This amazing picture is taken from a postcard, which the seller identified as Chicago. The general consensus is that it’s Herald Square in Manhattan, with the 33rd St. station on the old 6th Avenue El, and that’s a streetcar powered by conduit.
Not every post has to have an over-arching theme. Today we offer a “Mulligan stew” of various pictures that interest us, in hopes they will have the same effect on you. (Mulligan stew was something hobos prepared. Anyone who wanted to eat had to put something into the pot.)
In golf parlance, to “take a Mulligan” means to get a do-over without penalty. How this term originated is not known, but perhaps you will be able to help us solve a few mysteries without needing more than one shot.
-David Sadowski
The next three images are from the Tipton Genealogy photostream on Flickr.
A Tipton interurban from the Indiana Union Traction of Indiana, June 29, 1909.
Indiana Railroad car 407, the “Winchester.” This heavyweight interurban was built by Cincinnati Car Co. in 1913 for the Union Traction of Indiana.
Indiana Railroad lightweight high-speed car 55 in Indianapolis on June 29, 1940. The Indiana state capital is in the background. This car survives at the Seashore Trolley Museum as Lehigh Valley Transit car 1030. Railfan George F. Kuschel (1910-2010), who took this photo, was originally from Michigan.
What a difference a year makes. The same car (but a different end), now restyled for LVT service on the Liberty Bell Limited in September 1941.
A turn-of-the-century view of Washington, D. C., showing how streetcars were powered by an underground conduit. From a glass plate negative.
DC streetcars at Washington Union Station, designed by Daniel Burnham. It opened in 1907. From a glass plate negative.
Before the invention of Kodachrome in the mid-1930s, sometimes the only way to tell what color some cars were painted is by looking at old postcards such as this one, showing the Lake Street “L” in Chicago.
A station along the Stockyards “L” branch in 1915. Note the use of signs to indicate where cars of different lengths should stop. Not sure how widespread this practice was at the time.
This old Chicago Daily News photo is identified as being at the end of a cable car route, where horses were used to move the cars around. However, the Chicago Auto Show is being advertised, which would help date this photo.
Not sure when this Chicago Surface Lines ticket dates from, but CSL only existed from 1914-1947 so that does narrow it down a bit.
A new 5000-series Chicago rapid transit car being delivered by truck in March 2015. (Diana Koester Photo)