw attention to travel by rail. The art on many of the posters is very appealing. Someone came up with the idea of going to the Library of Congress, where hundreds of these posters are preserved, scan a few and put the images on postcards. While the original prints are usually about 30" x 40" and may be valued in the thousands of dollars, the postcards are like a thumbnail view at an affordable price. We added several of the postcards to our collection and thought you might enjoy seeing a few. If you have an original in your collection we would like to know about it.

The New Empire State Express
New York Central System
1941

The back of all the cards is similar and includes a description of the poster on the front. Here is an example ...

Each card includes the information about where the poster is stored in the Library of Congress ...

The next poster is called "Hunting" by the North Shore Limited. Please don't jump to the conclusion that we advocate shooting birds. We are simply showing you the poster that probably appealed to the avid sportsman. We do, however, advocate shooting birds with a camera!

Hunting by the North Shore Line
1923

Atlantic City
The Playground of the World
Travel by Train
1932

Yellowstone Park -- Northern Pacific's
Yellowstone Park L
1935

Washington DC

Travel by Train

1935

Sunset Route

by Rail and Sea to New York

1930

New York Central Lines

Grand Central Terminal

The Gateway to a Continent

1925

Washington, the City Beautiful

Pennsylvania Railroad

1940

Mt St Helens -- Northern Pacific

North Coast Limited

1925

So, how do you like the travel posters?

Mid-July Weather Update

July got off to an unusually warm start and we reported on the smoke from forest fires in our last post. The last few days have seen a return to blue skies and cooler temperatures. When we are out on our walks this time of year there always seem to be a few flowers we can't resist capturing on our camera. Here is one we liked and thought it was a good candidate for some digital processing ...

For comparison, here is the original ...

Thank you for stopping by John's Island.

Christmas Tree Park at Yellowstone [1910] and More

From our collection of old postcards ...

Christmas Tree Park
Yellowstone National Park
As it appeared in about 1910
Essentially this is the West Entrance to YNP

Back of the card

Description on back enlarged.

(Roughly) How the same spot looks today
as shown on Google Maps Steetview.
This view is just after leaving the western entance gate.

It has been excessively warm here in the Emerald City over the last week. We've broken several heat records. This caused us to look for a cooling thought in the old card collection. Ahhh ... Christmas Tree Park in YNP. If you've been there, you know the name is well deserved. Today, the road is paved and quite a bit wider, but otherwise you'll see about the same thing as the early tourists did in the early 1900s as they entered the Park in stagecoaches. In the old postcard view you can almost make out the stagecoach ruts.

Neighborhood Update

On July 4th the Hyundai Global container ship pulled up and anchored right in front of us. Well, we may be speaking a little bit loosely on that, but really, it was straight out the window. Here are a couple of our pics of the Global ...

Hyundai Global Container Ship
Home Port:  London

The ship was on its way out of Puget Sound and anchored for only a couple of hours. We were curious about why, but don't have any answers. The first picture belies the size of the ship. Consider that you may have seen just one of those containers being pulled along by a truck on the freeway right next to your car and you get an idea of the size. We put our spotting scope on the Global and were impressed with just the size of the anchor cable. Wish we could have gotten a photo for you but here is one from the web that gives a good idea of the size of the individual links in the chain ...

Just one link weighs about 500 pounds.

By the way, when we were researching anchor chain on the web we happened to find an interesting video. Have you ever seen a container ship being run into the ground on purpose?  Take a look ...

The short story on the grounding ... The main engine had failed and they lost reliable control of where the ship was headed, so to prevent collisions with other ships in the crowded channel, the authorities and the Captain decided to ground her. (Full story is in the video's description on YouTube. The video was posted by Corinne Vigniel.)

Color on our walk

The next three photos are all taken in a spot that many might classify as "weeds".

First, the pod ... about to bloom

On the same plant, a bloom just opened

Another shot of the red red wild rose
we featured a couple of posts ago.

Skies

Wildfires in the dry forests are sending smoke to the skies around the Pacific Northwest including the city of Seattle. Here is how the sky looked about 30 minutes before sunset on July 7th ...

Thank you for stopping by John's Island.

Firecracker 4th and More

Happy Birthday USA!

Today is America's 239th Birthday
This old postcard, from our collection, is almost 100 years old.
Be careful with your firecrackers! :-)

First blooms at Volunteer Park Dahlia Garden ...

Kelsey Amethyst

We've been watching this garden for a couple of years now and have shared pics several times. We generally expect the first blooms in early July and these are right on schedule. There are literally hundreds of dahlias in the garden ... these three were the first to bloom in 2015.

Taratahi Glow

Kaitlin

Harbor Activity ...

Bulk Carrier Shandong Hai Xing moved into place for loading on the morning of July 2nd. Details on this ship are in the screen shot below from vesselfinder.com

A couple of Crowley tugs moving the ship early morning July 2nd.
A portion of the Elliott Bay Marina is in the foreground.

Moving from anchor to Grain Terminal 86

A closer look at the ship's name.
Home port is Hong Kong

Info from VesselFinder.com

Maersk Chennai
Arriving Port of Seattle
July 3rd from Shanghai, China

Visit to the P Patch ...

Right on the edge of our neighborhood is the Interbay P Patch. We stopped by on June 28. Here are a few pics from the Patch ...

This pic just shows a very small part of the patch.
Not seen in the photo ... several gardeners working on their patches and a few
other visitors to boot.

Doesn't this red onion look great?

We liked the color and thought it a bit unusual.

If you are a gardener, and even if you're not, here is our question:  Which are your favorites ... the veggies or the flowers?

Moon over Puget Sound ... Very early ... Around 5:30 AM ... July 2nd ...

Auto Ferry near the bottom en route Seattle from Bainbridge Island.
The Full Moon occured on Wednesday, July 1, 2015, at 7:20 PM PDT.
In Native American lore this one is known as Full Buck Moon.
There will be another Full Moon on July 31 ... The Blue Moon!

July 2nd Sunset 

Looking west across Puget Sound
Olympic Mountains in the distance.

Record High Temperature set today
at SEATAC airport = 93F
We wish the heat would stay down South!!!

Last but not least ... Close up of the moon, 5:32 AM, July 3, 2015 ...

Thank you for stopping by John's Island.