Help identifying a baggage car

[Dave Eggleston]

There is a mystery 2-door baggage car that I've seen in 4 photos. At least, it's a mystery to me. It ran on the Greeley, Salt Lake and Pacific from about 1890 to 1894. Looking at sources including the mid-continent web pages isn't revealing any solutions for me.

Here is the car on the ground in the well-known rollover scene in Crossen p. 49, ca. 1890. Passenger car on the ground is CC 182, the one on the tracks I believe is CC 183. Engine on ground is DL&G 60:



Here is another nice view of the scene in the Pictorial Supplement, p. 148:



Here is the car, with either CC coach 182 or 183, at Sunset in the Pictorial Supplement, p. 144. This is the only photo I've seen of CC 153 on the GSL&P:



And finally, the Boulder station in the flood of 1894, DPL X-11871, showing either coach UPD&G 182 or 183 and the 2-door baggage on the short holding siding:



Looking closely, the wreck and the Boulder photos show one side of the car, without a stove stack, while the Sunset picture shows the with a stove stack. So it appears door layout on both sides is identical. Also, a bit of end of the car is visible in the Boulder photo and no window is visible on at least one end wall, not surprising.

Can anyone help identify this 2-door baggage car? One candidate I considered is DSP&P 40 (DL&G 1000) as it also is a 2 door car originally with a duckbill roof prior to about 1892 when it appears to have gotten a bullnose roof. So I think that's out as the Boulder photo shows a duckbill roof. I'm starting to think that it may be a Kansas Central or U&N car but don't have good references for those lines. Kansas Central BME 1322 does show up on the line in a couple of pictures circa the early '90s so there is a precedent.

Thanks!

[Robert McFarland]

Would there be any photos of it in "Switzerland Trail"?

[Dave Eggleston]

The first and fourth pictures are from Crossen’s Switzerland Trail. He doesn’t discuss cars on the GSL&P. There is a fifth photo of the car in Crossen, in the same accident as the first photo, with less detail. In no photo have I been able to discern lettering.

[Dave Eggleston]

Mystery solved! Boulder Historical Society has several very good GSLP photos of Sunset station, very large zoom, one of which is the third picture I posted above of the baggage car with #153. It turns out that this is Baggage UP 1001, ex DSP&P 41, with the coach also lettered UP. The number is visible in the bottom left corner of the car side.



Now back to working on dating this car's time on the line...

[Jim Courtney]

Of the three South Park baggage cars, DSP&P 41 (later UP 1001, and finally C&S 103) was the "bad luck baggage car."

Per the C&S Car Locator: https://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/CandS/dsp-passenger/bag_40-41-45a.htm:

When taken over by the Colorado & Southern in 1899, DL&G #1000, #1001 and #1002 became C&S #102, #103 and #104.
Baggage car #103 was destroyed at South Park Junction in June 1902, after being wrecked in a head-on collision between the Fish Train and westbound train #71.

A photo of sister UP 1000 at Morrison, at the above site, looks identical to the last photo posted of UP 1001.

Sister baggage cars 102 and 104 later had their platforms removed and were renumbered to familiar C&S baggage cars 1 and 2.

Great photos BTW

[Dave Eggleston]

Thanks Jim.

Boulder Historical Society has some amazing photos digitized, some seen in Switzerland Trail, many others I’ve never seen, including another couple of 1001.

Speaking of bad luck equipment, the only two wrecks photographed on the GSL&P both involved leased DSP&P 60 in 1890 (with 1001) and 1891. Considering every train backed to Boulder from Sunset it seems a miracle there weren’t a lot more.

[Ken Martin]

Dave,

Good work identifing that car. With the number there is no doubt.
The car behind I believe is 182 (CC 1), I found another good shot of it on the Boulder site.

Ken Martin

[Dave Eggleston]

Ken, there is a wonderful view of 182 on the Boulder site, upright on its trucks, in Boulder Canyon with the number very clear on its side when you zoom in on it. Is this the one you saw? The 13-window coaches ran on the line from 1883-1894, though I doubt if both were always there together except in 1891.



I have found several dozen photos on the BHS site in the last two days that I've never seen before and that have conclusively given me missing trackage details for the key towns on the line (Sunset, Salina, Crisman, Orodel and Boulder) and also some amazing equipment and building shots including one I just found of DSP&P/DL&G engine 160 in Boulder yard with UPD&G/CC 15X (153, 154 or possibly 155) being loaded or unloaded off a flatcar behind it. DSP&P Brooks engines seem to have had flat-topped cab windows unlike the CCRR Brooks which had curved tops. The car on the ramp looks to have curved-topped windows, hence my guess at CC/UPD&G 15X. 160 lost that number in 1890, becoming DL&G 63, so I am guessing that this photo is ca 1887-1889.



Since there was no narrow gauge connection from the outside world into Boulder, every piece of GSL&P equipment was brought in on a flatcar. A perplexing question is that there is no evidence of any enginehouse on the line. Engines appear to have been parked outside on a spur in Boulder. Judging from the condition of the engine on the ramp in the above photo, I speculate it is being removed for service after months of hard labor and exterior exposure.

So far I know of 9 engines, 3 coaches, 2 baggage cars, several excursion cars and an assortment of boxcars, flatcars and gondolas all brought in or removed at different times from 1883-1894. And of course the two boxcars converted to baggage service, cars 01542 and 026552. I've seen not only CC but DSP&P and KC equipment in the photos. For a 13-mile line it has a colorful and complex equipment history. It is just begging for a layout to be based on it.  

[Robert McFarland]

Could that engine being loaded be 155.which was damaged in the flood.

[Chris Walker]

Very interesting, could you please put up some links to these pictures.

[Dave Eggleston]

Robert, identifying the engine on the ramp is definitely tough with the digitized image. Perhaps in person with a magnifier the number on the tender or the sand dome or headlight will reveal itself.

With 160 being renumbered 63 around 1890 it seems likely this photo is no later than 1891. Running through engine pictures on the GSL&P there are very few dated photos though there are several equipment idiosyncrasies and several unique equipment pairings which help to isolate things a bit:

- From looking at photos across the books and online, it seems CC Brooks engines all have arched cab windows while DSP&P had flat-topped cab windows. Engines otherwise look similar. No KC or U&N Brooks appear to have run on the line, per the photos, as those engines didn't have evenly spaced drivers.
- CC 10 was definitely on the line from ca 1883 to ca 1886 as the only engine seen with a Congden stack; it was renumbered 152 ca 1885 but there are no photos showing that number that I've found so far. CC 10 is also the only engine that had the reversing headlight on top of the cab; all others had a special rack above the air tanks on the back of the tender.
- UPD&G 59, ex-CC 151, is in one picture at Crisman with 026552 in tow (026552 is in only one dated picture of 1887 but is seen with engines 154, 160, 59, 60 over the years) dating 59 earliest on the line to maybe ca 1885 until an unknown date.
- CC/UPD&G 153 is seen in only one photo and it is seen with UP baggage 1001 (which is in 1890 and 1894 photos), so 153 was on the line at some point 1890-1894.
- CC/UPD&G 154 shows up in several photos that date to the mid-1880s and 1890; I think it was the primary engine on the line when CC 10 was removed and was used there on-and-off until ca 1890.
- DL&G 60 (was DSP&P 159) was in photos ca 1890 - ca 1891 but had square cab windows, not the arched windows seen on the engine on the ramp. 60 was in two accidents on the line, both roll-overs. The two ex-South Park engines, DL&G 60 and DL&G 160 show in photos ca 1890 - 1891, with 60 seen concurrent with 154 in one photo.
-CC/UPD&G 155 is only seen in several 1894 flood photos at the same time as the UP baggage 1001; I think it was a late arrival on the line ca 1893 or 1894. One detail seen on 155 in 1894 is the roof vent, also seen on 1890s South Park engines. No other engine running on the GSL&P has this detail and the engine on the ramp is missing it--but this could simply be that it hasn't been added yet.

I lean, given the weight of this admittedly very flimsy available evidence, to the engine on the ramp is CC154. Will be interesting if we can find out yea or nay on that. I'm sure a look at a clean print of that photo could solve this problem.

Without engine storage/maintenance facilities on the line, and with absolutely no winter views of the line found so far, I wonder if the line was seasonal? Perhaps the engines and coach stock was pulled out annually during the winter.  

[Robert McFarland]

CC 153 and CC154  were in the staged locomotive collision

[Dave Eggleston]

Chris, yes. Sorry, the caption on the photos is the call number at BHS but here are the links:

https://boulderlibrary.org/cwjpgs/540-1-19photo_2.jpg is the engine swap.

https://boulderlibrary.org/cwjpgs/218-2-6photo_4.jpg is coach 182.

I'm still going through the pictures I've found on the site that relate to the GSL&P, including some early C&N photos that help clarify station and building arrangements on the GSL&P (buildings that exist in both give a better idea of where track ran). I have pulled down several dozen pictures and need to organize them. I have been querying like crazy and looking at lots of dead-end links in the process but worth it for the treasures I've found.

Like this that confirms the spur arrangement at Gold Hill (Salina) and shows equipment in the lower right unlike most other pictures ever do: pure end views of 026552 and a CC (?) gondola on the spur just beyond the concentrator, with the mill's scale box in the foreground. I wish Sturtevant took more of this level of detail of equipment.



https://boulderlibrary.org/cwjpgs/213-3-17photo_4.jpg

Or these gents loading ore in Boulder Canyon between Boulder and Orodel. Location is a siding that I can't locate on the maps but the UP harp switchstand by the trestle leads me to believe this is GSL&P and the gon is CC or DSP&P.



https://boulderlibrary.org/cwjpgs/217-1-14photo_3.jpg

Both of these images can be enlarged on the site to enjoy the detail.

[Dave Eggleston]

Yes, Robert, they were in that stage collision, a few years after the GSL&P folded. And then they were repaired and returned to service on the UPD&G! Crazy.

[Mike Trent]

Dave,

For what it's worth, for a number of years, the Marshall Branch into Boulder was 3 rail all the way from Denver. So, there actually was a narrow gauge connection to the outside world. I can't recite the years that was the case, but it was active as I said, for several years. During that time narrow gauge excursions from Denver were run over the Switzerland Trail.

[Dave Eggleston]

Mike, I can't find that narrow gauge connection so far in the period I'm looking at, which is 1883-1894. I'd love to see it if it existed in GSL&P times but I'm suspicious without solid data.

I am looking closely at the 1894 flood pictures to see if I could spot that southbound track. The large BHS photos online are very clear, far more so than those in Crossen's book, and there are many more available online than Crossen included. The line to Denver turned south from the yard between 12th and 13th Streets just west of the water tank. In several flood pictures I can make out the switch throw for the track but the track itself is covered in water and debris, making a rail count impossible. Except...one flood picture looks southwest along this track to Boulder Creek where the flood ruptured it, https://boulderlibrary.org/cwjpgs/225-1-28photo_1.jpg.

 

The rupture in the track is 12th Street. In the center distance 1/2 block away you can see the top of the trestle just poking up over the creek. Note that the rails bent up in the foreground are only standard gauge, with no evidence of a third rail. The only other entrance to Boulder, along Water Street from the east, was also only standard gauge east of the stone union passenger depot per 1894 photos.

I'd love to see the dates for the three-rail connection from Denver you're thinking of. That would certainly raise a question of why the UP brought equipment in on flatcars as in the picture. If that connection was in place, you'd likely not see that type of transport. [edit] I've just looked at Crossen and on page 168 he mentions that the third rail was finally laid in June 1905. With that info, plus what I see in those flood pictures, I think the the GSL&P was fully isolated from the rest of the system during its exisence. [end edit]

Didn't the Switzerland Trail moniker come after the GSL&P period with the C&N's construction in 1898 or later?

[Jim Courtney]

According to Mac Poor, the third rail between Denver and Boulder was added in 1905, to provide for direct excursion train runs from Denver to points on the DB&W.

I can't find a reference for when the third rail was removed, presumably not long after the DB&W was abandoned.

[Dave Eggleston]

Jim, I'd not looked at Poor but good to validate Crossen's account with that. Thanks.

[Todd Hackett]

Jim Courtney wrote

...I can't find a reference for when the third rail was removed, presumably not long after the DB&W was abandoned.

The third rail was removed in 1916, several years before the DB&W was abandoned. I assume the UP loaded equipment on standard gauge flatcars to get them to the GSL&P. Everything on that line came from other UP lines, mostly Colorado Central.

[Dave Eggleston]

Definitely standard gauge flatcars as seen in the photo I posted above. No other option to get stuff there!

Equipment was intended to come from the CC, and much actually did. But as I dig in I find at least 2 DSP&P engines, a DSP&P baggage car, a Kansas Central baggage car and now what appear in photos to be several DSP&P gondolas and at least one DSP&P boxcar. An amazing parade of equipment on a 13-mile line that lasted only 11 years.