Canadian Pacific's Montreal Windsor Street Station & HQ

I found this postcard* in amongst the family photos I've been sorting through. The caption reads:

Windsor Street Station and Head Office Can. Pac. Ry., Montreal

There's an interesting Wikipedia entry on this old station. I'm glad to see the building still exists. I'll have to visit one day.

*It isn't actually a postcard. The photo is printed on a card, but it's about the size of a playing card or a pack of cigarettes, and its flip side is blank. An internet search shows this image did appear on postcards, so this example does have postcard DNA.

Grand Trunk and Michigan Central bridges

While on the topic of bridges, I found this postcard entitled, Whirlpool Rapids, Niagara. The caption on the back reads,

This chaotic mass plunges and foams like some imprisoned monster. In its mad whirling it forms a convex surface, rising from three to four feet in the center above the outer surface. Here are also seen the Grand Trunk bridge, 930 feet in length and 190 feet above the water, and the Michigan Central bridge, 910 feet long and 192 feet above the water.

Bridges of New York, 1948 & 1949

 [George Washington Bridge and Hudson River, New York City.

Caption on the back reads: One of the main highways between New York and New Jersey. The bridge was completed in 1932 at a cost of over $60,000,000. The main span is 3500 feet long. It enters Manhattan at 178th Street and connects over ramps with beautiful Riverside Drive.]

These postcards of New York City bridges are possibly from 1948 or 1949 given their position with respect to other similar postcards in the collection that were mailed and have '48 and '49 postmarks. I'll post those others once I get them scanned.

 [George Washington Bridge, Palisades in Background, New York City

Caption on the back reads: Spanning the Hudson River at 179th Street, the George Washington Bridge connects the States of New York and New Jersey. It is the longest suspension bridge in the world and cost $60,000,000. It was completed in 1931.]

[Title on the top reads: George Washington Bridge, Fort Tryon Park, Riverside Drive.

Title at the bottom reads: Hudson River and Jersey Palisades, New York City.]

[Brooklyn Bridge at Night, New York City.]

[Triborough Bridge. Looking down East River from over Hellgate, New York City.]

Union Station

Another in the series of Valentine Black postcards. This one is of Toronto's Union Station. Date of publication unknown. I'm not sure if I should use the scanner's 'un-fade' function on these postcards. So far I haven't. The image at the top is scanned without any colour correction, and the one below is 'un-faded'. It looks a little garish, but maybe I'm just conditioned to associated old images with fading.

Streetcars on Bay Street

[View of Bay Street Looking North Showing City Hall; Toronto, Ontario]

Vince sent me this link and pointed out that old postcards published by the Valentine family of companies in the early 20^th century, like the two in the Streetcar to Sunnyside post, could be rare, and posting images of those I have might be of some historical interest. In this one you can see the roofs of a couple TTC streetcars, but they are dwarfed by the buildings along Bay street. Date of publication is unknown.

Streetcar to Sunnyside

"Sunnyside", Toronto, Canada

Sunnyside was an amusement park in Toronto that operated from 1922 to 1955. You can read about its history at this Wikipedia post. I don't know the date of these two postcards, but Wikipedia states that the Bathing Pavilion - that red-roofed building to the left of centre - opened in June 1922, so I assume these cards were published sometime after that date.

[Both postcards were published by Valentine-Black, Co. Ltd of Toronto]

The second postcard shows that the Bathing Pavilion was an impressive structure, and would make for an excellent destination on a model streetcar layout.

Bathing Pavilion at Sunnyside Beach, Toronto, Ont.

Welshpool

Glyn Golfa, Llanfair Railway, Welshpool

One might think that a guy who lives in a place where a cold winter’s night can drop to -30C should have no complaints when summer days roll around that reach +34C like it did today, but I’m here to say that isn’t the case :-) I decided to hide out this evening with the air-conditioning and post a few more postcards.

The Rhallt, Welshpool

These are images of Welshpool in Wales. Dates are unknown.

Llanerchydol Hall, Welshpool

Wikipedia informs me that “The town is also the starting point of the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway, a narrow-gauge heritage railway popular with tourists, with its terminus station at Raven Square. The light railway once ran through the town to the Cambrian Line railway station, but today Raven Square, located on the western edge of the town, is the eastern terminus of the line.”

Red Bank, Welshpool

‘They’ tell me that today’s +34C felt like +41C once the humidity was factored in.

Electric tram on Coldharbour Lane?

Another item from the postcards in the family archive. Although the annotation is slightly torn, I think it says Coldharbour Lane. And that tram looks electrified.

Georgia Welcome Station

In amongst the old Morecambe postcards was this one of a beautiful, modernist visitor welcome centre in Georgia. The printing on the back reads,

Welcome to Georgia

The State of Georgia maintains information and Welcome Centers at principal entrances on key highways entering the state. This picture shows the Center on Hwy. 301 just south of the Savannah River.

Color by C. H. Ruth

It's postmarked 6 March 1973, from Ocala, Florida. Apparently it was still there in 2012. It was built in 1962 and was Georgia's first welcome centre.

Morecambe Central Promenade

[Promenade and Clocktower, Morecambe]

A couple more postcards of Morecambe, England where horse drawn trams are clearly visible along the promenade. To me, it's not the presence of those trams that's striking, it's the complete absence of automobiles. With those horses and the sea, the smell might have been something, and combined with the lack of noise and exhaust from gas-powered vehicles, the sensory environment was probably just as different as the modes of transportation.

[Central Promenade, (Looking East) Morecambe]

Horse drawn trams in Morecambe

I’ve continued to sort through my father’s family archive and came across these two postcards of Morecambe, England. There’s no writing on the backs, and no printed dates, so no positive confirmation of when they were printed or sold, but my guess would be in the 1900’s or 1910’s. It’s a seaside town and from the looks of the first picture, one with horse drawn trams in an earlier time. They remind me of the horse-drawn trams that Vivien Thompson built in her Sept ’73 Model Railway Constructor article. There’s also some fantastic buildings in these pictures. The sign in the lower picture says ‘Midland Railway’ on the upper portion, and that looks like some sort of passenger shelter nearer the rails.