1397-1400, 3432 UNITED STATES (Illinois) - Chicago Skyscrapers

3432 Chicago skyline dominated by John Hancock Center

In the 1770s, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable established a fur trading post in the area which later became known as Fort Dearborn, along the bank of the Chicago River. In 1837, the settlement had a little more than 3,500 inhabitants and was incorporated as a city. Located near a portage between the Great Lakes and the  Mississippi River watershed, Chicago emerged as an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States, becoming the fastest growing city in the world for several decades. 

1397 Downtown Chicago with Northwestern Train Station,
Presidential Towers and Willis Tower

After the Civil War ended in 1865, the American economy was transformed by the industrial revolution, in which the city of Chicago was its leader, becoming America's second largest city and a leading industrial center. The Great Chicago Fire, which destroyed most buildings within the downtown area, led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era.

1397 Chicago skyline seen from the Chicago River

Moreover, the city gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture, being able to say that the architecture of Chicago has influenced and reflected the history of American architecture. Numerous architects have constructed landmark buildings of varying styles in city. Some of these are the so-called "Chicago seven":  James Ingo Freed, Tom Beeby, Larry Booth, Stuart Cohen, James Nagle, Stanley Tigerman, and Ben Weese. Today, the city's skyline is among the world's tallest and most dense.

1399 Willis Tower

Willis Tower (known also as Sears Tower) is a 108-story, 442m skyscraper completed in 1973. It surpassed the World Trade Center towers in New York to become the tallest building in the world, a title held for nearly 25 years. Its innovative design, structurally efficient and economic, inspired by an advertisement for a package of cigarettes, was realised by the architect Bruce Graham and structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan, who used for the first time bundled tube structure. The tower's observation deck (the Skydeck), located on the 103rd floor, is 412m high and is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Chicago.

1400 Willis Tower and Wacker Drive

Presidential Towers is a series of four nearly identical towers with 49 storeys (141m), each a step back from the leader, and spanning two city blocks. Designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz & Associates and built between 1985 and 1986, it was one of the pioneering residential projects in the River West neighborhood, an area that was once seen as nothing more than a ramshackle collection of old brick warehouses. 333 West Wacker Drive is an office building with a height of 149m, designed by Kohn Pederson Fox Associates and completed in 1983. On the side facing the Chicago River, the building features a curved green glass façade, while on the other side the building adheres to the usual rectangular street grid.

2579, 3128 THAILAND (Prachuap Khiri Khan) - Hua Hin Railway Station

2579 Hua Hin Railway Station (1)

Posted on 28.05.2016, 18.08.2017
Hua Hin Railway Station is one of the most important stations on the Southern Line, the longest railway line in Thailand. The Southern Line third phase between Cha-am Station to Hua Hin was opened in November 1911, and the line continued to Wang Phong Station in January 1914. The original station building was built in 1910, and rebuilt in 1926, by Prince Purachatra Jayakara (former commander of the Royal State Railways of Siam) to the current Victorian building today.

3128 Hua Hin Railway Station (2)

Hua Hin's popularity began to increase in the 1920's, when King Rama VI built Klai Kang Won Palace as a summer retreat. Hua Hin station is one of the most beautiful and one of the oldest in Thailand. The design was taken from the planned Siam Rat Museum Expo, intended to be built in 1925 at Lumphini Park, but was never built due to the death of King Vajiravudh and the cancellation of the expo by King Prajadhipok.

2842 JAPAN (Kantō) - Tokyo Station

Tokyo Station is a railway station in the Marunouchi business district of Chiyoda, being the main intercity rail terminal in Tokyo. It is also the busiest station in Japan in terms of number of trains per day (over 3,000), and the fifth-busiest in Eastern Japan in terms of passenger throughput (415,908 passengers daily). Its façade on the western side is brick-built, surviving from the time when the station opened in 1914. The main station consists of 10 island platforms serving 20 tracks, raised above street level running in a north-south direction.

2462 MALAYSIA (Penang) - The Malayan Railway Building in George Town

Wisma Kastam, originally known as the Federated Malay States Railway Station, and later the Malayan Railway Building, is one of the most prominent heritage buildings along the Weld Quay waterfront of George Town. It was built at the turn of the 20th century following land reclamation that extended the shoreline outward. Before it was built, the shoreline was somewhere between Beach Street and what is today Victoria Street. There would be piers going out into the sea, and steps (called ghauts) extending down into the water. China Street makes a straight line from the Kuan Yin Teng Temple, allowing for an uninterrupted view of the sea from the temple.

2272 NETHERLANDS (Netherlands / North Holland) - Amsterdam Centraal railway station

Station Amsterdam Centraal is the largest railway station of Amsterdam, and the second-busiest railway station in the country after Utrecht Centraal. It was designed by Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers and first opened in 1889, replacing Amsterdam Willemspoort Station, which had closed in 1878, as well as the temporary Westerdok Station used from 1878 to 1889. It features a Gothic/Renaissance Revival station building and a cast iron platform roof spanning approximately 40 metres.

2223 GERMANY (Saxony) - Electric locomotive 254 114 in Leipzig Bavarian station

Electric locomotive 254 114 in Leipzig Bavarian station, on 11.07.1986

The DRG Class E94 is an electric heavy freight locomotive built for Deutsche Reichsbahn since 1940, with the bulk of deliveries taking place in the same year. 146 units of the six-axle locomotive with 3300kW and a maximum speed of 90 km/h were built until the end of the WWII. After the war, new units were ordered and delivered as late as 1957. The power of the last 23 locomotives of this series had been increased to 4680kW.

2152 BELGIUM (Antwerp) - Antwerpen-Centraal railway station

2152 Antwerpen-Centraal railway station

Antwerpen-Centraal (Antwerp Central) is the main railway station in Antwerp, the most populous city in Flanders. In 2009 the American magazine Newsweek judged Antwerpen-Centraal the world's fourth greatest train station, and in 2014 the British-American magazine Mashable awarded it the first place for the most beautiful railway stations of the world, even if the extraordinary eclecticism of the design had led to a difficulty in assigning it to a particular architectural style.

2052 GERMANY (Bremen) - Bremen Hauptbahnhof

Situated to the Northeast of the city centre, Bremen Hauptbahnhof (German for Bremen main station) sees 100 long-distance and 410 regional trains per day. About 100,000 passengers per day use the station, which features nine platform tracks. The sculptures on the façade, among other railway-related symbolisms, depict the coats of arms of the cities of Bremen and Hamburg, the original destinations of the line. In front of the rail station is a sculpture by Jörg Immendorff, Affentor I (Ape Gate).

1856 RUSSIA (Republic of Mordovia) - The Railway Station in Saransk

Located in the Volga basin at the confluence of the Saranka and Insar Rivers, about 630km east of Moscow, Saransk is the capital city of the Republic of Mordovia. Founded in 1641 as the Russian fortress Atemar (at the time, located on the southeastern frontier of Russia), now it accounts for 34.3% of the total population of the republic, that means about 300,000 inhabitants. Trains from Moscow to Ruzaevka was opened to traffic in 1893, and in 1903, in the summer, was completed rail line from Ruzaevka to Nizhny Novgorod, through Saransk.

0954, 0955, 1298 UNITED STATES (Arizona) - Grand Canyon Railway

Posted on 08.01.2014 and completed on 14.10.2014

The Grand Canyon Railway (GCR) is a 103km-long passenger railroad, which operates between Williams (Arizona) and Grand Canyon National Park South Rim. The first train arrived to Grand Canyon on September 17 1901. Competition with the automobile forced the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to cease operation of this railway in 1968. Its fate seemed sealed, but in 1988 was bought by Max and Thelma Biegert, who restored it, and the first train has ran on September 17, 1989. The Grand Canyon Depot, owned by the National Park Service, remained the northern terminus for passengers of the line. In 1995 the GCR introduced vintage diesel locomotives, reconditioned 1970s EMD F40PH (in the second postcard), and a year later steam locomotive No. 4960 (in the first postcard) made its first run on the line after being fully restored. No. 4960 (a 2-8-2 locomotive) was built in 1923 by Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, and operated a freight and coal hauling service for the Midwestern Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad until the late 1950s.

In 2006 the GCR carry about 240,000 passengers, which reduced automobile traffic to the South Rim by 10%. In the same year Xanterra Parks & Resorts bought the Railway, but sold it in 2008 to Philip Anschutz. In 2009, as a result of popular demand, the Railway reinstated limited steam operations at the Williams Depot. After converting locomotive No. 4960 to run purely on waste vegetable oil (WVO), it began conducting steam trips on its special event train dubbed the "Cataract Creek Rambler". Over the winter of 2011/2012, engine 4960 underwent its 15-year overhaul and inspection, and returned to service in 2012 for a special Centennial Run on February 14, celebrating 100 years of Arizona Statehood. Since then, it continues to pull GCR excursions once per month during the summer months from May through September, and for special occasions.

The F40PH - a four-axle 3,000 hp  B-B diesel-electric locomotive, built in several variants between 1975 and 2000 - was originally intended to haul short- to medium-length trains on Amtrak's shorter routes. Hundreds of F40PH units were built, and many can be found in use on passenger, tourist and freight railroads today. Due to the high-pitch noise generated from its engine, the units have often been nicknamed "screamers." The largest fleet of these locomotives now operates in the Chicago metropolitan area on the Metra system, totaling 117 units. The locomotive GCRX 237, formerly AMTK 237 (in the second postcard), built in 1977 by the Electro Motive Division of General Motors at their La Grange, Illinois plant, was purchased by the GCR in 2003, at the same time with AMTK 239 and 295. In 2009 the owner decided to rebuild this locomotive, on the one hand to adapt it to its goals and on the other for environmental upgrades. More details about the rebuilding can be found here.

1185 BELARUS (Minsk City) - Minsk Passazhirsky railway station

1185 Minsk Passazhirsky railway station

Located in the centre of the capital Minsk, and sometimes called Minsk Ploshchad Lenina due to the metro station serving the terminal, Minsk Passazhirsky is the primary passenger railway station in Belarus, the hub of national passenger transport. It is also served by several international trains to various countries of Europe, mainly to Russian and Ukrainian destination. It was built in 1873 as Vilenski vakzal, Vilnius station, but the initial wooden building was demolished in 1890 and rebuilt in stone.

0946 POLAND (Silesia) - The main railway station of Bielsko-Biała

Formed in 1951 by the union of two former cities on opposite banks of the Biała River, Silesian Bielsko and Lesser Poland's Biała, Bielsko-Biała is a beautiful city, which has a vibrant modernistic presence being a student-city with its associated nightlife, as well as having numerous historical sights. One of this is the main railway station (Bielsko-Biała Główna), located in the city center.

0877 ARGENTINA (Mendoza) - The Inca Bridge

The Inca Bridge (Puente del Inca) isn't a construction of the Incas, but a natural arch that forms a bridge over the Vacas River, a tributary of the Mendoza River. Puente del Inca is also the name of the nearby hot springs. Scientists speculate that interaction between ice and hot springs was involved in the origin of the formation. They suppose that in ancient times ice covered the river and acted as support for avalanches of snow, dust and rocks. So the dust over the ice over the river would have served as a path for the sulfurous water and petrified the surface, so when the snow melted, the bridge (48m long, 28m wide and 8m high) remained by itself.

0384-0385 RUSSIA (Novosibirsk Oblast) - The Main Railway Station in Novosibirsk

The third building in Novosibirsk that I want to present you, after Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and Regional Puppet Theatre, is the Trans-Siberian Railway Station, I would say the most important building in town, because the settlement grew around it. Construction of the railway station Ob on the right bank of the Ob River, in the early portion of Middle Trans-Siberian Railway, began in May 1893, and on December 1, 1894 was opened to traffic. Also in 1893 began the work at the bridge over river Ob, which was completed in the spring of 1897, making the new settlement the regional transport hub. Practically it was born as a railway station and it developed due to the bridge. If at the time of the bridge's opening, it hosted a population of 7,800 people, in the pre-revolutionary period the population increased to 80,000, and in 2010 reached 1,473,754 inhabitants.

At the begining, the railway station was a V class one, but in 1897 was built a wooden station III-class lounges, with mail and buffet. In 1906 was attached to it a stone two-storey annexe, and in 1914, another one. Named initialy, as I say, Ob station, in 1909 was renamed Novonikolaevsk, and in 1926 Novosibirsk. In 1929, the Moscow Architectural Society, on behalf of the management of the Omsk Railway, has announced a design competition for the railway station. The first prize was awarded to N. Voloshinov's project, which was concise, in constructivist style. Until the completion, the project has undergone many changes, the unique design of the arch of the central hall being designed by Nikolai Nikitin. The final project of the Central part of the station is a composition of a triumphal arch, framed by Tuscan order pilasters and topped with a large attic. In 1956, the Station Square was renamed in honor of Nikolai.Garin-Mikhailovsky, Russian writer and railroad constructor, involved in the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, but also in the founding of Novosibirsk.

The Trans-Siberian Railway, which connect Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan, is the longest railway in the world. At 9,259 kilometres, spanning a record seven time zones and taking eight days to complete the journey, it is also the third-longest single continuous service in the world, after the Moscow–Pyongyang (10,267 km) and the Kiev-Vladivostok (11,085 km) services, both of which also follow the Trans-Siberian for much of their routes.

The Novosibirsk Main Railway Station is the largest station along the Trans-Siberian Railway, and is also the final destination of the Sibirjak express train, the longest train journey originating in the European Union. This weekly train leaves Berlin each Saturday afternoon and arrives Wednesday at lunch time. A travel from Moscow to Novosibirsk costs about 130/270 EUR (upper/lower berth) to the second class, and lasts slightly less than 2 days.

About the stamps
The first postcard
The first two stamps are the moose and the rabbit in the series about animals, about which I wrote here. The third is part of the series XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi - Tourism on the Black Sea Coast of Russia, issued on September 27, 2011. These are the most multilingual stamps in the history of the Olympic Winter Games, the information being given in 6 different languages (Russian, English, French, German, Spanish and Chinese). The four stamps shows:

• Krasnaya Polyana (15 RUB)
• the marine passenger terminal (20 RUB) - it's on the postcard
• the watchtower on the Bolshoy Akhun (25 RUB)
• the Volkonsky Dolmen (30 RUB)

The second postcard
The first three stamps are the fox and the bear in the same series about animals, about which I wrote here.

The four stamp, designed by Betredinova K, is a commemorative one, issued on January 22, 2009, with the occasion of the 300th anniversary of foundation of Central Navy museum, one of the oldest museums of Russia and one of the largest naval museums of the world, located in St. Petersburg. 

References
Новосибирск-Главный - Wikipedia
Novosibirsk: Getting There and Around - Way to Russia
Novosibirsk - Wikitravel
Travel to Novosibirsk by Trans-Siberian Railway - Russian communication courses in Russia
“Sochi 2014” Olympic Stamps Will Be Available on Subscription - Soch 2014 official site
The 300th anniversary of foundation of Central Navy museum - Rusmarka


sender: Uliana Zolotaryova (direct swap)
sent from Novosibirsk (Russia), on 11.03.2012
photo: A. Kemodyanov

sender: Martynova Svetlana (direct swap)
sent from Novosibirsk (Russia), on 25.03.2012

0155 AUSTRALIA (Victoria) - The SW6 subclass tram number 909 on City Circle route, Melbourne

I wrote here about the Adelaide's tram network. Behold Betty (thank you very much, Betty) gives me the opportunity to expand the subject upon Melbourne, the capital city of the state of Victoria and the only city in Australia which use extensively trams as public transport in nowadays. The Melbourne's tram network, the largest in the world, consisting of 250 km of track, is a distinctive part of city's character and feature in tourism and travel advertising.

0073 CANADA (Ontario) – Toronto's Union Station

"You build your stations like we build our cathedrals", said Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, during the official opening of Toronto’s Union Station, on August 6, 1927. He received the first ticket sold at Union Station, to Alberta for a cost of $71.20, which today would cost over $1,100.

Union Station, located in the heart of the City on Front and Bay street, is the central hub for all inter-city transit in Toronto, and the busiest passenger transportation facility in Canada, serving approximately quarter of a million passengers each day. The building of the station came as a result of the great fire in 1904, which demolished 14 acres of the downtown manufacturing and warehouse district. The Canadian Pacific and Grand Trunk Railways negotiated with the City of Toronto for control of some of this land, and construction began in 1914, but the WWI and the collapse of the Grand Trunk Railway in 1919 delayed completion until 1921.

Designed in the Beaux-Arts style, it was the largest and most opulent station erected in Canada. Monumental in design, the great Hall features a coffered vault ceiling of Gustavino tiles. The shape of the ceiling is echoed in the four-storey, barrel-vaulted windows on the east and west walls. Mid-way up the north and south walls are carved names of the cities that were then serviced by the Canadian Pacific Railways and the Canadian National Railways, the government-owned railway that replaced the Grand Trunk. The list alternates from side to side, naming the cities from east to west.

The interior walls are of Zumbro stone from Missouri; the floors are Tennessee marble, laid in a herringbone pattern. The exterior walls of the station are Indiana and Queenston limestone. Each of the 22 Bedford limestone columns weights 75 tons and is 40 feet high. In front of the station, as seen in the photography realised by Tim Peters, is an iron sculpture celebrating Christopher Columbus.

Union Station has been designated a National Historic Site of Canada since 1975.

About the stamp I wrote here.


sender: Pompilian Tofilescu