Bridge over the Arkansas

[Todd Hackett]

[South Park]

  What is wrong with these people ?  Don't they know a fall hazard
when they see one ?  Where are the guard railings, safety nets, full
body harnesses, lanyards, and helmets ?

[Robert McFarland]

Was this on the east bank or the west bank?

[Robert McFarland]

Check out the railing near the boxcar door that the brakeman is hanging his legs over the side of the car.Could the first passenger car  be 2nd #2? The second a Bowers and Dure car? The third #3 or #5?

[Fatbiker52]

Obviously OSHA is falling down on the job. All that aside just how old is the picture? I think that ithas great detail.

Not undewater from Cindy....yet

[Robert McFarland]

Some time between 1880 and 1883.

[Paul R.]

Has that boxcar got a small window near the brakeman's leg? Paul R.

[Robert McFarland]

No.

[ComoDepot]

I doubt it can be proven but looks like it was taken from the west bank.

[Jim Courtney]

I dunno . . . the boxcar is one of the Litchfield 26 foot boxcars, judging from the circular poling pocket on the lower corner iron and the flat lower edge to the end fascia:





It is obviously being used as a baggage car, and has a stirrup step at the left end of the side door opening and a wide vertical hand grab attached to the door stop at the left end of the side door.

The framing under the trainman's leg, to me, looks like a two rung partial ladder.  If so, talk about your safety violation! The brakeman would have to climb up on the horizontal attachments of the grab iron to reach the ladder and climb to the roof!

And is it just me, but does the first blurry letter to the left of the door look like a capital "B", for "Baggage"??

Perhaps Ron Rudnick could clarify what we're seeing.

[Todd Hackett]

Here's a full-resolution crop of the boxcar from my print:


It does look like a window to me. I don't see any "B" though.

[Todd Hackett]

ComoDepot wrote

I doubt it can be proven but looks like it was taken from the west bank.

From the shadows, I'd say it's probably from the east bank (so we're seeing the south side of the train).
Here's the view from the west bank:



The people are standing on the west abutment, and the east abutment is inside the red ellipse.

[Robert McFarland]

Photo taken at the DSP&PHS 2016 Convention?

[Chris Walker]

Looks like a window to me.  Robert adamantly says no, why is that Robert?  You have a picture in mind perhaps?

[Robert McFarland]

It is a window.Right beside it appears to be a crudely built side ladder between it and the boxcar door.Somewhat like the one in the cover photo on one of the B&Ls taken at Heywood Springs post 1885  showing one of the Cooke Consolidations.

[Jim Courtney]

Thanks for the hi-res enlargement.

Yep, looks like a window to me!

What my eye saw as a ladder rung is the horizontal bottoms of the trainman's dangling boots.

[Todd Hackett]

Robert McFarland wrote

Photo taken at the DSP&PHS 2016 Convention?

Yes

[South Park]

  So, ....  where did the bridge go ???  

[Robert McFarland]

It went bye-bye,but it was a highway bridge for awhile after the rails were taken up.There is a photo of it in use as a highway bridge.Which raises the question of what year was it dismantled.

[ComoDepot]

I have tried to find out the history of roads in South Park, wanted to know when we got bypassed etc much harder than Railroad history.