Beschreibung:

Wonderful collection of nearly 300 silver gelatin photographs, most mounted in a scrapbook, 12 x 16 in., with black heavy paper pages. The silver gelatin photos within the scrapbook capture Wabash railroad engines, each with location and date written in white ink below the image. Dates range from 1933 to 1950 (most 1935-1947). The photos were taken in locations primarily in Indiana and Illinois, including Wabash (IN), Decatur (IN), Ft. Wayne (IN), Peru (IN), Moberly (IN), Hartman (IN), Benton (IN), Huntington (IN), Logansport (IN), Hartman (IN), Chicago (IL), Brisbane (IL), Sangamon (IL), Edwardsville (IL), Bluffs (IL), Landers (IL), Tilton (IL), Boody (IL), Brooklyn (IL), Springfield (IL), Toledo (IL), St. Louis (MO), Luther (MO), Hannibal (MO), and one from Niagara Falls, Ontario. The images mounted within the album range in size from 2.75 x 4.5 in. to 5 x 7.5 in. Most of the images focus on the engines themselves, but some capture engineers and operators in action. A highlight from the album is a shot of engine No. 2507 titled Scrap dock ready to be scrapped. March 8, 1951. In addition to the photos housed in the album, the collection includes 9 large format silver gelatin photographs, each mounted on board, measuring from 6 x 8 in. to 7.75 x 9.75 in. Six of these large format images capture train wrecks, many showing the aftermath of the wrecks, with workers surveying the damages while several onlookers are gathered around the wreckage. Two of the images provide a close-up view of the Wabash Wrecking Crane in action. Also included is a view of a dramatic wreck of the “Reading” Railroad taken in Decatur, IL, which involved a collapsed trestle, signed and dated in the negative Photo by Wasson Studios, Decatur Ill. 1912. A fine, outdoor group portrait taken at the Wabash Railroad Roundhouse turntable is also a highlight, and is titled in the negative Wabash R.R. Decatur, ILL, 2nd Trick Roundhouse, and is signed and dated Art & Emma. Wash. D.C., 4-2-(19)30. An additional outdoor view of employees of the Wabash Railway Freight House, as indicated by the sign in the background, is also included, and features inked identifications of each individual in the portrait on mount verso. This portrait is dated in ink April 1919. The final large format image in the collection captures an interior shot of employees of the Chief Dispatcher’s Office, Decatur Ill., as identified on mount verso. A wonderful highlight from the lot is a silver gelatin photograph of Wabash Engine No. 848, also referred to as the Wabash Hoodoo Engine, 3.5 x 5.75 in. The photograph is accompanied by a newspaper clipping that describes Engine No. 848: With a record of 16 men killed and scores of people injured during six years and a half on the road; twice blown up and a dozen times into the ditch, Wabash Engine No. 848 that jumped the rails near Thompson Station east of Centralia last Saturday killing engineer Jones and injuring a dozen passengers, is looked upon by trainmen as the “Hoodoo” of the Wabash system and every engine driver that pulls her throttle and sends her speeding down the track feels that he has taken his life in his hands and may never take another trip on the road, as printed in the Ledger of November 7, 1907, and taken from the Columbia Tribune. The 1951 article goes on to explain that Engine No. 848 had eleven deaths to her credit as of June 1951 and an explosion that had caused her boiler makers to transform her from a compound to a simple engine. She was the star actor in four wrecks, three ending in fatalities, including an explosion that destroyed her boiler a second time and killed the engineer, fireman, and brakeman. The article closes by stating: …trainmen along the Wabash are predicting it will be no easy matter to get a driver to sit in the cab and pull the throttle and a fireman to feed the furnace of this man-killer, the “Hoodoo” of Wabash. The collection also features an additional 26 silver gelatin photographs, which were most li