From the mountains to the underground. Here are four postcards which show successive modifications made to the original design of the CPR's Banff Hotel over the years. The message side of the first card appears first so it clears the links at the right. Even though the message sides are less interesting than the picture sides - you can get information on the postcard's origin and other details from them.
Perhaps this image may contain the original form of the hotel. Van Horne famously went out to the site during construction because he had the understanding that the builders were in the process of orienting the building 180 degrees from the intent of its design - i.e. showing the 'wrong views' on the 'wrong side'.
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The 'Tally Ho' is on its way to the station.
The fir trees are remarkably unchanged from the first image.
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Here is a 'growing pains' photo - between the complex's original and modern appearance.
Notice the large power plant stack at the left.
Whether the fuel was coal or oil, you can imagine that moving fuel from the Banff siding to the power plant would have kept someone quite busy.
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The view above looks roughly south-east from the small mountain shown on the topographic map below.
I think that low peak has had around five different names over the years.
In 2021, it was officially renamed with a more modern sensibility.
This is perhaps not the newest card of the five you have seen.
Notice the CPR line, station, and the heated water tank along the lower border of the photo.
(Westbounds would be moving to the right.)
The mountain mentioned is to the east of the switchback road up to that ski lodge.
After a trip to Lake Louise and Banff, I purchased a number of these maps to understand the railway and local features better.
Thinking again of Van Horne, notice famous 'Tunnel Mountain' which JHE Secretan was told to avoid.
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| Government of Canada topographic map, Scale:1:50,000; Sheet: Banff. 1981. |
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The Bonus Card ...
Sometimes souvenir cards are used for local correspondence?
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from: John Ruth (via Jim Christie)
That's still down there under NYC City Hall. There are occasional tours.
The track is used to "turn" empty trains, so the public never sees this station.
There are a couple of disused subway stations in NY, and stubs of never-completed extensions. The Hoyt-Schermerhorn station in Brooklyn has platforms which have never been used.
There was once a plan to tunnel under The Narrows to connect Staten Island into the main subway system. Some work was done, but it was mostly backfilled when the Verrazano Narrows Bridge was constructed. A stub tunnel still exists under a park in Brooklyn.
from: Paul Brezny (via Jim Christie)
I have not seen that postcard. Rafael Guastavino, whose company did the tile work, had an estate in Black Mountain, NC, 15 miles east of Asheville. I am a Guastavino nut and download everything I can find if his work. He is in a crypt in the Basilica of St. Lawrence in Asheville.
https://www.romanticasheville.com/basilica.htm
I was stationed on Governors Island 1959 - 60. Nice map. So many RRs had their own piers for car floats from New Jersey.
Thanks to Jim Christie for passing on the additional information comments regarding this post!
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The source map for the extract below is about 14 inches by 20 inches.
The map was drawn before the High Line Viaduct (1933-1980) was built by the New York Central.
If you locate Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan ...
the City Hall subway station loop is under the next green space to the north.
Wall Street is midway between these two locations.
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| from: Descriptive-Historical Industrial Review of New York; 1912; George F Cram Chicago/New York. |