Re: Freight trains at Dillon?

Posted by Jim Courtney on
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Freight-trains-at-Dillon-or-Keystone-tp1868p2787.html

Sorry, Keith, I just can't accept that concept.

See my June 17th post on page 2 of this thread.  There is written documentation from Summit County records that the Blue River ranches shipped livestock out of Dillon in vast numbers, commonly in 10 to 20 car trains, from as early as 1903 until as late as the 1930s.  We just haven't found many pictures of them yet.

I think that this is a pitfall that we must acknowledge as model builders of the C&S:  Model builders try to reproduce what they see (in real life or in vintage photos) rather than what we read about and have to imagine.  So, if Otto Perry takes several photos of 1 or 2 stock cars in the passenger train, we tend to assume that was the norm. Without written context, we cannot know if Otto considered them the norm or, rather, an incredible anomaly, prompting the photos.

Take Chris' Como photo of 1902-1903 posted above.  We only "see" two stock cars in the photo, but cannot know if there are another 15-20 cars to the right of the frame, with 2 more helpers in front of the caboose.

That is what impressed me so much about Derrell's "Eight wheel caboose" thread:  The incredible amount of information from written records that Derrell had patiently sifted through to draw conclusions.  Many of my cherished beliefs about C&S cabooses, established by study of only photos, without context, turned out to be incorrect.