Re: a second Caboose that Might Have Been.

Posted by Jim Courtney on
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/the-caboose-that-never-was-tp8369p9418.html

(See John Greenly's long post at the bottom of Page 1 of this thread, or this won't make any sense!)

John,

Welcome to the world of studying first decade C&S caboose photos!

In fact, a simple comparison with the 9 ft wheelbase in M  gives that the wheelbase in BH of caboose 313 is about 6' 4"!  

Instead of 6' 4", would you accept 6' 3"?


From C&S Freight Car Folio 27, posted in the files section.


The caboose renumbering program was devised in about 1911, the cars actually being renumbered between January and June of 1912.

The Folio drawing of caboose 304 / 1003 is confusing in that the drawing shows a caboose that hasn't been rebuilt, with a 1911 number, even though the car itself was probably rebuilt with a modern cupola / window arrangement and modern under frame sometime in 1908-1910.



April 26, 1912, near Waterton. Ronfor collection, in Grandt's Narrow Gauge Pictorial VI, page 96.


This firmly dated photo is at odds to the folio drawing, as the 1003, within a couple of months of being re-numbered, shows it has already been rebuilt to the modern configuration and has a modern undercarriage.

So the Folio drawings do not reflect the actual appearance of the car at a particular point in time. All it tells us is that sometime in its past, it was already a long body (14' 10"), short wheel base ( 6' 3") car.  Derrell Poole has speculated in his "Caboose Chronology" that 1003 (formerly 304, formerly DL&G 1505) may have been originally DSP&P 65, one of the first group of way cars (62-67) constructed by the South Park, in 1880-1881. Perhaps all of the first order of six cars had short wheelbase under frames.

The only other surviving folio 27 drawing of an un-rebuilt caboose is that of 1006, previously 308:




The 308 / 1006 was not given a new longer body in the rebuild (remained 12' 11"), but appears to have an original under frame with the familiar 9-foot wheel base. This car was in the second order of South Park way cars of 1882, DSP&P numbers 68-73.

So, what to make of the Blackhawk photo of 313, later 1010?  

As we discussed, it was supposedly built in 1884 in the last order of way cars (79-82), likely built by the UP, and originally numbered DSP&P 80.  You'd think it would have had the standard 9-foot wheel base, both before and after rebuilding. So why does it have a weird, short wheel base under frame, like the earliest cars? Was this an odd rebuilding variation, from wreck damage perhaps?

And if originally built with quarter round corners, why does it have square corners now? This one photo has always disturbed me, because it seems an unexplained anomaly, a fly in the oatmeal of logical evolution of South Park / C&S cabooses.

I guess one other possibility is that another, earlier car from either the South Park or the Utah Northern, was used to replace a wrecked number 80, sometime between 1885 and the late 1890s. But there is no record of such a replacement event that I know of.

Hmm, perhaps the caboose that never was should be numbered 1011 instead of 1010. There are no known photos of 314 / 1011--in ignorance there is license!