The Connoquenessing Valley Railroad is set in late 1948 West-Central Pennsylvania. Having been only 9 years old at that time, for details of daily life, some things I remember very clearly, some things only vaguely and some things not at all.
As a simple example, I think stop signs were yellow and black back then but I’m not certain.
When we are seeking lineside details, there are lots and lots of books and articles available but not, in my experience, general information including photos of the details of life in general.
Short of buying up bags and bags of magazines of the period, particularly periodicals such Life and Look that include lots of photos, are there books that any of you can recommend to give me the information I need?
I picked up a few copies of National Geographics from 1946-1948 at a nearby used bookstore. These are useful because they also include lots of advertisements that can be adapted to billboards, etc, but what I’m seeking is far more photos in one book.
There were a number of government sponsored photography projects carried out during the 1930’s, documenting everyday life in the US. Many of the pics were in color from the late thirties. I’m not sure, but many of them may be available online (Library of Congress?) and I think there have been books published including the pics. I have one (which of course I can’t recall the name of right now[%-)]) that compiled railroad-related pics from the projects.
Due to the Depression and then World War 2, there wasn’t that much new construction during that time, so many details from the late thirties would be the same in 1948.
…and yes, the stop sign deal has come up a couple of times. They were yellow and black until they started to change to red and white in about 1954.
Bill, Check out Shorpie.com There are a lot of great old photos there, and many of them deal with railroads of the period you’re interested in. Thankfully, many are in color. Gregg
Dave’s Electric Trains has hundreds of pictures of every major traction company in the United States with most of them covering the twi decades for the 20 years of 1940 - 1960. You will find city lines, as well as interurbans, each with surroundiung period buildings, trackside details, and scenery.
For example, Johnstown Traction Company, located in Westcentral Pennsylvania, has quite extensive coverage - JTC had the largest PCC fleet in the USA for “a small city.” The website pictures range from the red cars of Pacific Electric to Pittsburgh to Leigh Valley Transit to the Connecticut Company.
I don’t know if it’s possible in your area, but maybe a local news paper or two could help. I have a friend that had checked with his paper for photos for a project. He said it was a gold mine of info. He got copies for a small fee. Often, reporters take many pictures and only use want is neccessary. And the rest is arcived.
One thing to keep in mind is there would be more old automobiles than you might find in other times. No autos were produced during WW2, and car sales hadn’t been that great during the Depression. People hung on to cars and kept them operating as best they could. I know my Dad drove his “straight 8” Packard from the thirties well into the 1950’s.
Regarding the stop sign and similar issues, keep in mind that in those days the individual states all had their own, often different standaards. While there where yellow and black stop signs in some states, red and white ones do go back well into the thirties or before.
Only a local resource is going to tell you what was used in your area. Traffic signs and highway markings did not become well standardized until the early 60’s.
Get a copy of O. Winston Link’s “Last Steam Railroad”. Its a little more recent than 1948 bu still very close and has lots of excellent atmosphere shots.
Look in antique malls for books on sign collecting. They have many pictures of signs, most in color and many have dates.
An invaluable resource for clear and well preserved color photos of ordinary scenes from the era you seek is the famous Cushman archive at Indiana University, which fortunately can be accessed via the internet
I chose “Pennsylvania” as a search term and came up with 48 items but there is of course no real reason to so limit your search to just Pennsylvania. Almost every picture in the archive is relevant to you!
Morning Sun books for railroads of the area are also a great resource for early color – look beyond the trains to the roads, structures, and other surrounding scenes.
Frankly a careful search of Google Images comes up with astounding stuff that people have chosen to post. Who would have thought for example that Avoca Pennsylvania would have such thorough documentation as this:
Sometimes cities, towns, local churches, historical societies, and small town libraries have posted amazing stuff on their websites. Google Images is the best way I know to look for it. Google Images also lets you look at their Life magazine archive:
Sounds like you are modeling Butler County/City, Pa. Yes, at least in Pa the stip signs were painted yellow and the letters, etc. where black. Pa. did not use yellow striping on the roads and there were no white stripe at the edge of the road. The center line were painted white, dashed for passing and solid for no passing. Also Pa. didnot use the signs show the begining and ending of a passing zone.
As you drove north on state route 8 you would reach Lyndora, Pa. (Named I believed after a daughter of Pullman) to the left, east you would see the Armco works. In 1948 the buildings were in bad shape, they redid it I think in the mid '50’s. The C&O had a fairly large yard there, still in use but not C&O. As you went around a bend you would come upon the Pullman works. They made and believe repaired freight cars there and also had a yard. Trinity took over from Pullman but believe it is now closed.
If you researched Butler County, Butler City, Lyndora all in Pa., Armoco and Pullman I am sure that you would be able to find excellant photos of the area.
Interesting note. Bantam cars were made in Butler and designed the Jeep. There cars were small and the company was small. The government accepted the Jeep but gave Willys the prime contract and Bantam went belly up [sigh] Hopes this helps some
About those Yellow Stop Signs: I remember one of those when i was a kid on Long Island. It was the only one I ever saw,and I always liked stuff that was older than normal. The sign was Yellow with black letters and had reflective"cats eyes" to aid in seeing it at night. I`ve since seen photos of this type of sign.
I also remember a really old “Fisk-time to retire” Bill board type thing with a figure of a child in his jammies Holding a tire. It was lighted for night viewing. This was in the sixties,and I bet it was from the 20s-30s.
That thing would be great on a lay-out.
When I was young I always had landmarks of things like this to look at when riding in the car with my parents.
Not only is it closed, it went from claiming to be the world’s largest building before the Pentagon was built to world’s largest concrete pad. There is literally nothing left except a field.
In my memory, all that thats the pad was Pullman. I even remember when the sawtooth front said PULLMAN and STANDARD across it. The buildings north and that shopping center were all under the pullman roof at one point, but that was before me. I also remember those two parallel rows of footings next to the main road there were a huge overhead crane.
one last word on yellow stop signs: i recall visiting my mom for christmas 1958 (she lived in vancouver, washington) and was surprised to see a yellow -and -black stop sign where the alley behind her place joined the main street. this kind of puts an end to the yellow era, as we had all become used to the red - and - white variety.
Since you appear to be interested in detailing to the level of how people lived in the 1948 PA environment, may I suggest the Resselaer (Polytechic Institute) Railroad Heritage Project which offers on-line membership. I haven’t joined yet (recent home buyer stateside after 26 years working in Europe for DoD). However, somewhere in one of many not-yet-unpacked boxes I have a 10-to-15-year-old two-volume print project of the RPI railroad club (set in 1947 upstate NY) whose beautiful layout has been featured in several model railroading magazine articles over the years. This monstrous tome primarily discusses freight cars of the late steam era in detail, standard cars plus variants and signature cars by prototype railroad, and what models match which actual classes owned by specific railroads (and which common models have no prototype at all!) - but it also goes very deeply into period details ranging widely from signage (including road signs such as the yellow stop signs, road markings, even Burma Shave roadside jingles!), to architecture styles (of homes (city and rural), businesses, public buildings, places of worship, etc., especially in the Northeast), road construction and garbage collection, farm equipment (power, animal, and hand), even down to the clothing worn by different classes of people! From what they show on their public web pages, I am sure their members-access pages would have a great level of detailed information of interest to you. Their website is http://railroad.union.rpi.edu/index.php . Caveat - given what they list just in the index to “Guide to Scenery Details,” you could wind up spending many hours at the computer as you research deeper and further . . . Good luck and have fun! Dave
hello dave: thanks for the tip but first, even in canada i’m spending a lot of money on health problems so i can’t afford the monthly membership fees for the NEB&W, and second, when you get to that book you’ll find a bubch of corrections in the wood boxcar section that i submitted back in 1994. actually i’d probably be a good resource for 1948 research as i was a high-school junior in dallas, texas, then and a member of a club that met at bobbye hall’s house. i’d lived in chicago, new york, asheville NC, helena MT, des moines, and owatonna MN by then, plus summers in lloydminster, alberta/saskatchewan, so i’d experienced quite a variety of environments. my home layout is in limbo as i can’t crawl under it any more to fix some wiring problems, but i still build a few freight car kits - about 6 a year, and operate as a visitor on two big club layouts, one in edmonton alberta and the other in guadalajara jalisco. regards art hamilton. PS somebody sent me a pdf file of rhw instruction sheet i needed but i can’t get it to enlargs to readability!
I grew up in Compton, California in the 1940’s, and I remember seeing a stop sign in about 1948 or 1949 at the intersection at the end of our block that was about two feet square, mounted on a wooden post and turned 45 degrees so that it some what resembled a diamond. The signs background was white porcelain and I believe that it had a narrow black border that was about two inches in from the edge around the perimeter. Horizontally across the center was the word, STOP. Even at that time I thought that it was very unusual, that’s why I still remember it.
Look at this URL for 14,500 color photos from the Charles Cushman Collection now available on the Indiana University’s website. There are color photos from 1938 to 1969 taken as Kodachrome slides. The colors are still very stable and one can browse by location, type etc.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/p?pp/fsaall:@filreq(@field(COLLID+fsac)+@field(COLLID+fsac))::SortBy=CALL