C&S Water Tank at Blackhawk and the "Three Bent Water Tanks".

[Jim Courtney]

Vintage C&S photos are fascinating, the ones without captions, labels and dates become puzzles -- brain teasers, making me want to figure out where the photo was taken, what year, and what prompted the photographer to expend a then expensive piece of film on that particular image.

I recently stumbled on a new photo (to me) on eBay:
 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Colorado-Southern-C-S-Engine-6-at-the-French-Gulch-Water-Tower-8x10-Photo/292614857397?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

So, I purchased a print to post here, for us to discuss:



Photographer unknown, photo now in Courtney Collection


After studying the photo for a couple of days, and checking several of my C&S books for reference, I am confidant that I can now locate the photo, give the precise date (month/day/year) and place the event that inspired the photo.

Let's see if ya'll come to the same conclusions that I did . . .

[Chris Walker]

Wonderful shot Jim.  

Black Hawk, 11th December 1913 would be my answer.

[Southpark]

Now that is a dandy!  Where in the world do these things come from? How about a morning shot at the Morrison Tank?  Brownie Anderson was on a rotary run to Morrison in April of 1920 but the motive power does not match.
Tom Klinger

[Jim Courtney]

I will reserve my conclusions for a while, so others have a chance to opine . . .

But what a great little C&S water tank, just begs to be modeled!!

If you go to the files section and pull up the C&S Standard Plans for water tanks, then study the details in the photo, it becomes apparent that the little tank in question doesn't conform to either the 30,000 gallon or 50,000 gallon tanks.

The tub of the tank is skinny (perhaps 20,000 gallons?). Also note that the tank is supported by only three bents of posts, instead of the usual four bents of posts. The frost box is sandwiched between the center posts and the rear posts.

The proportions of the tank remind me of Bakers Tank, but that tank was supported by four bents of posts (I checked). Bakers was likely a 30,000 gallon tank.

Is it possible that there was a third class of standard C&S tanks, smaller than the other two, left over from UP days.?

And Tom, was the Morrison Tank supported by three bents of posts or four?  I'm working today in the hospital with no access to my files. Anyone have a photo of the Morrison tank??

[John Greenly]

Wonderful picture, Jim!

I'll leave the ID to my many superiors in those things but, well, as Holmes said, "you know my methods, Watson".   By my reckoning from several comparisons with measurements of No. 6 in the photo,  this tank is indeed about 20,000 gal, can't be more than 10% larger than that.
That indeed means it certainly is not a standard 30,000 gal C&S tank (besides that, it's not tapered).  I make the height and diameter both to be 15 feet, which gives
20,000 gal full to the brim.  A very neat little tank!

Cheers,
John

[Chris Walker]

Tom,
Morrison tank was on the Nth side of the tracks and surrounded by trees. See: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.41377.n7.nabble.com/Pictorial-Supplement-to-Train-Time-in-Morrison-tp4094p4147.html 


from pg127 The Mineral Belt.  Volume I --Old South Park--Denver to Leadville,  David S. Digerness, Sundance Books 1977

[Jim Courtney]

Ah yes, Chris . . .

That's the photo that I was thinking of:




And South Park has a great eye. The Morrison tank could be the mystery tank at the top of the thread. It has similar proportions and I only see three bents of posts:





But although it may be a twin of the tank in the snowy scene, I don't think the tank in the photo I posted is Morrison -- as Chris pointed out, the photographer would have to be standing down at the bottom of the creek with tree limbs obscuring the frame. And there is no pump house next to the tank.  Looks like there was a third class of small C&S water tanks, now we have two!

But back to the quiz photo, any other ideas as to location, date, etc??

[John Greenly]

Jim,

if you measure this Morrison tank in your photo you'll see that it is much larger in diameter than it is tall. It doesn't have at all the same proportions as the mystery tank, which has diameter very nearly equal to its height.  

John

[Keith Hayes]

Could it be a different barrel on the same base?

[Jim Courtney]

I figured John would notice the difference in the two water tanks; the tub of the Morrison tank has different proportions.

But, Mac Poor lists the capacity of the Morrison tank as 17,960 gallons, similar to calculated capacity of the quiz tank.

And Keith may be right, Bear Creek had a habit of flooding periodically -- there may have been several iterations of the Morrison Tank, located as it was, on the edge of the creek.

All we can say is there is photographic evidence of two C&S water tanks, smaller in capacity than the C&S standard 30,000 and 50,000 gallon tanks. It is hard to postulate a new standard class of C&S water tanks with a sample size of only two.

What both tanks seem to uniquely have in common, is their supporting structure of three bents of posts. No clear head-on photos yet, but I'm thinking two posts on the outside bents and three posts for the center bent.

For lack of a better term, perhaps we should refer to them as "Three Bent Tanks" (Catchy phrase don't you think? Reminds me of the band "Three Dog Night").

And having just coined a new term, lets increase the sample size to three:


https://ngtrainpics.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/RD071-C-S-Views-Stations-1/G0000uT126Vtno_8/I0000tQA9hp6a0q8/C0000Vd2qoA2MbNU

Donald Rogers photograph, June, 1939, in the Dorman Collection.


The Tunnel Gulch water tank was located below the Alpine Palisades, about a half mile west of the site of Woodstock, of infamous snow slide fame. Mac Poor says it was built in 1889, to replace the water tank at Woodstock, destroyed in the slide. An 1889 build date would suggest a UP standard plan, rather than an early South Park design.

Ken Martin posted a couple of color views of this tank as restored: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.41377.n7.nabble.com/Early-C-amp-S-Water-Tank-Paint-Schemes-td3357.html#a3628

Perhaps John can work his dimensional magic and calculate the capacity of this little "Three Bent Tank".

Anyone have any other photos of small water tanks on the C&S??

[Chris Walker]

Jim,
checking google street view will confirm those rocks in the title picture aren't at Morrison.  

I'm still sticking with the Black Hawk Tank.  I'm picking Doug Heitkamp, Darel Leedy or Keith Pashina will have a picture of that tank.

[Chris Walker]

Thanks to Keith Pashina, Author of the most excellent and comprehensive blog on the Modelling The Gilpin Tramway, who featured the picture that I had in the back of my mind which was shown on pg309 of Dan Abbott/Del McCoy The Gilpin Railroad Era. See http://freerails.com/view_topic.php?id=7338&forum_id=17&page=23

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/73782/rv/singleitem/rec/1

[Jim Courtney]

Okay, times up . . . quiz over. I was just waiting for Chris to "show his work" and post the confirming photo!

I came to the same conclusion as Chris. The location of the photo is at the water tank in lower Blackhawk, where the C&S crossed the North Fork of Clear Creek on a low trestle. The date is December 11, 1913. The event is the only day the C&S rotary plow ever came to Blackhawk.





The photographer is standing on the turntable lead, the C&S pump house to his back. The Gunnel Mill is just out of frame to the right. The depot and Gregory Street are far to the left. The train is standing on the trestle, just beyond the tank, Clear Creek obscured by snow. The trackage here, at this date, is C&S / Gilpin dual gauge.

The photo is deceptive at first, as one doesn't usually associate Clear Creek with rotary snowplows.  But the big blizzard of December, 1913, paralyzed all of the Denver area railroads, including the C&S Clear Creek line. Nothing could move at Central City:




For the only time in the 20th century, the C&S ran a rotary train on the Clear Creek branch. The outfit formed up at Golden, looks like one of the large Baldwin 2-8-0s is the lead engine behind the rotary:




All three photos in Colorado Rail Annual 10, pages 140-141. Evidently they didn't want you to drive your team and wagon on the depot platform. (Some more signs for Jeff's collection!).

The rotary train finally blasted into Blackhawk:




And eventually paused to take water at our little "Three Bent Tank."

The photo of C&S number 6 at the Blackhawk tank, also finally explained this photo for me:





For a long while, I thought this was an earlier photo, with 4 or 5 C&S locomotives clearing the switchback to Central City the tried and true way, by "bucking snow". Never occurred to me that the rotary plow was at the far end of the consist. But I'm convinced this is the same rotary train as at the water tank. The near locomotive, running in reverse, is our C&S number 6 -- note the same headlight and the same odd multi-chime whistle atop the steam dome. (BTW, can you find the C&S water tank in this last photo??).

I've changed the header title for this thread to identify the photo in future searches.

[John Greenly]

Jim,

without another object of known dimensions in the photo to scale from, I can't do an entirely confident job with the tunnel gulch (TG) tank.  Best I can do probably is to assume the feed outlet to the spout is the usual 12' above the ground.  Using that as a scale, that gives about 16,000 gal for the capacity of the tank (about 15' diameter by 12' tall).  The posts are just about 12x12 inches in that scale, so that does give some confidence in the numbers. It's interesting that the diameter may well be the same as the Blackhawk tank.  The Morrison tank has the same proportions as TG , and by the same 12' spout height scale it comes out also to 15' diameter and 12' tall.

So to summarize, all three may be the same 15' diameter, with  M and TG 12' tall while BH is 15' tall, and the 3-bent base may be a common feature- I bet Keith is right. Notice though, that in the photo Chris posted of the Blackhawk tank, there is no frost box and the diagonal bracing is much more complex than in Jim's first photo of BH and the one of TG, which look to be alike.  I can't make out much about the structure of the Morrison bent bracing from that photo, but it looks to me as if it is complex, and I can't see a frost box.

cheers,
John

[Keith Hayes]

I am really enjoying the scholarship of this group, putting disparate information together!

[Chris Walker]

Since "all the books" seem to have the Rotary images at Black Hawk in them then not too hard to get the date as the 11th Dec 1913 however the C&S Railway, Clear Creek Narrow Gauge (Arcadia) Allan C. Lewis states that there was another Rotary run to Black Hawk in the following month of January '14.  

[Jim Courtney]

John,

Thanks for the additional info and approximations.

So tank capacities are estimated at 16,000 to 20,000 gallons. That reconciles with Mac Poor's stated capacity at Morrison of 17,900 gal.

I've been looking through Mac Poor's station list in his book. Most water tanks on the South Park and Clear Creek divisions are listed as either 30,000 gal or 50,000 gal (Poor refers to them as 47,500 gal). Some stations known to have water tanks by photos, have no listing, such as Blackhawk. Tunnel Gulch tank has a build date but no listed capacity.

There is one other tank with the potential to be a "Three Bent Tank", that being at Riverview, MP 38.8, just to the east of Buffalo. Poor lists this as a tank of only 11,700 gallons, though.

An early c1890 view has a beautiful passenger train obscuring the support structure -- it may have been enclosed at this point in time. The cab and tender of the Cooke 2-6-0 has the same dimensions as that of number 6 in the Blackhawk photo. Perhaps you could gestimate the tank dimension, as it is reminiscent of the Tunnel Gulch tank in terms of number of bands:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/71907



A later view, c1910 shows the tank to be flat topped with many more bands. Unfortunately the tank bents/posts are obscured, as the tank was sited in a carve out in the hillside. This may be a replacement 30,000 gal tank. What do you think?

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/78053/rec/6



A significant wreck with quite a pile up of boxcars occurred in front of the tank in 1902. Seems like I've seen a head on photo of the tank in one of those photos, but can't find it in my files.

Anyone have a photo of the Riverview Tank that shows the support structure??

Late Edit: Derrell Poole posted this photo of Riverview Tank back in February, 2015: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.41377.n7.nabble.com/Idaho-Springs-Tank-td1316i20.html#a1502




Not much help with the bents. For reference, John, that's a 30' St Charles 4-board coal car on the ground. I gestimate the tank diameter to be 15 foot and height of about 12 feet (like Tunnel Gulch and Morrison), but I don't have a ruler in the hospital call room.

Any other photos of the Riverview wreck that show tank details??

[Chris Walker]

Jim mused.....Anyone have a photo of the Riverview Tank that shows the support structure??

[South Park]

  I was going to write, it looks to be sitting on the ground with no
legs under it.  Looks like I was correct.  

[Keith Hayes]

Gees! I just passed by that last week when went over to Buffalo for a hike. I particularly enjoy the drive from Foxton to Buffalo as low speeds are encouraged and you can really imagine the train ride. I am sure it was a long one down the Canon, but it sure was pretty!