d03818r03

decks "Pennsilvania Railroad" (USA)
1. WWPCM03818r03: by "The New York Consolidated Card Co." or/and "USPCC"

This decks may be by USPCC (joker is differ):	d03818j03	d03818j06	stamp
deck "Rout of the New Yorker", 1923 (1943?) 5 E 238, 5 E 239	d03818r036	r036sA	r036box	r036box
deck "Rout of the Broadway Limited", 1925 G1928	d03818r017	d03818r017b	r017sA2	r017sA	r017box1
deck "The American", 1926 H1950	d03818r053c	r053sA	d03818r053	d03818r053b
deck "Rout of the St. Louisan", j04b	d03818r042	r042sA	box2	box3	box_inside
deck "Rout of the American", 1949 L3911	d03818r016	sA1	box1

decks "Pennsilvania Railroad", 1930 M1977	d03818r018	d03818r019	r018sA	box score pad
decks "Broadway Limited. Chicago - New York", 1927 J1919	d03818r051	d03818r051b	r051sA	r038box
decks "Broadway Limited. New York - Chicago", 1947/8 J3920; K3919	d03818r037	d03818r055	r038sA	r037extra
deck "The American. New York -Washington-St.Louis"	d03818r054	d03818r054b
deck "Liberty Limited. Washington-Chicago"	d03818r038	d03818r061	r061sA
deck "Liberty Limited. Chicago-Washington", 1927 J1920		d03818r058	r058sA
deck "Pennsilvania Railroad"; with d04187j09 (102 25) so	d03818r039	d03818r040	r040box	r040extra/1950s

2. WWPCM03818r03B: by unknown

d03818r046/1946

d03818r049

d03818r050

d03818r056

d03818r052

d03818r163

d03818r168

3. WWPCM03227: by "USPCC"

d03227j01

d03227r03

r03box/c.1943

d02708j01

d02708r68

4. by "Brown&Bigelow"

d04271j01a	d04271r395	r395box	d04271r395b	d04271r1329
d04271r1221a	d04271r1221b	r1221extra		d04271r1373

d02847j01	box	d02847r009/1944	d02847r009b
d02489j01	d02489r018box	d02489r018/1944	d03227r03	r018extra

5. by "Arrco"

d04263j04

d04263r172a

d04263r172b

d04263r182

HISTORY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD

Native Americans used foot paths that traversed the many mountain ranges, valleys and ridges of Pennsylvania to move from one village to another and in locating needed hunting ranges. These trails often followed the paths made by wild animals, such as buffalo and deer. When European settlers first arrived they too used these same paths in colonizing America. Some of these paths were made into roads, enlarging them to carry oxen, wagons and livestock inland and westward.
As the early colonists grew in number, their cities expanded and their need for natural resources increased. Foot paths and the early roads were inefficient. New York state opened the Erie Canal in 1825 and in 1828 the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was started in Maryland. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was also begun in 1828. Pennsylvania businessmen and legislators were well aware of their precarious position. They were afraid of loosing out to the people to the North and South of Pennsylvania. They pushed forward with a plan of their own, The Main Line of Public Works. This was a system that used a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia, canal from Columbia to Harrisburg then on to Lewistown and Hollidaysburg. In Hollidaysburg the Allegheny Portage Railroad took over, hauling the canal boats out of the water and onto inclined planes where they hauled the boats over the mountains using a series of 10 inclines to Johnstown. From Johnstown to Pittsburgh the boats were returned to a canal. This system was used a short time because, while regarded as an engineering marvel, it too was inefficient.
The PA state legislature passed an act incorporating the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) on April 13, 1846. They surveyed several routes across the state and decided on a middle option, or the mainline of Conrail/Norfolk Southern today. The PRR purchased much of the earlier canal routes for their rail beds. The railroad moved westward under the leadership of John Edgar Thomson, civil engineer and later, PRR President. The railroad ran along the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers until it came to the base of the Allegheny mountains at Altoona/Hollidaysburg. The rail route was opened to Pittsburgh for east/west traffic in 1852 and then improved and completed in 1854 with the completion of the tunnels at Gallitzin and the Horseshoe Curve. When the main line of the PRR was finally complete, it opened the flood gates of economic activity between East and West. The corporate headquarters for the PRR were in Philadelphia and their primary facility for design, maintenance, repair, and construction was in Altoona.
Altoona was built in 1849 by the PRR to service their locomotives as they trudged back and forth over the Allegheny Mountains. Within a few years the facility grew and they went from a maintenance facility to actually constructing the locomotives. In the 1880's the PRR created a Chemical Testing facility and by the early 1900's it was the largest, most significant industrial scientific research facility in the world. The PRR became nicknamed the "Standard Railroad of the World" because of its Testing Department. They used scientific principals to determine the most efficient and cost effective means to accomplish their goals. They ran locomotives on a dynamometer, or giant tread mill, with gauges and monitors attached to determine its strengths and weaknesses. They also tested oranges to see which produced the best tasting and highest quantity of juice. The reason was simple, they served orange juice on their dining cars every day and wanted the best. Their research was then published and made available to anyone interested in their work. They invested great sums of money and manpower into this department. As a result of their work, they set the standards for railroading around the world.
The Altoona Works were huge. Over 17,000 people worked in the shops at its peak. In a single day an army of workers in Altoona built 16 box cars, 10 gondolas, 2 cabooses, and 10 freight cars; repaired 4 passenger and 16 freight cars and rebuilt 6-10 steam locomotives. In 1 month they built 20 new steam locomotives. From 1934-1942 the shops turned out 23,000 freight cars and cabooses, equivalent to a 175 mile long train. During the first one hundred years of the PRR there were approximately of a million freight cars constructed in Altoona and other PRR shops, enough to stretch 1,956 miles, twice the distance from New York to Chicago. Altoona produced 6,700 locomotives, which is over three times the number of stars that can be seen by the naked eye on a clear night. (Astronomers say the average number that can be seen in Central PA is 2000) No other railroad came close in terms of production.
The PRR was important in all of our nation's wars. Many of the PRR administrators served in the cabinet and other areas of Lincolns government during the Civil War. Their expertise in operating railroads was important in the outcome of the war. In WWI the federal government took over all the railroads until the war was over. The PRR helped moved many of our troops and much of our equipment and supplies. When WWII started, the federal government did not take them over, but they did require that the railroads do all they could to keep the country's war effort moving. They were not allowed to expand or improve their operations during this time and it hurt the PRR. While other railroads had invested in diesel locomotives in the 1920's and 1930's, the PRR stayed with steam because they had done so much research and invested so heavily in steam locomotion. Diesels run more efficiently, require far fewer people to operate and are more cost effective. With the advent of war they were forced to run their steam equipment into the ground while other railroads managed better with diesel engines. When the war was over in 1945 the PRR was in bad shape.
The PRR was the largest railroad and the most successful corporation in world history. They gave a dividend (profit) to their shareholders every year for over 100 consecutive years. No company has ever been able to match this success. For many years the President of the PRR was considered more powerful than the President of the United States. The budget for the PRR was larger than that of the U.S. government and they employed approximately 250,000 workers.
Altoona was important to the PRR and to the nation. To highlight this, the German government sent saboteurs to the United States in WWII. Eight men were given the assignment to destroy/sabotage 12 key industrial sites. The Altoona shops, Horseshoe Curve and Gallitzin Tunnels were on their list. Fortunately, they were captured before they could carry out their mission. Of the eight, six were executed and two imprisoned for life.
During all of this time the railroads around the country had become arrogant and their business practices made a lot of people angry. Everyone from farmers to factory operators were upset with how the railroad's "bullied" smaller companies and people. After WWII, the government responded by strengthening regulations to control how the railroads operated. These regulations were so hard on the railroads that they almost went out of business. Instead of working with the railroads, the federal government invested money in building a national interstate highway system, airports in most of our nations larger cities and in other forms of mass transportation. The PRR experienced financial difficulties and merged with their competitors, the New York Central Railroad, in 1968, to form the Penn Central Railroad. This merger did not work. The federal government merged the Penn Central and many smaller Northeastern railroads and created Conrail in 1976. The federal government then began to relax its regulations and Conrail eventually became a success story and turned a profit a few years later. In June, 1999, Conrail was bought out and split up between the CSX and Norfolk Southern Railroads. Norfolk Southern took over most of the Pennsylvania territory.
The PRR has a rich and wonderful history. No industry in the history of the world has had a more important impact on the progress of man than railroading. The PRR led much of the way and its legacy lives on in NS and CSX. The millions of railroaders that worked for the PRR and other railroads over the past century and a half have played one of the most important roles in making this nation and world what it is today.