The Train in the City – Carlisle, PA (circa 1920)

These postcard images of trains are often posted with feelings of regret that rail connections to the center of town have disappeared in so many places.

While the steam and cinders of early engines would have been a nuisance in crowded towns, an electric train to the city center would be an invaluable boon to commuters today.

One of the impediments to the expansion of rail service in the US is that trains no longer reach the center of many towns.

This postcard photograph of Carlisle, PA, circa 1920, shows the train arriving along High Street in the center of the small city.

Carlisle, in central Pennsylvania, grew up around the intersection of Native American trails running east and west and north and south.

It was a frontier town for many years, and the barracks that were first built to defend the settlements during the French and Indian War evolved over time to become the U.S. Army War College.

The first turnpike in Pennsylvania (and the United States) terminated in Carlisle as did the first segments of the Pennsylvania Canal system.

Today, Carlisle boasts Dickinson College and the Dickinson School of Law which has been absorbed by Penn State University.

One of the few reasons that I would wish to live in the early 20th century would be the ability to travel easy to almost every town by train.

This postcard, published by Louis Kauffman & Sons of Baltimore, was not mailed.