Derrell's Eight-wheel Caboose: Hiding in Plain Sight?

[Jim Courtney]

I probably spend too much time looking and re-looking at the C&S digital photographs that I have collected, many from postings on this site, shared by generous people.  When I look at a grainy, poorly focused image for the upteenth time, one of two things usually happens:

a) I see something that I never noticed before.
        or
b) I start seeing things that aren't really there.

A couple of days ago, Chris Walker posted an addendum to Derrell Poole's long running "Eight wheel Caboose on C&Sng?" thread.  Chris referenced a photo that Derrell had posted of C&S caboose 1002 in Idaho Springs, c1912-15: http://c-sn3-discussion-forum.41377.n7.nabble.com/Eight-wheel-Caboose-on-C-Sng-tp488p1918.html.  Chris was able to accurately place the location of the photo as next to the inclined tramway of the Newhouse/Argo Tunnel by referencing an odd switch stand (without mast or target) that appeared immediately in front of caboose 1002 in Derrell's photo.

Last night, I wasn't sleepy, so I pulled up the photo and enlarged it on my monitor so the caboose filled the screen, to study said switch stand, and other details that Chris had mentioned:



Now, I've looked at this photo a couple of dozen times, but had not noticed an odd shaped shadow, under the right caboose platform and steps, that looked all the world like the end of a brake beam with brake shoe attached.  Checking out the left side, there appeared to be the horizontal line of a brake beam, hiding in the shadows under the left end platform as well:



This didn't make any sense, for as we all know, C&S four wheel bobbers have only two brake beams, one for each axle/wheel set, and they were located inboard of the wheel sets, toward the center of the car, not on the outside ends of the car.  I began to wonder if the 1002, an admittedly odd caboose, had a different form of brake rigging than the other 4 wheel cars, at least back in 1914.

This morning, I resized the image with an architects rule, so that it appeared on my monitor as close to 3/4 inch = 1 foot as I could manage, based on a body length of just over 14 feet, and then added vertical axle centerlines, using the 9 foot wheel base of the 4-wheel cabooses:



The shadowy brake beams/shoes still didn't make sense, so I tried adding appropriate sized wheels at the axle centers (though I'm still not very good at this):



It became obvious that the brake beams could not have anything to with the wheels of a 4 wheel caboose. The only explanation that I could think of, to explain their presence under the caboose platforms, was if the car was riding on . . . err . . . hummm . . . well . . .four-wheel freight car trucks.  

Come-on, no way!  The 1002 couldn't be the eight-wheel caboose, could it?????

I then began to look at the little odd, light blobs in the shadows under the car, that my eye had taken to be flowering tops of weeds in the immediate foreground, notably around the switch stand. Two of the blobs on the right were odd: They seemed centered on either side of the axle centerline. They had no obvious stalks or veggies underneath to connect them to the ground. They seemed to have sharply demarcated bottoms, equidistant to the top of the rails, and the right sides of the blobs seemed straight and vertical. Stepping back, they reminded me of the transoms of the older UP swing beam style trucks, just barely peeking out of the shadows. I noted a similar pair co-mingled with the weeds at the left, also centered around the left axle centerline:



Other, indistinct light blobs are rather symmetrically and evenly spaced to the outside of the "transom blobs". If they were parts of truck journals, the wheel base of the truck would be about 4 feet, based on comparisons of the Bettendorf truck of the boxcar, with a known wheel base of 4 foot-6 inches:



You see where I'm going with this, don't you?

Finally, the "jounal blob" to the right of Chris's odd switch stand has a visible pattern in the shape of the capital letter "H", looking very much like the old cast journal lids on UP/Peninsular, 20 ton, swing beam freight trucks of 1884:



An identical truck still exists in Golden, under the tender of restored DL&G 191, for comparison:



So yes, I am suggesting that C&S caboose 1002, sometime about 1914-1915, rode up and down Clear Creek on 30+ year old UP/Peninsular swing beam trucks.  If that is true, does it explain the presence of the shadowy end beams?  I added wheels around the "journals" on the right hand "truck", skewed a bit to allow for perspective. You be the judge:



So how could caboose 1002 be Derrell's "Eight Wheel Caboose", in 1914-15 no less? Two explanations:

I'm becoming delusional and made all this up (see "b" in my first paragraph).  

Or, caboose 1002 (as it's predecessor, 303) was inherited from the DL&G riding on a pair of 4 wheel freight trucks; was not rebuilt with the rest of the surviving 4 wheel cabooses in 1908-12; acquired the 4 wheel undercarriage later, in the late teens or early twenties.

Folks, I could use a reality check here. Please download Derrell's photo, enlarge it, play with the image and see what you think. Then let me know, agree or disagree.

If I'm hallucinating eight-wheel cabooses, perhaps I should seek prescription meds -- or at least lay off looking at old C&S photos for a couple of months.

Jim

[Chris Walker]

Thank You Jim for seeing what I thought I saw.  

 So I've been sitting on that for awhile after returning to the picture several times in pursuit of the actual location.  To be honest,  I wasn't entirely convinced I was seeing two Trucks either hence my "pointing out" the Mast-less, Target-less Sw-St clearly visible with the remark, "am I confusing it with the caboose underframe".
 
 I figured that if I present it again, maybe someone else would pick up on it.  I have in a number of posts dropped hints on relevant Items actually being discussed but to no avail, nobody wants to pick up the ball and go with it.

Without a doubt, a Brilliant deducement logically presented too!

[Jim Courtney]

I dunno, Chris.  I think I see, what I see, and the logic that follows is inescapable.  But I still don't feel quite right about my conclusion.

It would be a great help for me if you could post the largest, cleanest enlargement of the caboose underframe that you can. Nabble always seems to frustrate me.  My images and artwork (such as it is) always seem limited when I post them here.  What I see in my own image files, on my own monitor, is always much larger and clearer than what ends up as images here.

But I do think caboose 1002 has eight wheels . . .

Jim

[Doug Heitkamp]

By George, I think you are on to something!

Doug

[Chris Walker]

Jim,

sometimes full enlargement just doesn't help, but lesser does.  I doubt I can improve on Derrell's picture.

So I guess 1002 can't be a Bobber, must have had a waddle instead.  On NZR I had many trips riding Passenger in short wheelbase Guard's Vans and they shook and waddled so much at high speed, it was very difficult to stand up.

[Jim Courtney]

I'm curious, Chris.  Do you have a date in mind, for when the tram incline at Newhouse/Argo was constructed?  That would give an "earliest" date for when Derrell's photo of 1002 could have been taken.

If number 1002 was an eight-wheel caboose, I'm now beginning to wonder when it actually acquired the 4 wheel under carriage that it obviously had in the 1930s.  Is it possible that the car traveled up and down Clear Creek and across the South Park on eight wheels, well into the 1920s?

Sigh, one more thing that I thought I knew about the C&S, but likely didn't.

Jim

[Chris Walker]

The Argo Mill has been recorded with a 1912 construction date and in operation 1913 so prior to those years, there would be of no need to bring in Ore.  How soon after operation they realised the need to bring in ore I'm not certain.  

Those two large Brace poles that stabilized the Ore Bins seem to have been added about the same time.

Ore was exported to the Jackson Mill after the Argo Mill was opened, handling Lead and Zinc ores from the Seaton Mine.

1913.Aug23rd Mining&Engineering World

Is there any parallel to be drawn with the C&S Shops construction of the Gilpin Tramway cabeese in November 1912 and July 1913?

[Jim Courtney]

Thanks, Chris.

You're obviously the go-to-guy for anything Idaho Springs!

So an earliest date of 1913 would be about right and consistent with Derrell's thoughts on the date of the photo.

One other detail I noticed this morning--the brake staff/wheel appears to be on the platform to the right (shadowed half-brakeman is resting his hand on it).  There is no hint of a brake cylinder under the car side, although that damn switch stand of yours obscures the center of the car.  If the brake cylinder is on the other side of the car, then not only is the caboose riding on 30 year old DSP&P trucks, but it may still have the backwards brake staff to cylinder rigging of the inherited South Park freight cars.

Gives one the sense that the 303/1002, when it was inherited from the DL&G at the dawn of the C&S, was considered the biggest and the best of the cabooses, with no need for repair or remodeling (it was already listed as a 14+ foot car in the 1903 roster).  It just kept rolling along, acquiring new paint schemes every so often. The USSA hardware and modern end ladders/end roof walks have been applied prior to this photo, but the rest of the caboose didn't seem to have major shopping until the underframe was rebuilt and reconfigured to 4 wheels.  Wonder when that happened?

Sorry, I don't get your point about the Gilpin cabooses and how they relate.

Jim

[Chris Walker]

Jim, Thanks.
my questioned correlation with the Gilpin cabeese was due to me having forgotten that the only centre cupola car was from a predecessor road.  I just found where that info was published (Narrow Gauge Pictorial V-viii pg212).  I'm not that much up on Locos and rolling stock any more as thesedays I am now more often looking to see what's "in back of the picture" to work out the details of the location rather than the actual subject matter.  After re-reading the posts, I should have noted the written details more clearly.

That Sw-St also bothers me in the way that there is no top casting nor "ear" of the drop handle visible (hence my original thoughts on being photoshopped out).  It sort of looks like what a small scale modeller would build who only had a rough idea of switchstand construction or combination of styles in a generic form, as many do.  This removal of Targets at a later date on the C&S maybe worthy of some study.

I also wonder if Derrell had posted that picture to see if anyone else could come up with what you have identified and posted, ie deliberately hid in plain sight?

[Jim Courtney]

I also wonder if Derrell had posted that picture to see if anyone else could come up with what you have identified and posted, ie deliberately hid in plain sight?

Only the Shadow . . . err, Derrell . . . knows!

[Doug Heitkamp]

[snapped_bolt]

   Uh...

      Is it just me or does this image seem a little off?
       Is that an idler car (former flanger) pasted under the caboose?
       Upon modifying the image, there appears to be data missing/blended.

        Cheers!

            Stan