One thing I am noting on these cars is the abundance of chalk graffiti used by the crews to denote the car destinations. Roper's shot last week had a car clearly marked "Idaho" for Idaho Springs. Seeing the contemporary graffiti and weathering on the MRH site, I wonder if someone can develop some decals (or dry transfers for Brother d) that have chalk marks for South Park and Clear Creek destinations? I don't know that the marks were quite as flowery in the 1930s as they were before the Great War, but it would be a nice touch for the cars.
We read in a report from W.E. Fowler (D.L.& G. Master Car Builder) to T. F. Dunaway (General Superintendent) dated May 20th 1896; “It was found … that coal car 8031 (which was reported destroyed…) is running all right, and coal car 8145 (which was in reality destroyed…) was not reported. I have ordered 8031 changed to 8145, this being the easiest way to straighten the error.”
We are, after all, only human. With this vote of confidence, even in the records, let us investigate the “Truth” of history.
In or about 1884 the UP built 104, 27 foot boxcars for the Kansas Central ng. At least this is the number of cars on the register in 1885. The numbers appear to have been 896 to 999. After the UP system wide renumbering the cars were 25100 to 25203.
Ron Rudnick suggests these cars went to the Colorado lines in the early 1890s as the KC was Standard Gauged in 1891. Did all 104 cars go to Colorado? In Oct. 1893 the Official Railway Equipment Register made the following note on the 25100 series cars; “*being relettered and renumbered to U.P.D.& G. 25465 to 25489 and D.L.& G. 24600 to 24664 as rapidly as possible.”
(A total of 90 cars)
Where did 14 cars go? If all of the series went to Colorado were 14 cars thereafter destroyed? One would think the two roads would have purchases all of the cars but then what should we think? The U.P.D.& G. took 25 of the cars and the D.L.& G. took 65.
The C&S reno’d the Gulf cars 7529 to 7553 – 25 cars. They reno’d the DL&G cars 7554 to 7615 – 62 cars. The following cars were missing from the roster; 24632, 24646, 24660.
The Colorado numbers are all hard numbers not open to any serious debate as they are recorded in the C&S Renumbering Document. In the photo above the close-up of 7408 includes 7566 formerly DL&G 24612. (The car was relt’d on Feb. 11th 1900 therefore this photo was taken after that). This was a 27 foot DL&G KC car.
In the second close-up 7646 was formerly DL&G 24504 a 30 foot Peninsular car built in1884 for the DSP&P (Relt’d Dec. 8th 1899). The question came up last week – wasn’t one of the cars at St. Elmo a former KC car? I have a photo taken by Mal Ferrell in 1977 of the two cars and on the back he notes one car as 7681 as a former KC car numbered 25192. As we have seen the 7681 was not within the numbers assighned to the ex-KC cars nor can I rectify that number as such. I don’t know how he arrived at that specific KC number. The 7681 was formerly DL&G 24543 and that was one of those 30 foot Peninsular cars.
The 27 foot boxcars the C&S received from the DL&G and the UPD&G was a confusing collection of car on paper. They begin with 24275 and end with 25489 (1215 numbers). Out of these must be extracted the no.s 24471 to 24590 which were the 30 foot cars. Then subtract the 25 UPD&G cars as well as the 875 numbers that skipped ahead of 24664 to get to 25465. Then there is the added “interest” of some 23 car missing from the roster. But that still leaves a difference of 10 cars between the math count and the number of actual cars on hand. (24275 to 24664 = 390 numbers. Subtract 24471 to 24590 (120 numbers) = 270 numbers as opposed to just 237 total on the O.R.E.R.) 270 minus 237 = 33. There were 23 missing cars when the C&S took them over (struck before they reached the C&S). That still leaves 10 numbers different from the O.R.E.R. One more car might be accounted for as it was wrecked in Jan 1899 and the first C&S listing was in the Feb. 1899 O.R.E.R.. If you’ve waded thru all of that you can appreciate how, without a very close personal investigation, one might believe car 7681 was a 27 foot KC car.
But was the car at St. Elmo 27 feet long or 30 feet long? The car is gone now so we can’t verify anyone’s testimony. Where did MF get his information? And, as we saw at the top of this post, the railroad could have reno’d any car to any spot on the simple justification that it was easier to correct an error that way. STILL it behooves us to do our best to “find out” - especially when we publish our work that we charge people money to obtain! MF is quite welcome to justify his number here.
When members of the DSP&PHS rescued a link and pin coupler from Platte Canyon there was mention made of a development late in the L&P era where the pin could be removed or inserted without the brakeman handling it.It looked like the car I was talking about had a lift bar.
Great pic! Thanks for sharing Derrell! What I found interesting was seeing the cutting bar for the L&P coupler on 7646 as well as what looks like 6" queenposts.
Yup! That's those 30 foot Peninsular cars, Bill - actual queen posts! See the same thing on 4908 (4th photo). There were only two sets of queen posts and the two full length truss rods to go with them. Nor have I seen any evidence of intermediate tension rods between the end sills and the brake hanger blocks in the interior of the frame. And if you look at the ends sills these truss rods set well in from the edge of the frame (pages 64 and 83 Pictorial Vol. VIII). This car was formerly DL&G 8901 and was relt'd on June 21st 1900 ( so we can move the date of this photo up several more months - oh where will it end....?)
I believe Coupler lift bars were a 1890s innovation - at least on the Colorado ngs - an opinion; I haven't investigated this yet. That all-the-way-across-the-car-end was an early version. Very shortly, it seems to have been changed by the C&S. It was not a feature of the modern cars either. They only lifted from the right corners of the cars. If you look at the photos in the Robb Grandt Pictorial I just mentioned you'll notice 1437 has no lift bars and neither does C&S 4815 on page 83. Now looking at 4908 above it does not show an across the car lift bar either. Perhaps that was strictly a house car feature? At any rate, Bob, a pin linked to a lift bar could have acted as you say the DSP&PHS mentioned.
And what else do we see in that 4th photo? Anybody? What class was the unidentified Coal Car ?
To be clear let me define a phase (Type) I Coal Car (strictly a modeler's term, btw) - those cars built BY the C&S to the ASF frame hardware (cast bolsters and AB trucks) in 1902. (Strictly speaking, then, there were no "Type I" stock cars). This car is the design the Type I coal cars were based upon. And it has double plate bolsters and Rigid AB trucks (like 7064 at the CCRM). I realize you can't see that in this photo. So the 4 big hints in this case are; 4 - 10" boards per side and end, individual corner irons, the end stakes and the straight, deep (11 34") side sills (that also lap under the end sills like the Peninsular cars).
This is a fall 1898 St. Charles 4 board Coal. The end stakes were removed around 1903. So we know the photo was taken before that. But then the L&P couplers had already made that distinction as they were outlawed as of 1903.
The corner irons were there. There were two per board corner (one inside and one outside).
7408 – formerly DL&G 24340 relt’d 2 Feb. 1900. At the point of the UP reno.g this car was the 65th in the 27 foot series and while we cannot nail down that exact number it seems reasonable it could have been DSP&P 805 to perhaps 810 (since only 5 cars were vacated by June 1885). That being so it belonged to the series 800 to 849 built by the UP at Omaha in the second half of 1882.
7566 - formerly DL&G 24612 relt’d 11 Feb. 1900. Prior to 1893 this was a Kansas Central car. The series of cars were built at Omaha in 1883 to 1884 and appear to have been numbered 793 to 899 (107 numbers). It is worth noting that 150 DSP&P 27 foot boxcars were built at Omaha in 1883 as well. How much different were cars going to KC than cars going to Colorado? Ron Rudnick points out the telltale feature of early ‘80s UP built boxcars – curved end fascias. There is no certainty that any of the fascias in this photo were white. They have all been recently repainted anyway and the C&S did not paint the fascias a different color than the car bodies. (Indeed! That was a UP practice not fit for the Colorado Road). The point is that if there are any differences in these two cars it can be attributed primarily to time. The Builder was the same. Therefore it behooves us to seek out specific cars and note their detail differences. A good place to start is to get a copy of Ron Rudnicks Modeling guides. (I have no idea how to get a hold of him these days except on some of the Yahoo Groups and I no longer go there. I will credit his work as invaluable.)
The trucks on these two cars as well as the coal car below (4624) were all that intermediate type of swing beam no one to my knowledge makes in S scale. We would call it the Type C. (The Leadville Shops offer the Type A – equivalent to Coronado Scale Models TR-134 and the Type B – CSM TR-135 - in O scale.) It appears most 27 foot cars used these trucks. One exception was the Tiffany Reefer, which used the Type B truck.
We’ve already briefly mentioned truss rods. The 27’ cars certainly had them but note that you cannot see the ends of the rods on 7408 anywhere near the side of the car. Ron’s drawings of these cars (both represented here) indicate the rods were just outboard of the center sill and tied thru the striker block. I have to agree. I believe there was a cast metal pad that buffers the needle beam from the rod but it could not have been more than an inch or 2 high. The Body bolsters would have been the Union Pacific single plate type.
I think I suggested previously that Coal Car 4624 was a 27 foot car. Perhaps not so, apparently. Unless of course the Master Car Builder made some other "corrections" with his venerable paint brush. You will recall that DL&G coal 8031 was reported destroyed in 1896 but was not and that 8145 was not reported destroyed but was. And you will recall MCB Fowler fixed the problem by simply reno.g 8031 as 8145. This means a 26 foot, 10 ton coal car – theoretically a sister to our 4624 (DL&G 8035) – was now a car within a series that were 27’ 14 ton cars. What a tangled web we weave.
If you think the DSP&P / DL&G boxcar roster is convoluted try the coal car roster on for size. The South Park 26 foot cars appear to have been built by Litchfield but C&S 4624 appears to have typical 27 foot Type C trucks. Other information suggests they were built by the UP. This would explain the trucks but were they indeed 26 foot cars or 27 foot. As near as anyone can tell (that I know of) the original DSP&P numbers were in the 368 to 467 bracket. Your mileage may vary, to quote a phrase. If the UP did indeed build these it would have been in 1882. Thankfully we are talking about C&S cars where order and sense are a little more attainable – a little; we cannot account for what mister Fowler did to our car roster. The cars appear to have become 8014 to 8038 in 1885. The difference in car counts of the series is inexplicable (75% loss in just 3 years???) – perhaps we have an expert in our midst who can iron out all the wrinkles? I’m a C&S guy and what matters to me is that magical date of 12 Jan. 1899. Car 8035 became C&S property on that date and was relt’d as of 5 May 1900.
Which brings us to the final question of when this photo was taken. The most recent hard date we have in this photo was the relettering of coal car 4908 on 21 June 1900. If you look at the first photo which is actually the overall shot from which the croppings were extracted note that this could very well be mid to late summer. Observe the mountains in the background where there is nary a trace of snow and furthermore the vegetation in the scene is well developed. This is indeed late summer.
But which late summer? The cars were not heavily weathered but they do seem to show some weathering (even if only the numbers and heralds had been painted out and replaced). Since they were all relt’d within about 6 month of each other they can be said to look to be perhaps a year old? Perhaps. Captions of this photo have suggested it was 1901. This seems quite plausible to me. But it could even be the summer of 1902. In 1903 the L&P couplers would have been replaced on most if not all of the cars by this point.
One last comment; why it is important to date a photo (at least to me). Should be obvious (I hope) but I'll just go ahead and say it. Because the closer you establish the date of the photo the more of a Reference Document it becomes. And that helps decode other photos.What in this photo might help answer a question found in other photos...?
There is an explanation(and photograph) of the workings of an automatic link and pin coupler in the Projects section of the DSP&P Historical Society website .
The 27' Kansas Central box cars were a completely different design than the 27' UP cars that were built for Colorado. The Colorado cars had a more traditional side frame construction, with 4 truss rods. Not all of the Kansas Central 27' boxcars went to Colorado. Three were still setting in Leavenworth, Ks, on 3' gauge trucks, at the turn of the century. (1900) Dave Johnson
Was C&S 7646 fitted with an "automatic" coupler?
ReplyDeleteOne thing I am noting on these cars is the abundance of chalk graffiti used by the crews to denote the car destinations. Roper's shot last week had a car clearly marked "Idaho" for Idaho Springs. Seeing the contemporary graffiti and weathering on the MRH site, I wonder if someone can develop some decals (or dry transfers for Brother d) that have chalk marks for South Park and Clear Creek destinations? I don't know that the marks were quite as flowery in the 1930s as they were before the Great War, but it would be a nice touch for the cars.
ReplyDeleteThanks Roper!
Keith Hayes
Leadville in Sn3
We read in a report from W.E. Fowler (D.L.& G. Master Car Builder) to T. F. Dunaway (General Superintendent) dated May 20th 1896;
ReplyDelete“It was found … that coal car 8031 (which was reported destroyed…) is running all right, and coal car 8145 (which was in reality destroyed…) was not reported. I have ordered 8031 changed to 8145, this being the easiest way to straighten the error.”
We are, after all, only human. With this vote of confidence, even in the records, let us investigate the “Truth” of history.
In or about 1884 the UP built 104, 27 foot boxcars for the Kansas Central ng. At least this is the number of cars on the register in 1885. The numbers appear to have been 896 to 999. After the UP system wide renumbering the cars were 25100 to 25203.
Ron Rudnick suggests these cars went to the Colorado lines in the early 1890s as the KC was Standard Gauged in 1891. Did all 104 cars go to Colorado? In Oct. 1893 the Official Railway Equipment Register made the following note on the 25100 series cars; “*being relettered and renumbered to U.P.D.& G. 25465 to 25489 and D.L.& G. 24600 to 24664 as rapidly as possible.”
(A total of 90 cars)
Where did 14 cars go? If all of the series went to Colorado were 14 cars thereafter destroyed? One would think the two roads would have purchases all of the cars but then what should we think? The U.P.D.& G. took 25 of the cars and the D.L.& G. took 65.
The C&S reno’d the Gulf cars 7529 to 7553 – 25 cars. They reno’d the DL&G cars 7554 to 7615 – 62 cars. The following cars were missing from the roster; 24632, 24646, 24660.
The Colorado numbers are all hard numbers not open to any serious debate as they are recorded in the C&S Renumbering Document. In the photo above the close-up of 7408 includes 7566 formerly DL&G 24612. (The car was relt’d on Feb. 11th 1900 therefore this photo was taken after that). This was a 27 foot DL&G KC car.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteIn the second close-up 7646 was formerly DL&G 24504 a 30 foot Peninsular car built in1884 for the DSP&P (Relt’d Dec. 8th 1899). The question came up last week – wasn’t one of the cars at St. Elmo a former KC car? I have a photo taken by Mal Ferrell in 1977 of the two cars and on the back he notes one car as 7681 as a former KC car numbered 25192. As we have seen the 7681 was not within the numbers assighned to the ex-KC cars nor can I rectify that number as such. I don’t know how he arrived at that specific KC number. The 7681 was formerly DL&G 24543 and that was one of those 30 foot Peninsular cars.
The 27 foot boxcars the C&S received from the DL&G and the UPD&G was a confusing collection of car on paper. They begin with 24275 and end with 25489 (1215 numbers). Out of these must be extracted the no.s 24471 to 24590 which were the 30 foot cars. Then subtract the 25 UPD&G cars as well as the 875 numbers that skipped ahead of 24664 to get to 25465. Then there is the added “interest” of some 23 car missing from the roster. But that still leaves a difference of 10 cars between the math count and the number of actual cars on hand. (24275 to 24664 = 390 numbers. Subtract 24471 to 24590 (120 numbers) = 270 numbers as opposed to just 237 total on the O.R.E.R.) 270 minus 237 = 33. There were 23 missing cars when the C&S took them over (struck before they reached the C&S). That still leaves 10 numbers different from the O.R.E.R. One more car might be accounted for as it was wrecked in Jan 1899 and the first C&S listing was in the Feb. 1899 O.R.E.R.. If you’ve waded thru all of that you can appreciate how, without a very close personal investigation, one might believe car 7681 was a 27 foot KC car.
But was the car at St. Elmo 27 feet long or 30 feet long? The car is gone now so we can’t verify anyone’s testimony. Where did MF get his information? And, as we saw at the top of this post, the railroad could have reno’d any car to any spot on the simple justification that it was easier to correct an error that way. STILL it behooves us to do our best to “find out” - especially when we publish our work that we charge people money to obtain! MF is quite welcome to justify his number here.
Derrell
When members of the DSP&PHS rescued a link and pin coupler from Platte Canyon there was mention made of a development late in the L&P era where the pin could be removed or inserted without the brakeman handling it.It looked like the car I was talking about had a lift bar.
ReplyDeleteGreat pic! Thanks for sharing Derrell! What I found interesting was seeing the cutting bar for the L&P coupler on 7646 as well as what looks like 6" queenposts.
ReplyDeleteThanks again... Bill Meredith
Yup! That's those 30 foot Peninsular cars, Bill - actual queen posts! See the same thing on 4908 (4th photo). There were only two sets of queen posts and the two full length truss rods to go with them. Nor have I seen any evidence of intermediate tension rods between the end sills and the brake hanger blocks in the interior of the frame. And if you look at the ends sills these truss rods set well in from the edge of the frame (pages 64 and 83 Pictorial Vol. VIII). This car was formerly DL&G 8901 and was relt'd on June 21st 1900 ( so we can move the date of this photo up several more months - oh where will it end....?)
ReplyDeleteI believe Coupler lift bars were a 1890s innovation - at least on the Colorado ngs - an opinion; I haven't investigated this yet. That all-the-way-across-the-car-end was an early version. Very shortly, it seems to have been changed by the C&S. It was not a feature of the modern cars either. They only lifted from the right corners of the cars. If you look at the photos in the Robb Grandt Pictorial I just mentioned you'll notice 1437 has no lift bars and neither does C&S 4815 on page 83. Now looking at 4908 above it does not show an across the car lift bar either. Perhaps that was strictly a house car feature? At any rate, Bob, a pin linked to a lift bar could have acted as you say the DSP&PHS mentioned.
And what else do we see in that 4th photo? Anybody? What class was the unidentified Coal Car ?
BTW; my pleasure, Bill.
Derrell
"And what else do we see in that 4th photo? Anybody? What class was the unidentified Coal Car ?"
DeleteLooks to me, my Northern friend, a ph1 coalcar residing at the back of the cut. Interesting in that it has no corner plates but has endstakes. :)
ColdUpSideDown
Chris
in New Zealand
"Cold upside down" Chris,
ReplyDeleteTo be clear let me define a phase (Type) I Coal Car (strictly a modeler's term, btw) - those cars built BY the C&S to the ASF frame hardware (cast bolsters and AB trucks) in 1902. (Strictly speaking, then, there were no "Type I" stock cars). This car is the design the Type I coal cars were based upon. And it has double plate bolsters and Rigid AB trucks (like 7064 at the CCRM). I realize you can't see that in this photo. So the 4 big hints in this case are; 4 - 10" boards per side and end, individual corner irons, the end stakes and the straight, deep (11 34") side sills (that also lap under the end sills like the Peninsular cars).
This is a fall 1898 St. Charles 4 board Coal. The end stakes were removed around 1903. So we know the photo was taken before that. But then the L&P couplers had already made that distinction as they were outlawed as of 1903.
The corner irons were there. There were two per board corner (one inside and one outside).
Thanks for playing my game. We all learn, I hope.
Derrell
Per the 3rd photo down;
ReplyDelete7408 – formerly DL&G 24340 relt’d 2 Feb. 1900. At the point of the UP reno.g this car was the 65th in the 27 foot series and while we cannot nail down that exact number it seems reasonable it could have been DSP&P 805 to perhaps 810 (since only 5 cars were vacated by June 1885). That being so it belonged to the series 800 to 849 built by the UP at Omaha in the second half of 1882.
7566 - formerly DL&G 24612 relt’d 11 Feb. 1900. Prior to 1893 this was a Kansas Central car. The series of cars were built at Omaha in 1883 to 1884 and appear to have been numbered 793 to 899 (107 numbers). It is worth noting that 150 DSP&P 27 foot boxcars were built at Omaha in 1883 as well. How much different were cars going to KC than cars going to Colorado? Ron Rudnick points out the telltale feature of early ‘80s UP built boxcars – curved end fascias. There is no certainty that any of the fascias in this photo were white. They have all been recently repainted anyway and the C&S did not paint the fascias a different color than the car bodies. (Indeed! That was a UP practice not fit for the Colorado Road). The point is that if there are any differences in these two cars it can be attributed primarily to time. The Builder was the same. Therefore it behooves us to seek out specific cars and note their detail differences. A good place to start is to get a copy of Ron Rudnicks Modeling guides. (I have no idea how to get a hold of him these days except on some of the Yahoo Groups and I no longer go there. I will credit his work as invaluable.)
The trucks on these two cars as well as the coal car below (4624) were all that intermediate type of swing beam no one to my knowledge makes in S scale. We would call it the Type C. (The Leadville Shops offer the Type A – equivalent to Coronado Scale Models TR-134 and the Type B – CSM TR-135 - in O scale.) It appears most 27 foot cars used these trucks. One exception was the Tiffany Reefer, which used the Type B truck.
We’ve already briefly mentioned truss rods. The 27’ cars certainly had them but note that you cannot see the ends of the rods on 7408 anywhere near the side of the car. Ron’s drawings of these cars (both represented here) indicate the rods were just outboard of the center sill and tied thru the striker block. I have to agree. I believe there was a cast metal pad that buffers the needle beam from the rod but it could not have been more than an inch or 2 high. The Body bolsters would have been the Union Pacific single plate type.
Derrell
You might check with Michael York about making a type C truck
ReplyDeleteI think I suggested previously that Coal Car 4624 was a 27 foot car. Perhaps not so, apparently. Unless of course the Master Car Builder made some other "corrections" with his venerable paint brush. You will recall that DL&G coal 8031 was reported destroyed in 1896 but was not and that 8145 was not reported destroyed but was. And you will recall MCB Fowler fixed the problem by simply reno.g 8031 as 8145. This means a 26 foot, 10 ton coal car – theoretically a sister to our 4624 (DL&G 8035) – was now a car within a series that were 27’ 14 ton cars. What a tangled web we weave.
ReplyDeleteIf you think the DSP&P / DL&G boxcar roster is convoluted try the coal car roster on for size. The South Park 26 foot cars appear to have been built by Litchfield but C&S 4624 appears to have typical 27 foot Type C trucks. Other information suggests they were built by the UP. This would explain the trucks but were they indeed 26 foot cars or 27 foot. As near as anyone can tell (that I know of) the original DSP&P numbers were in the 368 to 467 bracket. Your mileage may vary, to quote a phrase. If the UP did indeed build these it would have been in 1882. Thankfully we are talking about C&S cars where order and sense are a little more attainable – a little; we cannot account for what mister Fowler did to our car roster. The cars appear to have become 8014 to 8038 in 1885. The difference in car counts of the series is inexplicable (75% loss in just 3 years???) – perhaps we have an expert in our midst who can iron out all the wrinkles? I’m a C&S guy and what matters to me is that magical date of 12 Jan. 1899. Car 8035 became C&S property on that date and was relt’d as of 5 May 1900.
Which brings us to the final question of when this photo was taken. The most recent hard date we have in this photo was the relettering of coal car 4908 on 21 June 1900. If you look at the first photo which is actually the overall shot from which the croppings were extracted note that this could very well be mid to late summer. Observe the mountains in the background where there is nary a trace of snow and furthermore the vegetation in the scene is well developed. This is indeed late summer.
But which late summer? The cars were not heavily weathered but they do seem to show some weathering (even if only the numbers and heralds had been painted out and replaced). Since they were all relt’d within about 6 month of each other they can be said to look to be perhaps a year old? Perhaps. Captions of this photo have suggested it was 1901. This seems quite plausible to me. But it could even be the summer of 1902. In 1903 the L&P couplers would have been replaced on most if not all of the cars by this point.
BTW, 8145 did not make it to the C&S….
One last comment; why it is important to date a photo (at least to me). Should be obvious (I hope) but I'll just go ahead and say it. Because the closer you establish the date of the photo the more of a Reference Document it becomes. And that helps decode other photos.What in this photo might help answer a question found in other photos...?
ReplyDeleteThere is an explanation(and photograph) of the workings of an automatic link and pin coupler in the Projects section of the DSP&P Historical Society website .
ReplyDeleteThe 27' Kansas Central box cars were a completely different design than the 27' UP cars that were built for Colorado. The Colorado cars had a more traditional side frame construction, with 4 truss rods. Not all of the Kansas Central 27' boxcars went to Colorado. Three were still setting in Leavenworth, Ks, on 3' gauge trucks, at the turn of the century. (1900)
ReplyDeleteDave Johnson