The question about the photo is not a matter of what actually happened in making the photo, but what the photo depiction is intended to represent. So you have to look at this photo through the eyes of the general public seeing it presented to them as an advertisement for rail travel circa 1900.
They will instantly realize that having a well-dressed young woman at the throttle of a passenger locomotive with the engineer at her side obviously coaching her is an anomaly.
They are not going to conclude that this was a depiction of an engineer-for-the-day event set up as official company policy. Likewise they are not going to conclude that this photo was made to represent a woman posing with the engineer on a stationary locomotive just to make it look like she is driving the train (even though that was probably what actually occurred in the making of the photo).
With no other explanation the photo naturally leads to the conclusion that this photograph shows a woman being given the opportunity to run the locomotive under the supervision of the engineer.
In 1903, the public perceived the engineer to be the owner of the train, and they would not have questioned his authority to allow the woman to run the locomotive. The company had to know that this would be the way the public would see it because they were the ones actually sending the message.
Today, the public does not perceive the engineer to be such an exclusive personal representative of the company. So an image of this type today would immediately raise a red flag of rules violation, safety risk, and illegitimate activity unless the image was accompanied with a satisfactory explanation.
I think that is the difference between today and 1903 that explains the context of the photograph.
Bucyrus, to say that the public viewed the engineer as the owner of the train in 1903 is almost an understatement. Yes, they thought he owned the train, was lord and master of the iron horse, but they also figured the hogger to be the first assistant to the president of the road, if not the president himself! A railroad engineer was the pinnacle of the American labor pool, no mere mortal but rather Zeus on steel wheels and rails, the equivelant of a super rock star in our society of today.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
I just see this picture as a rather whimsical metaphor for "Trust us. We'll take good care of you." Sort of like saying that you're in good hands with a certain insurance company.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Paul of Covington I just see this picture as a rather whimsical metaphor for "Trust us. We'll take good care of you." Sort of like saying that you're in good hands with a certain insurance company.
Probably the simplist and most correct assessment.
And only the rails amongst you have hinted at what's really going on in the engineer's mind......
Couldn't figure out how to post a pic so I had to make it my avatar...please note pic of Miss Phoebe Snow ahead of the engineer in the Lackawanna Camelback circa 1910. The pic is from the DL&W archives at Syracuse University and was published in an Easton-Allentown newspaper this week. Though captioned as having been taken in Scranton, I would venture it could have been anywhere on the DL&W during that publicity shoot. There is a wonderful group of pictures taken at Denville, NJ on track 2 on the Boonton Line at the station in which Phoebe is posed upon and alongside the engine...so.... if only because it is my hometown...I have a gut feeling the pic here was shot at Denville and not Scranton. However, that all being said, it is an example of how, at the time, railroads learned to use the femanin figure to grace their publicity and advertising to catch the eye of the populace about the cleanliness and friendliness of railroading as the mode of travel...just do in on my railroad.
henry6 Couldn't figure out how to post a pic so I had to make it my avatar...
Couldn't figure out how to post a pic so I had to make it my avatar...
Got the URL for the site?
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Hell, Tree! I barely got the sense to get on here as is. URL, ahhh....mmmm.....errrr....aaahh, I know it's an internet term but don''t reckon I really know what it means. Is that the newspaper's web address?
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
Go to the website where you found the image and then click in the address box at the top of the window. The whole line of text there should change to a light color text on a dark background, (indicating that it is "Selected"... if it doesn't "highlight" that way, then click at the extreme left and hold down the mouse button and move the mouse to the other end to select the whole of the text).
Then press and hold down the "Ctrl" key and type the character "C" to copy that text to your "Clipboard". Then start a new reply to this thread.
Type something like, "Here is the URL where I found the image:", and type the "Enter" key.
Then press and hold down the "Ctrl" key and type the character "V" to paste the content of the "Clipboard" into the reply.
Then type the "Enter" key and any closing message you wish.
And post the reply as usual.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Here is the picture! I'm not sure I did what you said, Semper, but I done did it! Thanks!
The DL&W did run a photographer/publicity train ca 1910 with the company photographer and Miss Phoebe Snow. Most of the shots I've seen from that shoot were taken at Denville on what we called Track 2 or the station track on the Boonton Line. There is even a postcard from this shoot taken from across the parking lot with Miss Phoebe perched on the cow catcher! Of course, this was a marketing/advertising program promoting clean antracite coal which was burned in Lackawanna steam engines assuring "Phoebe's gown stays white from day to night, riding the Road of Anthracite!" The Depression caused the raliroad to use whatever coal it could get and was cheaper, and so they returned to bituminious (they never really gave it up, just didn' t use it on crack passenger trains) which burned black and sooty into the 50's (ahhh, I remember the smell and the darkness that hung over the yard and neighborhood with the passage of each train...incidently, the neighborhood being right behind and to the left in the picture posted).
So we see the DL&W and CN&W both used female forms nuzzled up to the engineer to assure the traveling ladies that train travel could be both safe and clean. DId any other railfoads...and the Harvey Girls don't count...use the same concept with woman in cabs and otherwise riding the rails so securly?
Wonderful picture Henry!
Excerpt from The Inland Printer (1897)
ARTISTIC RAILROAD ADVERTISING.
The advertisement of today must be out of the ordinary, something besides commonplace, to attract attention and bring business. The stereotyped form of railroad advertisement in which the statement was made that a certain road was "the shortest and only line " between two points, and illustrated by a map, has had its day. Something a little more up-to-date is what roads have been compelled to adopt. No road has made more decided advancement in its advertising methods than the Chicago & Alton Railroad. The half-tone illustration shown herewith is one of its most recent productions, is being used in many of its ads, and has created marked attention. The picture was introduced first by James Charlton, General Passenger and Ticket Agent of the road, in the 1896-1897 Hot Springs advertising of the company. The illustration is copyrighted, and is reproduced by The Inland Printer by the special permission of Mr. Charlton. The lady is Mrs. Edna Wallace Hopper, wife of De Wolf Hopper, the celebrated comic opera star, the arrangement and design being by Dudley Walker, District Passenger Agent of the Chicago & Alton, who has charge of the advertising department. Mrs. Hopper accorded Mr. Walker a special sitting for the picture in one of the luxurious cars of the company...The Chicago & Alton is certainly to be congratulated upon its success in securing public attention by means of such an artistic and original picture.
Excerpt from Recreation, January 1903
The Chicago & Alton railway has issued a beautiful little book entitled "People You Meet in the Dining Car." Dudley Walker, the advertising manager of the Alton, is a genius, and is always getting up something new and novel; but in this case he has outdone himself. He has produced here some real gems of the photographer's art and some exceedingly bright bits of text to accompany them. The picture of the girl on page 11 is alone worth the price of a ticket from Chicago to St. Louis, yet you can get the whole book by writing a request for it on a postal card and mentioning Recreation.
Excerpt from Railway and Locomotive Engineering, March 1903
Mr. Dudley Walker, of the Chicago & Alton, Chicago, has got out a neat little railroad picture, about 7 x 9 inches, called "Her First Run." It represents a charming girl sharing the engineer's seat in the cab, she holding the notched up reverse lever, while he has his hand on the throttle. It may be that a hymeneal "coupling" will be made later on, but in the picture the right of way occupies the attention of both. Mr. Walker will be happy to dispose of these pictures at 25 cents each.
From human life at its very height. Pictures the joy of living: breathes with American spirit. The successful blending of girlish grace and masterful strength.
The way to own one of these beautiful art photographs, which are not process reproductions but are 7 x 9½ inch photographs mounted on double mats, worthy of and ready for framing, is to send 25 cents in coin together with the name of the publication in which you read this advertisement to Dudley Walker, 506 Monadnock Building, Chicago, Illinois. On the back of the mat an eyelet is provided so that "Her First Run" may be immediately hung without further inconvenience or expense.
Excerpt from Current Advertising, July 1902
Mr. Walker is the District Passenger Agent and Advertising Agent of the Chicago & Alton Railway, whose excellent work is receiving a great deal of merited notice. He entered the railway business in 1887 and has successively been junior clerk in the General Passenger Office of the C. B. & Q. Railroad at Chicago, ticket agent of the same road at Chicago, and advertising agent of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway, and since 1892 has occupied his present position.
Excerpt from The Fourth Estate, May 11, 1918
Dudley Walker, former advertising agent of the Chicago & Alton Railroad, who for several years past has conducted an advertising agency in Chicago which made a specialty of railroad and steamship accounts, has closed his business (owing to Government control of transportation) and has left Chicago for the East to engage in agriculture until the end of the war.
Thanks, Wans...but don't worry, I will never equal you in the abiltiy to come up with the volumenous amounts of the right pics and graphs at the right time!
In my early days in news I learned from from a crusty old newpaper editor that the way to sell newpapers was with pictures of animals, kids, or women on the front page. And we all know that the same holds true in advertising. It is just the "pushing the envolope" syndrome has pushed so far since 1900! Look at the difference in the presentation of Phoebe Snow circa 1900 and then again 50 years later. Wonder what she'd look like today if she were needed to advertise a train from New York to Buffalo. You know, I hope we find out!
wanswheel,
Thanks so much for finding that background information. It really does place the photograph into context in a way that not only explains the mystery, but shows how deeply creative advertising agent, Dudley Walker was. Earlier, I postulated that this was a time so much different from today, that the strange whimsy of the photo is almost incomprehensible in today’s context.
I agree with Henry that women have always been used in advertising for their special effect, but the sheer playfulness of the way this was used; and the fact that it was used by a railroad company in particular, is truly amazing. And the Phoebe Snow icon likewise seems to tap into the same general vein, even though she was selling the cleanliness of anthracite as a specific and more tangible theme.
Mr. Walker summed it up best when he said:
“From human life at its very height. Pictures the joy of living: breathes with American spirit. The successful blending of girlish grace and masterful strength.”
Still I wonder who was the actual photographer of "The Fair Engineer?" Perhaps it was C.S. Jackson.
Excerpt from The Railway Age, February 7, 1902
C. S. Jackson has been appointed official photographer of the Chicago & Alton, and is attached to the passenger department. The line of his work will be somewhat different from that of photographers employed by other roads. It will be part of his duties to photograph terminal facilities, docks, freight equipment, freight platforms, scenery, passenger equipment, bridges, accidents, etc. The value of his services was demonstrated recently when a fire occurred in the union depot in Chicago. Within three hours after the occurrence the photographer presented to the officials photographs showing the full extent of the damage, and next day the officials of the Pennsylvania lines in Pittsburg received similar photographs. The photographer's principal work at this time will be in connection with the engineering and mechanical departments.
Excerpt from The World's Work - A History of Our Time (1902)
A NEW USE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY
A Western railroad has found a new use for photography. The road in question uses it as a substitute for written reports, whenever possible, and also not infrequently for tours of investigation. It conveys necessary information clearly and swiftly; it simplifies supervision. Any great undertaking may be superintended by the use of such a system. Indeed, it has already been found expedient to alter plans on the strength of information given by the photographic reports. The photographs tell what has been done better than any written description, and they constitute a continuous record of the progress made in structural undertakings.
In order to show the magnitude of the undertaking, the duties of the official photographer of the Chicago & Alton Railroad may be given, for the Alton, so far as known, is the first road to perfect a system, using it both in the constructing department and in the operating department. The bureau was established under the new plan November 1, 1901, and this was the work assigned to it:
For the engineering department -
1. A complete set of "progress pictures," taken at stated intervals, of all construction work along the right of way, including track-laying, filling, grading, ballasting, curve-eliminating, bridge-building, crossing-work, depot-building, shop-building, and culvert and subway construction.
2. A complete set of "progress pictures" of all work not along the right of way that is being done by, or for, the company. This includes reservoir construction and miscellaneous engineering work, such as the revetment along the Missouri River near Glasgow, Mo., to prevent the washing away of the roadbed.
3. A complete set of "progress pictures," showing the resources of the road in the way of crude building material and how they are used. A good illustration of this is a set of stone quarry pictures, beginning with the unquarried stone (that also shows the extent of the quarry) and carrying it through all the various changes until it is used for the road-bed or for buildings. The condition of quarries and gravel pits is also made the subject of periodical photographic reports.
For the operating department -
1. A complete set of photographs of every mile of the road, showing every curve, grade, crossing, side-track and switch.
2. A complete set of photographs of every signal plant on the line, showing each movement of signals.
3. A complete set of photographs of standard signs, which vary in shape according to the purpose for which they were erected, and thus may be recognized even when the wording can not be discerned. In addition to mile-posts, section-posts and whistling posts, these include signs for depots, crossings, yard limits, city limits and county lines.
4. A complete set of photographs illustrating the book of rules which governs the operation and protection of trains.
For the mechanical department -
1. A complete set of photographs of all classes of equipment and motive power.
2. "Progress pictures" of locomotives, cars, etc., that are being built, rebuilt or repaired.
3. Photographs showing changes and improvements in the shops.
For the legal department -
1. Photographs of the conditions after any wreck or other accident.
2. Photographs of the exact situation at any point where a legal controversy is likely to arise. In this connection it may be said that the legal department frequently has use for the pictures taken for other departments.
The official photographer obviously has no sinecure. He has the best possible equipment and the very best results are expected. Like the soldier, he must be always in readiness for marching orders. The use made of his results may be shown by that of the pictures taken of the Missouri River revetment work.
The revetment was made essential by the encroachments constantly made on the roadbed near Glasgow, Mo., by the eddying river. The Government tried ineffectually to protect the banks. The railroad then undertook the task, beginning with a photograph. This was to show the existing conditions, as a basis of comparison for the future. The photograph was dated. At regular intervals thereafter photographs were taken to show the progress made, until the work was completed. That these are of great value to the directors and other officials, to whom they are regularly submitted, will be easily appreciated; but they also have another value. The work, which involves weaving and sinking great mats that will hold together (and also hold the rock filling in place) under stress of any rush of waters, is most interesting to civil engineers and students, and even to laymen. The actual photographs show the details better than any diagrams or drawings, and a complete set of them already has been requested by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the students. In no other way except by watching the work, can so clear an idea be gained.
In the same way the record of the construction of a bridge or a depot or a culvert is kept, and when the undertaking is great enough to warrant it the photographs of the plans are later bound in a separate book. Thus they serve a double purpose: first, they keep the directors informed; second, they become a history valuable for reference in connection with any proposed changes later or any similar work in the future.
Over the Missouri River at the same town - Glasgow, Mo. - near which the revetment was done, was an old bridge, the first steel bridge of its kind to span such a river. A new and better one was desired; but traffic must not be interrupted. The old one was of three spans, with a long approach that was practically a two-span bridge in itself; the new approach was to be shorter and the new bridge longer, with four spans instead of three. Naturally the directors and all the high officials took a deep interest in the undertaking. Under former conditions occasional trips would have been made to the scene, but the photographic bureau made this unnecessary. The construction history of the bridge was always on file, and in addition photographic reports were made directly to the interested officials. To the query, "How's the bridge at Glasgow getting along?" an answer could be given by displaying a photograph and saying, "That was the status of affairs Thursday of last week." It had been customary, after written reports, to say, "Well, let's take a run out and look at the bridge itself." Now it is easier to have the bridge brought pictorially to headquarters. Furthermore, the work demonstrated that a photographic history of the construction of the old bridge would have helped in replacing it.
The photographs are of use as well in the matter of repairs. They elucidate plans and specifications; they give information showing where the work dragged and where it was rapid. In some instances they actually show methods, as in the case of the track elevation in Chicago, where the tracks were raised one at a time and a little at a time, until, when the task was half completed, they resembled a series of terraces or enormous steps. They answer the questions: "How was the task accomplished?" "How long did it take?"
So far, this railroad scheme is available for any large structural undertaking; it may soon be a regular feature of such enterprises. In Government affairs it might be of immense advantage, if properly systematized.
The other details of this railroad scheme, however, are not capable of such general application. They deal with the instruction of employees and the operation of trains. Every mile of the right of way is photographed, for one thing, in order that every employee may become reasonably familiar in advance with any new run to which he may be assigned. This makes the men more readily interchangeable than usual. Then the photographs of the standard signs and the interlocking signal stations and the photographs illustrating the book of rules are transferred to colored stereopticon slides and sent out with the instruction car. This is kept constantly moving over the road, and regular classes are held, with compulsory attendance of employees. The men are advised of every new development in motive power, every change (no matter how slight) in the right of way, and every detail in the operation of trains. In illustrating the book of rules alone, there are more than a hundred photographs, showing trains in every possible combination of circumstances; and the trainmen are informed what to do in each case. In examinations the slides show the position of trains or signals in certain instances, and the trainman is called upon to tell what, under the rules, he would do in each case. It is the best kind of instruction.
"This feature of the work," according to Mr. Dudley Walker, of the Chicago & Alton, "has proved invaluable in keeping the men constantly alive to the needs of the road and to their own opportunities. This alone is enough to warrant the maintenance of the photographic bureau. But in other respects the results have been all that were anticipated. The President inspects all photographs taken, each officer examines the pictures of his particular department, and any one else to whom they can be of any value may see them. We have found by experience that the photographic report frequently enables an officer, while sitting at his desk, to direct the work being done, order changes, remedy defects, and even to make new plans - in short, to take such personal supervision as would not be possible otherwise without frequent trips to the scene. Nothing else could give them so much information so clearly with so little loss of time."
The rest of the work of Mr. C.S. Jackson, the official photographer of the Alton, is more like what is done for all roads. In case of an accident it is his business to get to the scene at the earliest possible moment. The question of improved rolling-stock and other facilities for handling business is of so great interest to shippers that all roads see that they are duly enlightened by pictures. The same is true of scenery and anything else that has an advertising value. Mr. Jackson looks after all this, too; he has put a series of pictures illustrating the operation of a great railroad on stereopticon slides for the entertainment of the public. These are sent from place to place in a special lecture car, with a lecturer to explain them, and the cost is charged up to the advertising account.
Photographic advertising, however, is old. Systematic photographic reports are not. Their field is large.
Wow that really is something isn't it? Its almost unheard of nowadays. Well i don't really have the qualifications and I'm not a woman( girls do have a lot of fun!) but I wish I could do the same!!
I like your link, dylan. Women were in the cabs and doing a lot of things in European railroading back to 1900 I am led to believe. In America, the right hand side of the cab was not a woman's domain until maybe the early 80s (UPRR) if I recall but women did do hostling work and wiping in the steam era and especially during WWII but I don't recall hearing of any out on the road. Even subway and other electric MU operations kept women at bay until the most recent of times...say the last 15 or so years.
wanswheel Still I wonder who was the actual photographer of "The Fair Engineer?" Perhaps it was C.S. Jackson. Excerpt from The Railway Age, February 7, 1902 C. S. Jackson has been appointed official photographer of the Chicago & Alton, and is attached to the passenger department. The line of his work will be somewhat different from that of photographers employed by other roads. It will be part of his duties to photograph terminal facilities, docks, freight equipment, freight platforms, scenery, passenger equipment, bridges, accidents, etc. The value of his services was demonstrated recently when a fire occurred in the union depot in Chicago. Within three hours after the occurrence the photographer presented to the officials photographs showing the full extent of the damage, and next day the officials of the Pennsylvania lines in Pittsburg received similar photographs. The photographer's principal work at this time will be in connection with the engineering and mechanical departments. Excerpt from The World's Work - A History of Our Time (1902) A NEW USE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY A Western railroad has found a new use for photography. The road in question uses it as a substitute for written reports, whenever possible, and also not infrequently for tours of investigation. It conveys necessary information clearly and swiftly; it simplifies supervision. Any great undertaking may be superintended by the use of such a system. Indeed, it has already been found expedient to alter plans on the strength of information given by the photographic reports. The photographs tell what has been done better than any written description, and they constitute a continuous record of the progress made in structural undertakings. In order to show the magnitude of the undertaking, the duties of the official photographer of the Chicago & Alton Railroad may be given, for the Alton, so far as known, is the first road to perfect a system, using it both in the constructing department and in the operating department. The bureau was established under the new plan November 1, 1901, and this was the work assigned to it: For the engineering department - 1. A complete set of "progress pictures," taken at stated intervals, of all construction work along the right of way, including track-laying, filling, grading, ballasting, curve-eliminating, bridge-building, crossing-work, depot-building, shop-building, and culvert and subway construction. 2. A complete set of "progress pictures" of all work not along the right of way that is being done by, or for, the company. This includes reservoir construction and miscellaneous engineering work, such as the revetment along the Missouri River near Glasgow, Mo., to prevent the washing away of the roadbed. 3. A complete set of "progress pictures," showing the resources of the road in the way of crude building material and how they are used. A good illustration of this is a set of stone quarry pictures, beginning with the unquarried stone (that also shows the extent of the quarry) and carrying it through all the various changes until it is used for the road-bed or for buildings. The condition of quarries and gravel pits is also made the subject of periodical photographic reports. For the operating department - 1. A complete set of photographs of every mile of the road, showing every curve, grade, crossing, side-track and switch. 2. A complete set of photographs of every signal plant on the line, showing each movement of signals. 3. A complete set of photographs of standard signs, which vary in shape according to the purpose for which they were erected, and thus may be recognized even when the wording can not be discerned. In addition to mile-posts, section-posts and whistling posts, these include signs for depots, crossings, yard limits, city limits and county lines. 4. A complete set of photographs illustrating the book of rules which governs the operation and protection of trains. For the mechanical department - 1. A complete set of photographs of all classes of equipment and motive power. 2. "Progress pictures" of locomotives, cars, etc., that are being built, rebuilt or repaired. 3. Photographs showing changes and improvements in the shops. For the legal department - 1. Photographs of the conditions after any wreck or other accident. 2. Photographs of the exact situation at any point where a legal controversy is likely to arise. In this connection it may be said that the legal department frequently has use for the pictures taken for other departments. The official photographer obviously has no sinecure. He has the best possible equipment and the very best results are expected. Like the soldier, he must be always in readiness for marching orders. The use made of his results may be shown by that of the pictures taken of the Missouri River revetment work. The revetment was made essential by the encroachments constantly made on the roadbed near Glasgow, Mo., by the eddying river. The Government tried ineffectually to protect the banks. The railroad then undertook the task, beginning with a photograph. This was to show the existing conditions, as a basis of comparison for the future. The photograph was dated. At regular intervals thereafter photographs were taken to show the progress made, until the work was completed. That these are of great value to the directors and other officials, to whom they are regularly submitted, will be easily appreciated; but they also have another value. The work, which involves weaving and sinking great mats that will hold together (and also hold the rock filling in place) under stress of any rush of waters, is most interesting to civil engineers and students, and even to laymen. The actual photographs show the details better than any diagrams or drawings, and a complete set of them already has been requested by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the students. In no other way except by watching the work, can so clear an idea be gained. In the same way the record of the construction of a bridge or a depot or a culvert is kept, and when the undertaking is great enough to warrant it the photographs of the plans are later bound in a separate book. Thus they serve a double purpose: first, they keep the directors informed; second, they become a history valuable for reference in connection with any proposed changes later or any similar work in the future. Over the Missouri River at the same town - Glasgow, Mo. - near which the revetment was done, was an old bridge, the first steel bridge of its kind to span such a river. A new and better one was desired; but traffic must not be interrupted. The old one was of three spans, with a long approach that was practically a two-span bridge in itself; the new approach was to be shorter and the new bridge longer, with four spans instead of three. Naturally the directors and all the high officials took a deep interest in the undertaking. Under former conditions occasional trips would have been made to the scene, but the photographic bureau made this unnecessary. The construction history of the bridge was always on file, and in addition photographic reports were made directly to the interested officials. To the query, "How's the bridge at Glasgow getting along?" an answer could be given by displaying a photograph and saying, "That was the status of affairs Thursday of last week." It had been customary, after written reports, to say, "Well, let's take a run out and look at the bridge itself." Now it is easier to have the bridge brought pictorially to headquarters. Furthermore, the work demonstrated that a photographic history of the construction of the old bridge would have helped in replacing it. The photographs are of use as well in the matter of repairs. They elucidate plans and specifications; they give information showing where the work dragged and where it was rapid. In some instances they actually show methods, as in the case of the track elevation in Chicago, where the tracks were raised one at a time and a little at a time, until, when the task was half completed, they resembled a series of terraces or enormous steps. They answer the questions: "How was the task accomplished?" "How long did it take?" So far, this railroad scheme is available for any large structural undertaking; it may soon be a regular feature of such enterprises. In Government affairs it might be of immense advantage, if properly systematized. The other details of this railroad scheme, however, are not capable of such general application. They deal with the instruction of employees and the operation of trains. Every mile of the right of way is photographed, for one thing, in order that every employee may become reasonably familiar in advance with any new run to which he may be assigned. This makes the men more readily interchangeable than usual. Then the photographs of the standard signs and the interlocking signal stations and the photographs illustrating the book of rules are transferred to colored stereopticon slides and sent out with the instruction car. This is kept constantly moving over the road, and regular classes are held, with compulsory attendance of employees. The men are advised of every new development in motive power, every change (no matter how slight) in the right of way, and every detail in the operation of trains. In illustrating the book of rules alone, there are more than a hundred photographs, showing trains in every possible combination of circumstances; and the trainmen are informed what to do in each case. In examinations the slides show the position of trains or signals in certain instances, and the trainman is called upon to tell what, under the rules, he would do in each case. It is the best kind of instruction. "This feature of the work," according to Mr. Dudley Walker, of the Chicago & Alton, "has proved invaluable in keeping the men constantly alive to the needs of the road and to their own opportunities. This alone is enough to warrant the maintenance of the photographic bureau. But in other respects the results have been all that were anticipated. The President inspects all photographs taken, each officer examines the pictures of his particular department, and any one else to whom they can be of any value may see them. We have found by experience that the photographic report frequently enables an officer, while sitting at his desk, to direct the work being done, order changes, remedy defects, and even to make new plans - in short, to take such personal supervision as would not be possible otherwise without frequent trips to the scene. Nothing else could give them so much information so clearly with so little loss of time." The rest of the work of Mr. C.S. Jackson, the official photographer of the Alton, is more like what is done for all roads. In case of an accident it is his business to get to the scene at the earliest possible moment. The question of improved rolling-stock and other facilities for handling business is of so great interest to shippers that all roads see that they are duly enlightened by pictures. The same is true of scenery and anything else that has an advertising value. Mr. Jackson looks after all this, too; he has put a series of pictures illustrating the operation of a great railroad on stereopticon slides for the entertainment of the public. These are sent from place to place in a special lecture car, with a lecturer to explain them, and the cost is charged up to the advertising account. Photographic advertising, however, is old. Systematic photographic reports are not. Their field is large.
Wanswheel,
Thanks for finding and posting that information. That is an amazing account of how much C&A embraced photography in that early era. It sounds like they photographically documented every single detail of the physical plant including every mile of track, showing all the features including curves, grades, signals, grade crossings, switches, etc. I wonder if C&A was unique in this extensive application of photography, or if many or most roads did it.
I have done a lot of historical research on the Minneapolis & St. Louis RR, and learned that they had historical archives with phtotographs of nearly every piece of equipment, every building, bridge, track features, etc. Their photographs went all the way back to nearly the beginning in 1871. Unfortunately, it was all discarded as trash shortly after the C&NW bought them out in 1960. There were stacks and stacks of large format glass plate negatives that they threw away.
Now WHY didn't I think of this sooner? Know who that young woman is? Staci Jones!
Bucyrus, thanks for commenting and for starting this thread. -- Mike
Original caption: DON'T MOVE, DON'T BLINK! The world's largest camera was designed by George R. Lawrence, a pioneer photographer-inventor (standing by lens). Lawrence created the 1,400-pound monster (15 men were needed to operate it) after he received an order from the Chicago & Alton railroad for "a perfect contact picture not less than eight feet long" of one of the railroad's new trains. When the mammoth picture was exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1900, art authorities refused to believe that it was made from one negative.
Text from Chicago & Alton pamphlet, The Largest Photograph in the World of the Hansomest Train in the World.
http://www.pacificrimcamera.com/milanpub/Alton-Limited.pdf
HOW THE BIG PICTURE CAME TO BE TAKEN
During the summer of 1899, the workmen at the Pullman works, at Pullman, Ill., were busy building two trains, the plans for which differed materially from anything which they had hitherto worked upon. Like all work done in separate departments of a great manufactory, and then assembled and put together, it required the ensemble to demonstrate whether or not the trains would surpass anything which had heretofore been constructed. One afternoon in November the first completed car was wheeled out of the workshop and placed upon the storage tracks; later in the day another made its appearance, and during the succeeding week there rapidly followed ten more cars which, with the first two, were made into two complete trains of six cars each. Engines were attached, and the manager of the works, his master craftsman, and, practically, every workman in the shops turned out to witness the departure from Pullman of "The Alton Limited," to go into fast daylight service between Chicago and St. Louis on the Chicago & Alton Railway.
Thousands of cars and trains have been built at Pullman - from the equipment of little narrow gauge lines to luxurious private cars. At Pullman rolling palaces have been built for the rulers of the greatest nations of the earth, and equipment for display at international expositions has been constructed. Yet no trains which ever left the works attracted so much attention and elicited so marked a degree of approbation from the workmen-critics as the Alton Limited. This was because no railway train in the world had ever presented so uniform and symmetrical design. No train of cars had ever before been built with windows of the same size, shape, and style from mail car to parlor car; the cars in no train heretofore had all been mounted on standard six-wheel trucks; no former effort had been made to have every car in the train precisely the same length and height; and no railway, except the Alton Road, had ever caused the tender of its locomotives to be constructed to rise to the exact height of the body of the cars following; the hood of its locomotives to the exact height of the roofs of the cars. This gave a fascinating beauty to the train - carrying out of the principal features with classic regularity - the absolute unity of detail from cow-catcher to observation platform. Indeed this was what created, and impelled, the idea to obtain a photograph of the 'Limited' sufficiently large to readily impress the public with the train's uniform conformation.
Mr. Geo. R. Lawrence, the Chicago & Alton's photographer, who had previously taken some very large photographs of the "Alton's" new standard passenger locomotives, was called into conference. At first Mr. Lawrence's opinion was that the train would have to be photographed in sections and these sections fitted together during the process of printing, an ordinary method which, however, does not preserve the absolute truthfulness of perspective, and, indeed, shows the joints no matter how carefully the different sections are blended together. The Chicago & Alton, however, had built a faultless train of which they demanded a faultless photograph, insisting that in length the picture must not measure less than eight feet.
Some time elapsed between the first conference with Mr. Lawrence and that gentleman's second visit, but in the interval the photographic possibilities of the nineteenth century had been reached and passed, for the photographer presented plans for a camera to photograph The Alton Limited on a single plate, 8 x 4½ feet - which is three times as large as the largest plate ever before exposed.
It should be distinctly understood that this, the largest camera in the world, was built expressly to photograph The Alton Limited, Mr. Lawrence being given a free hand by the Chicago & Alton Railway.
It took two and a half months to build the big camera, in regard to which the following data will prove interesting:
The mammoth camera was designed and built in Chicago. It is finished throughout in natural cherry, and at the top of the back part of the camera is a small track upon which two focusing screens are moved back and forth like a sliding door. These focusing screens are made of semi-transparant celluloid stretched across the frames. The bed, which is composed of four 2 x 6 inch cherry beams, is about twenty feet long when fully extended. The camera has double swing front and back.
The bellows is made of an outside covering of heavy rubber, each fold being stiffened by a piece of veneered whitewood one-fourth of an inch thick; it is then lined inside by a heavy black canvas and an additional lining of thin black opaque material, thereby making it doubly light-proof. In the construction of this mammoth bellows over forty gallons of cement, two bolts of wide rubber cloth, and five hundred feet of one-fourth inch whitewood were used. The bellows is divided into four sections and between each section is a supporting frame mounted on small wheels, which run on a steel track; the back, supporting the plateholder, being operated as easily as an ordinary camera.
The plateholder is of the roller-curtain type. This curtain contains about eighty square feet of ash three-eighths inch thick, and is lined with three thicknesses of light-proof material. Over ten gallons of cement were used in the construction of this curtain, and it is mounted on a ball-bearing roller. Ball-bearing rollers are also mounted every two inches in the grooves in which the edge of curtain slides, thereby reducing the friction to almost nothing.
The weight of the camera is 900 pounds and the plateholder, when loaded, 500 pounds, making a total weight of 1,400 pounds.
In operation the camera is so constructed that after a long journey the plate may be dusted in a very unique manner. The holder is put in position, the large front board, or front door as it may be called, is swung open, the operator passes inside with a camel's-hair duster, the door is then closed and a ruby glass cap placed over the lens, the curtain slide is drawn and the operator dusts the plate in a portable darkroom, after which the slide is closed and he passes out in the same way as he entered.
The lenses, which are of the Carl Zeiss patent, were ground at great expense and trouble [by Bausch & Lomb Optical Co. of Rochester, N.Y.]. They are the largest photographic lenses ever made, one being a wide-angle lens five and a half feet equivalent focus and the other being a telescopic rectilinear lens of ten feet equivalent focus, the latter being the one used when taking the large photograph of The Alton Limited.
Early one morning last spring, an immense padded van drove up to the. Chicago & Alton's Station in Chicago, from it the giant camera was transferred to a Chicago & Alton flat car, and the start made for Brighton Park, at which point, distant about six miles from Chicago, the "first exposure" was made. The accompanying photographs illustrate the manner in which the camera was handled, set up, focused, and the picture taken, the operation requiring the services of no less than fifteen men.
The day was clear but a high wind was blowing, notwithstanding which, after an exposure of two and one-half minutes, on a full Cramer lsochromatic Plate (this special plate being used to preserve the color value of the train), a perfect negative was secured. The picture of the Alton Limited, on page 6 and 7, was reproduced, without the slightest "retouching" on the part of the engraver, from a platinum print from the negative obtained.
The first three prints were sent to the Paris Exposition. One of them was placed in the railway section, another was hung in the photographic section, while the third was accorded a place of honor in the United States Government Building, a liberality of exhibition privileges accorded to no other single exhibit in the entire Exhibition. The stir which the immense picture created in Paris is illustrated from the fact that affidavits were required before Exposition officials consented to label the exhibit, "The largest photograph ever made on one plate."
American Railway carbuilders sent no exhibition passenger trains to Paris, and, therefore, the immense picture of The Alton Limited was to visitors at the Paris Exposition what the exhibition English train was to Americans at the World's Fair in Chicago. And citizens of the land of the free, who viewed the big pictures in Paris, saw truthfully portrayed every improvement which time and invention have wrought in the rolling stock of their native land, and witnessed foreigners impressed with the beauty and practicability of car construction which is revolutionizing the equipment of railways throughout the world. Americans could be pardoned for the naturally proud feeling that America sent to the Exposition Universalle the largest photograph in the world of the handsomest train in the world.
This is a truly amazing thread. I second wanswheel's praise, and thanks to Bucyrus and henry6 and the others who posted. There is an amazing history here.
It surely goes to prove that one man's treasure is another's trash.
Hard to imagine the photo history disposed of by some in their rush to take over another line...
That is a stunning account of the giant Chicago & Alton Railway camera. It speaks of that characteristic railroad audacity of the era. Only a railroad company would decide that in order to get a seamless photograph of their entire new train, they needed a glass plate negative measuring 4 X 8 ½ feet, and a 1400-pound camera big enough to expose it.
That was a camera that required about 14 men to set up and operate, and was a camera large enough for one man to enter for the purpose of dusting the glass plate prior to exposure. The duster man was let in though a light proof door, and then, so he could see what he was doing, light was let into the camera through a red safe-light lens. In effect, it made the interior of the camera into a miniature darkroom.
Initially, I was curious about the mysterious advertising photograph of the engineer letting a young woman run the train. The background information posted by Mike on that photograph, and on the C&A’s embrace of the emerging photographic technology, including the giant camera, tends to fill in the blanks of the larger context behind the mysterious photo.
I wonder what other railroads of that era adopted photographic technology to the extent that C&A did. C&A used photography as a near real-time monitoring of their entire physical plant as it was constantly being rebuilt and improved.
With all those thousands and thousands of ultra high quality photographs taken of the C&A, I wonder how many of the images survive today. What happened to the ones that did not survive?
I know that the Smithsonian Institution has some of them.
It's a photo used in an advertisement - almost certainly staged by the ad department, and would quite naturally represent an idealized version of reality.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
cv_acr It's a photo used in an advertisement - almost certainly staged by the ad department, and would quite naturally represent an idealized version of reality.
True enough, but although today we still have trains and advertising, it would be unthinkable to create this ad today. The general public would call the police. Today, we are living in the decade of “Gotcha!”
David P. who wants a cab ride?
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