Do You Collect Engine Pictures?
A Flourishing Engine Picture Club.

Collecting engine pictures is a popular hobby of railroad employees and railroad “fans” everywhere. Each collector has his own preference: new or old motive power, electricity or steam, local or foreign. Some save all kinds of railroad views, including trains, stations, bridges, cars, snow ploughs, etc.

In New Zealand, perhaps the finest collection by a non-railway man is that of Mr. W. W. Stewart, of Auckland. Amongst the railway staff, keen enthusiasts personally known to us are Mr. E. S. Brittenden (now Acting-District Manager at Christchurch) and Mr. S. Fahey, of the Traffic staff at Featherston.

The International Engine Picture Club, sponsored by Railroad Man's Magazine, 280 Broadway, New York City, has several thousand members all over the globe. Its membership is free and not limited to readers of the magazine. No initiation fee, no dues. Each member is entitled to have his name and address published in the magazine without cost, together with information on the material he wishes to collect, buy, sell, exchange, paint or draw.

Among the members are Charles E. Fisher, President of the Railway and

A Modern American Locomotive Giant.
Timken high pressure roller bearing locomotive, built by the American Locomotive Co., New York. (Weight in working order, engine and tender, 711,500 Ibs.)

Locomotive Historical Society, Inc., who regards the club as of great value in encouraging railroad photography and preserving for posterity rare old pictures which might otherwise be lost.

One of the world's largest collections is possessed by Joseph Lavelle, 4615 Sixty-sixth Street, Winfield, Long Island, N.Y., who has more than 30,000 photographs of North American locomotives, all different. These include snapshots he made himself and those obtained from other collectors.

The field can be expanded to include pictures on old prints, fans, pottery, currency, postage stamps, etc. The Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue lists 160 stamps depicting steam locomotives, 12 picturing electric engines, and 38 which feature the inauguration of railways, besides 142 others pertaining to railroading either by an inscription or by use.

Altogether 352 railway postage stamps are listed. One of them—a U.S. Pan-American issue of 1901 with a train placed upside down by mistake—is catalogued at 2,700 dollars for a single copy! Another curiosity is a Guatemalan engine-picture stamp overprinted for air post service. Why a locomotive should be used in aviation is more than we can explain.