Welcome to Vintage Railroad Postcards!

Thank you for stopping by! This is the blog for the Russell P. Panecki Collection of vintage railroad-related postcards. The entire collection consists of nearly one thousand so far with images dating from circa 1904 to the 1950s. To leave a comment, ask a question, to contribute or correct historical information, a comment box is located to the left for your convenience.

Each page, including this homepage, has an index located in the lower portion of the page. In addition to the index, posts were updated with historical information, new postcards added from storage files, while some posts were completely rewritten or edited for corrections. Three articles have been added and are worth reading. They include how vintage postcards were made, the history of Pennsylvania Station, and the history of Grand Central Terminal.

My apologies, but the postcards in my collection and on this blog are not available for sale, copying, or for contribution to projects. Please keep in mind that I reserve all rights to the images and content of this blog.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Sayre, Pennsylvania, Shop Views, Lehigh Valley Railroad

The shops at Sayre, Pennsylvania was a large facility at the home of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and was completed in 1904. The LV built and repaired its own locomotives in this shop from 1904 to 1925 and at one time both the shops and yard alone employed an estimated 3,000 railroad workers. The structure finally came down in 1988. According to the February, 1904, edition of the industry publication "American Engineer and Railroad Journal" we read the following note on the progress of the shop's construction: 

"The large new shops in process of construction at Sayre, Pa., for the Lehigh Valley Railroad have not been provided for as to machine tools, although the traveling cranes, the power plant equipment and other important features were purchased a short time ago. The buildings are being erected at a cost of some $750,000." 

In the two postcards below, published at the time of its completion, we see one of traveling cranes lifting a locomotive with shop crew members posing proudly for the photographer. The second card provides us with a view of locomotives under construction on the erecting floor. The last three cards are circa 1910.





In the following card, we see another interior view of locomotives either being built or in for repair. The engines in the foreground all have headlights mounted on top of the smokebox; the one in the distance has its headlight mounted on the smokebox front.



The cards below show just how large this shop complex was. The first has a unique inset of an interior view photograph.






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