Nostalgia & History > Murals with railroad subjects

I always find it interesting to see murals with rail related subjects. I came across two of the last week.


1 - Piedmont, South Carolina

This mural was on the wall of an old textile mill. The mural is a good representation of the Piedmont & Northern depot that still stands about one half mile east of where the mural is in town. CSX still uses the tracks here to deliver coal to Duke Power's Lee Steam Plant in WIlliamston and interchange cars with the Greenville and Western at Pelzer. No steam locomotives ever were used on this line except maybe during its construction, this was an electric line. The artist must have been European, notice the bumpers.

2 - Donalds, South Carolina

This mural caught my eye, I like the way the smoke stack from the building was used! The Southern and the Piedmont and Northern both served Donalds, and both of the stations still exists. Also the short line (4 miles long), Due West railroad connected to the Southern at Donalds. The mural is located on the side of a building where SC 184 leave highway 178. This looks to be along the route that the Due West took to from Donalds to Due West to take the students to Erskine College. The depot in Due West still stands today. THe locomotive on the mural does not look like a Southern one, or one of the two that was used by the Due West Railroad. My research on the Due West locos shows that there were two of them, an 0-6-0 built by Glover, and an 0-4-4T, ex New York Elevated Railway, builder unknown. The P&N was an electric railway.

Tom Daspit
Morgan Hill, CA
Tom's Trains

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Here are three murals that I've discovered in various travels...

Photo #1 - Mural on the Big Well building in Greensburg, Kansas.

Photo #2 - Virginia City, Nevada. This gal was giving it a protective coating.

Photo #3 - On a cinder block wall at Canon City, Colorado.

Reb Stout
Anaheim, California

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I didn't want to post any copywrited pictures , but there's plenty here:
http://cencalrails.railfan.net/rrmurals.html

Exeter, CA with the Visalia Electric. E-town has several other murals throughout downtown.


TCS - found the BL-20-2 ... in b-town

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I know of a couple others that may still be there (no photos from me though)...

I believe it was near Gilroy, Ca. where there's a large mural of the SP Daylight.

Downtown Pleasanton has a mural that shows some old scenes of the downtown area including a train. I believe the building is on Ray St. near Main St.

Don't have it scanned, but I shot one in Plant City FL, about a block southwest of
the diamonds.

This mural covered the entire wall of a Hobby Shop in Wichita, Kansas. One of the neatest murals I'd ever seen!
Reb

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Here are murals in Brunswick, MD and Aberdeen, WA. I know there was a nice one 20 years ago in Lima, OH, too. Gerry

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I'm glad you posted that one, Richard. There's also another mural in La Verne on an old packing house along the north side of the Pasadena Sub, seen from the corner of E Street and Arrow Highway. Though not exclusively a railroad mural, one of the images depicts a Pacific Electric car.

I have slides of both of them, but neither scanned.

Rich


atsffan Wrote:
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> City of La Verne, CA. Right at the corner of D
> Street and Bonita Ave.
> An excellent rendition of an EMD E-1.

There's another one in Florence, SC. Unfortunately, I also don't have a picture.

Just Southeast of the Santa Barbara CA Depot is a SP Coast Daylight Steam Engine Scene in color tile. Don't miss it if you are ever in Santa Barbara.

Here's a couple photos of the above mentioned tile scene near the Santa Barbara depot.

bbslugger7 Wrote:
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> Just Southeast of the Santa Barbara CA Depot is a
> SP Coast Daylight Steam Engine Scene in color
> tile. Don't miss it if you are ever in Santa
> Barbara.

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I don't have a pic but there is one in downtown Naperville, IL that features the Pioneer Zephyr.

Genevasub

Whole page of them on the Central California Rails Website http://cencalrails.railfan.net

Boone Iowa

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