Denver to Como

[John Droste]

I mentioned recently that the squat of the Yardmaster at the end of the Como Depot looked like it was made up from the four walls of a caboose with the windows in the end wall/walls replacing the doors that would have been in their place.

 I don`t have much of a track record for being offered assistance but I would like to be provided some detail of those early caboose`s so that I can draw up the Yardmaster`s hut using dimensions of the caboose`s of the day. I have the recorded dimensions of the hut so it should not be to difficult to do provided I am given the dimensions to work accurately.
 I will scan my drawing and post here if I get the help I need.

What I am looking for are the dimensions of the "cabins" on the caboose`s, length X width.
Also importantly will be wall thicknesses. And whether the walls had internal cladding as well as external.

If there are caboose`s of different sizes, please. And if any had two small square windows in the side walls, or three, would like to know about that too.

 Can I just post out too that we all have the same interests and although being treated like a pariah, up to this very day, I am still able to work out remarkable things completely on my own, against adversity.

 So give me a break. No more bitter malicious maligning please. It would be a joke if it was not sad. I am okay with it but I just think that we could learn more by working together.

John

[South Park]

  I own a DeSoto.  If I go into a parts store and tell them I need
an "X" for a 1958 DeSoto, I will get exactly nowhere.  The parts
books for those cars went in the trash 25 years ago, nothing is
listed in the computers for them, and the counter help has likely
never seen a DeSoto, let alone heard of one.  They are too young.

  But if I go in and ask for a gasket set for a Mopar 383, the fine
young kid at the counter pulls it right up and I get what I am in
need of.

  I draw a close parallel to the way you post questions around here
and the responses you get.  A lot of unneeded intel that pulls the
"counter help" away from your actual (stated) needs and gets the
conversation going either nowhere, or down a negative path.

  In law school, I was taught you only ask the question you want
an answer for and NOTHING ELSE, and you only answer the
question asked and NOTHING ELSE.  Because I am a weird,
eccentric kind of personality like most people are in a hobby
such as this, I find it hard to follow the second directive without
a lot of side explanations, etc.  But being a weird sort of eccentric
that I am, I also find it hard to palate trying to get answers and
getting a lot of "non-answers" that bog my progress down.  And
I think that is what I hear you lamenting in your post here.

  Although decidedly NOT answering your direct question/s ...
and I admittedly know exactly ZERO about South Park cabeese,
I do have a lot of training and experience in problem solving, and
would offer that the first order of business in any finding of reso-
-lutions in any matter is sizing up one's own place in the problem
and seeking the best path to presentation with a given audience,
understanding as best as we can, the nature OF the audience and
how our message/question will be best received.

  I could edit 50% of your post out and make it a series if direct
questions, without a lot of fluff that, to my way of understanding
this audience, is inflammatory or just seen as "pot stirring" and
totally unnecessary, not to mention derails the reader from your
questions.  Ask yourself this, ...  is what you need just the old
caboose dimensions to get your project moving ?  Does the audience
need to know your intentions ?  Does revealing your intentions
going to derail your progress and objectives ?  

  Anyway, just a thought on problem solving and working with
others in a more team like manner.

[Bill Uffelman]

Except perhaps for the window dimensions, 

I would suggest that answers to all of the questions are already on this list. 

Bill Uffelman 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 10:43 AM, South Park [via C&Sng Discussion Forum]

<[hidden email]> wrote:

  I own a DeSoto.  If I go into a parts store and tell them I need
an "X" for a 1958 DeSoto, I will get exactly nowhere.  The parts
books for those cars went in the trash 25 years ago, nothing is
listed in the computers for them, and the counter help has likely
never seen a DeSoto, let alone heard of one.  They are too young.

  But if I go in and ask for a gasket set for a Mopar 383, the fine
young kid at the counter pulls it right up and I get what I am in
need of.

  I draw a close parallel to the way you post questions around here
and the responses you get.  A lot of unneeded intel that pulls the
"counter help" away from your actual (stated) needs and gets the
conversation going either nowhere, or down a negative path.

  In law school, I was taught you only ask the question you want
an answer for and NOTHING ELSE, and you only answer the
question asked and NOTHING ELSE.  Because I am a weird,
eccentric kind of personality like most people are in a hobby
such as this, I find it hard to follow the second directive without
a lot of side explanations, etc.  But being a weird sort of eccentric
that I am, I also find it hard to palate trying to get answers and
getting a lot of "non-answers" that bog my progress down.  And
I think that is what I hear you lamenting in your post here.

  Although decidedly NOT answering your direct question/s ...
and I admittedly know exactly ZERO about South Park cabeese,
I do have a lot of training and experience in problem solving, and
would offer that the first order of business in any finding of reso-
-lutions in any matter is sizing up one's own place in the problem
and seeking the best path to presentation with a given audience,
understanding as best as we can, the nature OF the audience and
how our message/question will be best received.

  I could edit 50% of your post out and make it a series if direct
questions, without a lot of fluff that, to my way of understanding
this audience, is inflammatory or just seen as "pot stirring" and
totally unnecessary, not to mention derails the reader from your
questions.  Ask yourself this, ...  is what you need just the old
caboose dimensions to get your project moving ?  Does the audience
need to know your intentions ?  Does revealing your intentions
going to derail your progress and objectives ?  

  Anyway, just a thought on problem solving and working with
others in a more team like manner.

---

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NAML

[Chris Walker]

John,

go to the C&SN3 home page http://coloradosouthern.blogspot.co.nz/p/f.html and click on C&S Caboose Folio's by Jim Courtney.

[John Droste]

Thank you Sir,
Can`t remember your name but I seem to recall that you were male in conversations some time ago.
I have oft looked at the bonnet in the Como freight room and thought it was from a Desoto.  I will attach a photo.


Maybe it is the part that you are looking for?

Will try to answer your questions in order.
Yes, all I need are the caboose measurements. Plural if there was more than one size.
Bill`s mentioning the width of the window, or what would be formerly door opening is also of interest but I can only scale those off my plans and actual dimensions are not provided. How/where do I trace the caboose dimensions? Excuse me for not being savvy enough to work that out myself.
 I don`t know if the audience needs to know my intentions but I doubt it. We could all survive without the forum as a whole, but it is a discussion forum created for sharing thoughts, ideas and information, I think. Maybe for sharing our modelling fantasies too, not sure.
 I do not know if revealing my intentions will hinder my objectives in this forum. It would seem that way when I mention my wish to rediscover what it was that I read regarding the roundhouse, having your thread changed to "something or other manure."Clearly an attack on my person which seems to be ignored by you and the moderator. It does seem as if seeking help or answers is not generally forthcoming regarding my interest in the South Park history. Compared with when I go about my other business life and life in general.
 I hope this answers your questions. And would`nt it be great if I found the missing part of your Desoto.
 Footnote: It is very hard to write Desoto without the autocorrect switching it to Despot. Laugh.

[John Droste]

Hey WOW Chris,
Just had a very quick look. Thanks. Will look again tonight further. I need to be at work long ago now.

[John Droste]

Just by coincidence, I found this link again after having lost it.
The photo is of the structure outside the office of the Como Depot. This is why I was asking about cabooses with two or three small windows in the side. This structure looks like it had that. Two and maybe a third window in the centre. From the Ted Kiersey Collection.
http://www.narrowgauge.org/ngc/graphics/tkierscey/dspp/dspp007.jpg

Below is my own photo taken off my computer screen. You may imagine that the original image as I had managed to bring it up was far clearer. The vestibule or caboose had a round roof. The lighter patch just on the south end was a man sitting on a bench seat, leaning forward with his arms outstretched to his knees. His head is tilted and he is looking to the South as if awaiting an approaching train.
Point that I am making is that the bench seat is against the vestibule and would therefore be in front of the door, were there to be a door on that side and I do believe there was. Access to the vestibule at the time this photo was taken was from the north end.
There is something on the wall of the vestibule in a V shape. Anybody pick that up? I wonder if they could be grab rails or something like that!
 There were other figures that do not show up so clear because they were moving and it must have been a long exposure. There is a person turning from the door and sitting to the left of the post.
The man sitting at the end of the caboose, he has a bag at the other end of the bench seat. He was bald. I joked with Dan Windolph that it was he. We had a good relationship at that time and I miss him.

[Chris Walker]

John links to the Ted Kierscey collection photo of Como, another wider view copy of that picture is in the DPL.

This remarkable picture allows us a good look at the relationship size-wise of the vestibule or storm entrance....and a comparison with the roof eave line (Depot) and also the platform edge and corresponding track.

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/5112/rv/singleitem/rec/46


This wonderful look at Train time presents us with a nice closeup, gosh I'd love to go back there.



This other DPL view also can be used to show the comparative size of the vestibule in relation to that of the train.

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/5116/rv/singleitem/rec/1

[John Droste]

Thanks Chris,
The DPL photo shows the windows beautifully. I have never seen that particular image before.
Nearer window behind the gent with the bowler type hat and the far window seems to be actually near the corner of the structure. So the two windows are not asymmetrical. Interesting!
And no window in the middle as I suspected there may have been.
Good one. Thanks. Great.
Definitely a flat roof and I see also that the "vestibule" is not in front of the office any more, as I first thought. Interesting.
Anybody else think some of those guys are packing iron?

Will have a look at those earlier files you posted after dinner.

[John Droste]

I need some time to work on this. 8'3" long walls of the Yardmasters hut does not fit in with the dimensions of the cabeese. The dimensions the other way "endways"without doing drawings look initially like they are going to suit, but I have not done them yet.
Amazing for me to discover that the walls of the cabeese according to the plans are only 3" thick including cladding. The framework timbers must have been assembled edgeways and not across as in housing construction.

In the meantime, recall that I said I thought that the Como depot was assembled at the time that the DSP&P Hotel was being connected to the Gilman.
Have a look at the windows in these two photos and compare them. Similar size in appearance, single vertical glazing bar in each. Definitely weird for the yardmasters hut being so low to the ground.
Could the yardmasters hut windows have come from the Gilman. I am confident that they did.

[John Droste]

Is there any knowledge or photos to indicate that the door to the Yardmaster`s hut was not always a sliding door?
I am now wondering if the length walls came from a smashed boxcar? Maybe?



The way I see this corner of the yardmaster`s hut here below, it looks like the sliding door is open flush with the end wall. See the gap under the style of the door. And so it would slide over the doorstep.



I wonder if anybody has noticed in this full photo that the engine on the second track out has derailed, or is jacked up on one side? Might be changing a tire!

Was it always a sliding door? Thanks

[John Droste]

Okay, we don`t want to get to nit picky with figures here but here we go.
Here are some plans of the Como depot that include the dimensions of the Yardmasters hut.
So just to capitulate a bit. I have said earlier that left over floor joists from the building that was reused to make the office floor were used to make the floor of the Yardmasters hut, as well as some floor between the freight room and the original depot, wherever it came from.
And I said that two 2inch timbers would have been used to frame the floor under the Yardmasters hut to tie the floor joists together making it wider than the width of the office.  So we are within an inch going by the measurements on the plans.





Anyway, crux of the discussion today. I did an accurate as possible scale drawing of the Yardmasters hut and drew in 3" thick walls as I had noticed in the caboose drawings.. Squaring off the wall panels point to point, the wall sections having square ends, I estimated the wall lengths at being 7'1.5" long, roughly. So I took that to the No. 1003 caboose and I see that the internal width is 7' neat. So I am 1.5" out. But then I check the outside width of 1003 and it is 7'8" wide. So that makes the walls four" thick and it brings back the estimated end walls to 7' and a half inch long. And that is pretty well exact to me given the circumstances.

The length walls of the yardmasters hut are 8'3", and that does not correspond to the length of the caboose. Well, it would not make sense to destroy a caboose to make a shack on the end of a building. But if the caboose had been damaged beyond repair, then maybe it would be worthwhile salvaging parts to go towards the yardmasters hut. Cutting the damaged section of wall off perhaps or maybe using a section of wall from a boxcar with a sliding door, which had also reached an irreparable state.

Considering this then, using damaged cars, why not the vestibule also. Looking at the measurements, if you knocked a wall off the side of a caboose to lean it against a doorway of the depot, the dimensions as per the plan are fairly exact.

 Regarding that, one thing did not work out for me. I mentioned before the two windows in the side of the vestibule. I thought maybe this was the side of a caboose and that perhaps part of the wall had been cut away placing the window near one end of the remaining wall. But I have examined the figures of the cabeese and the window arrangements do not match the distance of the vestibule. Maybe that just means that another vestibule replaced what was once a caboose.

Bottom line is, the plans are there, you can check yourself. The end walls of the yardmasters hut that have windows that match those of the Gilman are the exact size to that of the 1003 design caboose.

I might just finish by showing a plan also that shows that the yardmasters hut had a different size siding to the depot and sign off with the question, does the siding size on the yardmasters hut match that which was used on the cabeese?

[John Droste]

Interesting thing in my last post is how the doors of the waiting room clash against each other. Builder would not normally do that but the West wall of what is described as the waiting room in this plan was somewhere else formerly. Probably the other side! Its odd how there is a join in the external wall behind storage room wall but there is not one corresponding on the west side.
 That may all have to do with the additional floor under this room.

[South Park]

  I have a childhood friend who came to me one day and
announced he had some irrefutable proof of God's existence.
Prior to marrying a Jesus nutjob, the whole religious thing
was pretty ordinary between us, but later it got "interesting".

  I have been waiting now for 30 years for his thesis of
irrefutable proof to be presented, and the entire subject moved
him down the rack a few pegs in the respect department.

  I made the argument that if the presence of God in his life
movements was so important to him, why was faith alone
not "enough" ?  Why the constant fussing to discover and
detail some elusive proof that put everything else in his life
as a secondary concern ?

  Some things will never be known, in terms of documented,
irrefutable fact.  And most times, ancient history has to be
accepted as ancient stories and period artifacts, but the day-to-
day details of a time long ago are lost to the mists of time.
What we do with it is more important than any proof.

  Not to step on anyone's religious toes here.  My point is
the obsessive drive to prove the unproveable.  Some things
CAN be proven, and sure ...  as historians, it is always good
to give it a try.  Always be looking for clues.  Other things, ....

  I recently acquired a wonderful old door:



  In similar fashion, I have been studying the way this thing is
constructed and trying to draw conclusions.  I have another one
that is similar and the two show patterns that lead me to believe
these were built as small door blanks and then layered out to make
them larger to fit specific door holes.  I could be totally washed
up on this.  A lot happens over the course of 100+ years of continual
use and maintenance.  And no one kept a journal like one might
for the oil changes and other work we do on our cars.  The work
just got done and everything went back into service like it never happened.
No records, no notes, no nothing.  It was a yard shack.  It just needed
to work and no one cared a bit beyond that.  Who knows, ...  my
doors may have been built at some San Francisco or Seattle millworks
shop as 3ºx78" blanks and shipped out en masse to distant ports, to be
made to fit whatever client application might arise.  Or they could be
badly butchered hulks, displaying a century of abuse and random repairs
to keep them operational, even if the repairs appear to be similar ???

  No one kept notes.  No AFE was issued.  No records exist.  It sure
would be nice to know, but I am going to just enjoy my faith in the
ambiance that surrounding myself in cool old junk brings and be content
to never really know.

[John Droste]

That is a superb door. I think that you are safe to assume that it is a door.
That is the kind of work that I seek out in my business. "Doing the unusual, as usual", is my catch phrase.
This door for me would be a challenge, but that is what I do in my line of business.

I expect that is your house you are building, spying the glass insulators on the side. I respect your endeavours. And saying that brings me back to your discussion on the glass insulators, and something Todd had said too.
 But if you are using these in your home for your telegraph system, remember to wire them in series. I am making a point trying to be funny at the same time. Not sarcastic at your expense.

Anyway, Todd, please. The Como engine house had shower facilities for the men who worked there, for the railroad crew when they were stopping over in Como. Family members and probably members of the community took advantage of the facilities too. My question to you Todd, if there where no boiler at the Alpine facilities, how was the local community facilitated with bathing necessities? I could imagine that a lot of engine drivers, engineers would have exited that tunnel looking for a good wash.

Best wishes to all.  Excel at what you are good at, drawing on your gifts and others, and thinking positively. Try to avoid negative thoughts which only blocks potential.

[Chris Walker]

John,
you are combining various era photographs to present your theory.  Do you have a photo showing the Depot without this office addition, i.e. before it was added?  

The first Way Cars of the DSP&P were built between 1879-80(The South Park Line pg360) 1882 (DSP&P Pict. Sup. pg306) 1881(Narrow Gauge Pictorial V-III pg12).

What you are suggesting to be a sliding door looks to be more likely the walls are separating slightly due to settling.   If it was a sliding door then there would be a deeper shadow at the bottom so as to clear that sloping step. In your enlargement the step is deeper than the shadow of the outer wall corner. Bear in mind that Depots are built first then the platform added up to the wall unlike as in model construction.  Further enlargement of this view shows that there clearly is a framed single doorway.
http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/5116/rv/singleitem/rec/45


Note that there isn't a plumb line in the Yard office, even the chimney is off on its own tangent.  The little boy's bench has migrated around to the Depot front and the rain gutter has also gone.

from Como Facebook page.

The doors appear to me to now be two outward opening with a Hasp in centre. The 3 differing era views show the hasp is visible.

from the Collection of Robert D. Stull

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/90158/rv/singleitem/rec/40


This has better light to illustrate the changes and those done after C&S.
http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/43677/rv/singleitem/rec/5


You are correct though, the #30 is off the track.   

[Robert McFarland]

I was under the impression that folks in South Park  and along the South Park heated their water on a wood stove and then took a bath in an old wash tub.I was suprized to find that the Como Hotel and Eating House did not have indoor plumbing until after the C&S closed down.John,if you're interested in C&S stuff made from cast-off RR items consider the shacks built  near the roundhouse for overnighting engine crews.One of them was recently was restored by volunteers and was the subject an article in Bogies and Loop.Stuff included pieces of boiler jacket from an old Cooke Consolidation.

[John Droste]

Thanks heaps Chris for the clarification. Clearly, the door opening has been altered and I concur with all.
Thank you for your positive help these last days. We have acheived and realised much as a result.

[John Droste]

Thanks Robert for your comments. It highlights how scarce processed resources were back then. And how those processed resources needed to be recycled, wherever possible.
 To think that some workers spent their day underneath a log, pulling on a saw just to break down log! Any processing of raw materials had to be appreciated.

 I noted with "SouthPark" that he like myself is agnostic or a non believer. However, he has a 'spirit' in him that attaches him to older things. I like that. I meant to say it in my reply to him before. Whether the spirit is real or just a feeling is another matter.

[Todd Hackett]

John Droste wrote

...Todd, please. The Como engine house had shower facilities for the men who worked there, for the railroad crew when they were stopping over in Como. Family members and probably members of the community took advantage of the facilities too. My question to you Todd, if there where no boiler at the Alpine facilities, how was the local community facilitated with bathing necessities?...

As Robert points out, common practice of the day was to heat water on a stove for washing. I had friends in the 1970s who lived at 9000 feet in the Rockies, and still used a coal stove for heat, and when they bathed, it was from water heated on that coal stove. My friends' father still lives there, and finally put in indoor plumbing and central heat and hot water a few years ago (when the county found out about how he was living). I was not trying to say exactly how things were done at the Alpine Tunnel, just pointing out that I haven't seen any evidence of a boiler. Como was very different in that it had a major locomotive facility that needed a large boiler to provide steam to run machinery, and since they had such a boiler, they could also use it for many other things. Even structures that had boilers for hot water or steam heat in that era would not have had an easy time running a generator from them. Those boilers used a closed water or steam loop (a generator would have exhausted steam, requiring a make-up water system), and operated at very low pressures. I have a ca. 1912 hot water boiler in a residential property in Denver, which has a boiler (originally coal-fired, converted to gas ca. 1950) which operates at ~12 to 15 psi, which is just enough to get the hot water up to the radiators on the 2nd floor. I'm fairly sure that even the 1912 residents of that house heated their bath water on stoves. Steam heat boilers operated at substantially lower pressures because the steam is less dense, so it doesn't require the same pressure to lift it to the highest radiator.

Chris Walker wrote

...The doors appear to me to now be two outward opening with a Hasp in centre...

Here's a post-railroad view of the later double doors, confirming they were outward-opening (Morris W. Abbott photo dated 1946):