Derrell's Eight-wheel Caboose: Hiding in Plain Sight?
Posted by Jim Courtney on
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Derrell-s-Eight-wheel-Caboose-Hiding-in-Plain-Sight-tp3634.html
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
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Derrell-s-Eight-wheel-Caboose-Hiding-in-Plain-Sight-tp3634.html
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
Jim Courtney
Poulsbo, WA
Poulsbo, WA
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