UP Built 27 foot Boxcar Shed

[Jim Courtney]

Another of this weeks eBay photo purchases:





I bid on the photo when originally listed but didn't win it. I was happy to find prints of the photo listed for sale.

The label on the original listing indicated the location was Leadville, but the tall peaks in the background just don't look like Leadville to me. Somehow they suggest Frisco at the mouth of Tenmile Canon.

The date is unknown but given the "C&S. Ry" on the barrel, in block-gothic and the light paint scheme (grey with green fascia?), it is likely post 1907, perhaps 19teens.

The boxcar shed has the curved lower edge of the end fascia typical of UP built 27 foot boxcars, as built for the South Park and the Kansas Central. The vertical T&G siding remains on the end, but the sides have new horizontal siding.

All of the hardware at the left end of the car (brake beam and shoes, brake rods with clevises, upper brake staff mounting brackets) suggest the shed is used by the car men, for freight car repair -- that would suggest a terminal location, like Leadville or Como.

Somehow, the track in the foreground kinda looks like it could be standard gauge; and if the brake beam leaning against the shed is three foot gauge, these folks are Pygmies.

Could this be Golden?? Again, I guess Leadville is a candidate, with the dual gauge Leadville Mineral Belt Ry there.

Anyhow, I'd be interested in the Group's thoughts on the photo: Location, time, purpose . . .

[Keith Hayes]

Me thinks Golden. Looking north.

Now I know what to do with all my spare iron!

[South Park]

  The smiling woman is very uncharacteristic of period photos.
Makes it look photoshopped in !  The rest of them look to be
hardliners for 1850-ish dress and dour photo faces.

[Chris Walker]

I'm with Keith...Golden but looking South-West, just put a big M for Mines on it in later years