Happy Birthday PP!
This is a photo (postcard) from Paris showing the train accident the 22nd october 1895 at Gare de Montparnasse. Click on the photo for a bigger sized photo.
Below is a part of my old matchbox collection, I found these when I was rummaging around in our basement store this spring and kept them til your birthday! Are these real locomotives that has existed or just somebodys fantasy?
Hugs and love from Sweden!
EH
The tender of that crashed locomotive sits in a rather tender situation... Did anybody get badly hurt or killed? Did the engineer jump off before they crashed? Reminds me of the crash at Union Station in Washington, DC.
ReplyDeleteThose matchboxes are cool - are they from Sweden?
I meant 'tender moment' :)
ReplyDeletejust posted a long comment, and I have reached the decision:
ReplyDeleteI give up on the HTML links!
Just add the links as they are, they don't have to clickable. We can copy and paste. :)
ReplyDeleteWe do want your comments!
OK, it doesn't work - if the link is long it cuts off the last part.
ReplyDeletePP sorry to hear about your comment disappearing, I would have wanted to read it. I had the same thing happening to me yesterday, cause unknown. Do you know if there ever were locomotives like the ones on the matchbox pictures?
ReplyDeleteThe matchboxes are from Italy I think, but i´m not sure.
EH
The one locomotive looks very much like Stephenson's "Rocket", but it says "America"??
ReplyDeleteThe Rocket was one of the very first locomotives ever built
Rocket
The "America 1828" probably is about the start of railroading in America.
ReplyDelete"JULY 4, 1828, MARKED THE BEGINNINGS of American railroading... " according to the book Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1828-1965 (Hardcover)
by Mark Aldrich (Author)
Why they have chosen that locomotive for this, I have no idea.
I have now learned a little bit more about american train history, the first assembled american locomotive was the "Best Friend of Charleston". This had a year after its start (1831)the first boiler explosion in American history. There is more to read in Wikipedia if somebody is interested.
ReplyDeleteThis is yhe first american built locomotive the Tom Thumb. A replica exist in US. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
EH (who is googling)
Maybe they didn't have google when they made these matchboxes, so they couldn't get their facts straight? :)
ReplyDelete