Pennsylvania Railroad - Sepia

Title

Pennsylvania Railroad - Sepia

Artist

David Hinds

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

Photo of a vintage Pennsylvania Railroad sign in my collection. The rare, circa 1900 RR sign would have been set out at the different stations giving patrons an indication of destination cities. The sign is double sided. Below is some historical info on the PRR.

The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR) (or Pennsylvania Railroad Company and also known as the "Pennsy") was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was so named because it was established in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The PRR was the largest railroad by traffic and revenue in the U.S. for the first half of the 20th century. Over the years, it acquired, merged with or owned part of at least 800 other rail lines and companies.[1] At the end of 1925, it operated 10,515 miles of rail line;[2] in the 1920s, it carried nearly three times the traffic as other railroads of comparable length, such as the Union Pacific or Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroads. Its only formidable rival was the New York Central (NYC), which carried around three-quarters of PRR's ton-miles.

By 1882 it had become the largest railroad, the largest transportation enterprise, and the largest corporation in the world. With 30,000 miles of track, it had longer mileage than any other country in the world, except Britain and France. Its budget was second only to the U.S. government.[3] The corporation still holds the record for the longest continuous dividend history: it paid out annual dividends to shareholders for more than 100 consecutive years.[4]

In 1968, PRR merged with rival NYC to form the Penn Central Transportation Company, which filed for bankruptcy within two years.[5] The viable parts were transferred in 1976 to Conrail, which was itself broken up in 1999, with 58 percent of the system going to the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), including nearly all of the former PRR. Amtrak received the electrified segment of the Main Line east of Harrisburg.

New York-St. Louis
In 1890, the PRR gained control of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, itself the merged product of numerous smaller lines in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Commonly called the Panhandle Route, this line ran west from Pittsburgh to Bradford, Ohio, where it split, with one line to Chicago and the other to East St. Louis, Illinois, via Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1905, the acquisition of the Vandalia Railroad gave the PRR access across the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri.[8]

Double-tracked for much of its length, the line served the coal region of southern Illinois and as a passenger route for the Pennsylvania Railroad's Blue Ribbon named trains The St. Louisan, the Jeffersonian, and the Spirit of St. Louis.[18] - courtesy Wikipedia

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June 30th, 2019

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