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, November 12, 2015

Virginian Railway Side-Rod Boxcabs



This official Westinghouse postcard from 1925 gives us a view of the first electric locomotives built for the Virginian Railway through a partnership between the American Locomotive Works and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company both with plants in Schenectady, New York, and both well known for their joint construction of early box cab electric engines. Alco built the frames, bodies, and mechanical parts while Westinghouse provided the electric motors, controls, and and hardware. An individual unit consisted of three semi-permanent coupled locomotives and were designed and built for the sole purpose of hauling heavy coal trains from the coalfields on the border of Virginia and West Virginia to the port of Norfolk, Virginia. The railroad had come to be known as a "conveyor belt on rails". As with some previously posted steam locomotives, all contending for a similar title, these units have entered that now crowded field by claiming to be "The Mightiest Locomotive in the World."


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