Latest Shorpy Pic and A Question...

[gmpullman]

Here's another wonderful railroad related photo from Shorpy!

http://www.shorpy.com/node/16806?size=_original#caption

There's some great details from the arch-bar and truss rod era! How about those roofs? Weren't they even covered with pitch or canvas? Observe all the chalk markings and the shipper's labels shown on several cars, i.e. Francis Biedler Lumber. That would make a nice era-specific detail for your rolling stock. Look how close the couplers are to the car ends! Lots of developments to draft gear have yet to be seen.

So, my real question... What do you suppose the five "tin" boxes would be on the caboose roof? They look like they're sheet metal and they appear to be anchored in shch a way that allows them to pivot since all are not square to the car. They almost look like a lantern could be placed in them... any clues? I'm just curious.

Can anyone spot the lone individual in the shot?

Thanks, Ed

 

[CGW121]

Looks like some one is the third window from the corner. Almost like he is leaning over a railing. No clue aboth the caboose tho.

[locoi1sa]

Ed.

 I love the locomotive roof. I noticed no build gates on the house cars. What is up with those crazy brackets on the cabin roofs is beyond me.

       Pete

[gmpullman]

Hi, CGW

You spotted the same guy I did, second floor, middle window. Perhaps a draftsman working over a drawing board?

Pete: I hadn't noticed the cleristory cab roof before! What a touch of class, that engine looks spotless, too.

Ed

[Lake]

No matter how much I enlarge the windows, I can see nothing that even looks close to being a person.
Just assorted dark and light shadows and a few indistinguishable objects.

The brackets on the cabooses are a mystery. They seem to be able to be fixed at different angles to hold what ever they are made to hold.

[gmpullman]

Hi, Ken...

To me it looks like a white shirted draftsman? Middle window just right of the downspout.

Ed

[mlehman]

Note the angled rooftop corner grabirons. This was right before the standardization of safety appliances came into effect IIRC and did away with these.

[tomikawaTT]

Fascinating details.

My question is, what happened to #205s stack?  There appears to be a round hole in the top of the smoke box where the stack should be, but isn't.

Note, too, that the Anheuser-Busch car has St Louis Refrigerated Car Co number 433 - and no visible ice hatches.  Did they load the bunkers from inside?

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[mlehman]

The only thing I can think of is #205 is in transit, perhaps a new loco?

As for the A-B car, I suspect it's not a reefer. Looks like a sliding door on it, not hinged plug doors. Maybe it was for inbound freight, like bottles. Or outbound by-products (malt? cattle feed?)

[zstripe]

tomikawaTT

Note, too, that the Anheuser-Busch car has St Louis Refrigerated Car Co number 433 - and no visible ice hatches. Did they load the bunkers from inside?

Did they ship beer, at all Refrigerated back then? I thought it was wood barrel's and bottles to distributors. Maybe the St Louis Refrigerated Car Co owned the car dedicated to Anheuser-Busch exclusive use service, not necessarily a Reefer. My guess.

Frank

[zstripe]

Interesting bit of info: St Louis Refrigerated Car Co. was a subsidary of Anheuser-Busch, something I did not know, so I would assume, the car was multi-purpose for dry freight use? Again My guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Refrigerator_Car_Company

Frank

[dehusman]

Freight car roofs were usually not covered with canvas, that was to fragile.  Men were walking up and down the roofs setting handbrakes and retainers, so walking on a canvas roof with hobnail boots (for traction) would tear the canvas.  Many roofs were double board, with two layers of boards with the joints staggered and a bead (groove) cut in the centers of the boards so the water that seeped through the top layer of boards would be drained off by the groove.  They also would put a tin roof layer under the wood layers where it would be protected.

An easy spotting feature of early era cars is they have no crosswalks on the roof and typically only a ladder or grabirons on the sides or ends but not both.  The original Roundhouse old time 36  ft truss rod boxcar from the 1970's only had grabirons on the sides of the car and was "correct" for an 1890's, 1900's car.  The molds were later updated so the car they produced today is really a post 1910, closer to Roaring 20's car.

Beer was shipped in both boxcars and reefers.  There were all sorts of reefers back then and all sorts of designs for the hatches.  Tiffany cars had 3 hatches down the center of the roof.  Wickes and Riordan cars had two hatches on each end of the roof.  Gould reefers had one hatch on each end of the roof.  Zimmerman reefers had an hatch on the ends of the cars.  Hanrahan cars had the bunker in the roof in the middle of the car.

The general concensus on the early rail modelers is that the boxes on the roof of the cabooses were some sort of marker light arrangement that allowed the lights to rotate to indicate which track the train was on and whether it was stopped or not.

[dehusman]

Other things to note.  The NYC cars have left opening doors (very common).  Cars tended to only have sill steps (stirrup steps) on the right side of the car, nothing on the left end.  The NYC grain car is actually yellow with black lettering, however the film of the day shows yellow as grey and that's why the Roundhouse model of the NYC Grain Elevator car is grey with black lettering instead of yellow, Roundhouse misinterpreted the color for the B&W photo.

[Javelina]

Tickled to see a thread on that photo. I love seeing the old glass plate stuff on Shorpy, the detail is unreal. My wife commented that it was like looking out the window you could see so much.

I wondered myself about the caboose roofs. I also Googled Chicago and Alton and spent some time wandering among the results. I came across one photo, partially obliterated by a museum watermark (meant to discourage copyright piracy I suppose) that shows an aerial view of the yards at Bloomington. The roundhouse at left is visible as well as the larger building. Couldn't find anything relating to the caboose though, so we're left with "brackets" for "something" for now.

A window into the past, I love Shorpy, in fact it's my homepage on IE. Thanks for all yall's input on this photo. Makes it so much more interesting to know more.

Lou

[gmpullman]

An industrial archeologist's dream... Here trod the thousands of C&A shop workers and the remains can clearly be seen! Click photo to enlarge.

Interesting note: It was here that George M. Pullman built his first sleeping car (along with the first dining car!)

Fire up the Wayback Machine... Ed

[gmpullman]

dehusman

Freight car roofs were usually not covered with canvas, that was to fragile.

Hi, Dave

I was involved in the restoration of a Pittsburg & Shawmut wood caboose and the roof was covered in a woven fabric of some kind that seemed like it could have been canvas. There was an asphalt coating on it and more recently someone had applied something like a silver RV roof coating on it. Probably a stop-gap leak repair, but the fabric had been applied many years prior to my involvement with the project (1972-73) perhaps just something done in their shops.

Thanks for all the interesting facts!

Ed

[CGW121]

Shorpy is a top notch source of old photos. A lot of railroad stuff can be found there. It is a must see site for me. http://www.shorpy.com/node/16796?size=_original#caption This one is of the CNW Bellwood station by the Proviso yards also there are a lot of photos of the back shops which are often neglected areas of railroad photography.

[rrinker]

Cabooses (cabeese?) often had tarred canvas roofs - but remember, no real need to go walking around up there on those, they had brake wheels on the end platforms, not up on the roof. Passenger cars too. More waterproof? Longer life? Protection of people more important than the cargo? All of the above? But you have the same idea - brakemen didn't have to run across the roofs of passenger cars tieing down the brakes like they did on freight cars.

               --Randy

[Steven S]

CGW121

This one is of the CNW Bellwood station by the Proviso yards

 

That's one of Jack Delano's pics.   Here's his gallery...

http://www.junipergallery.com/taxonomy/term/65

 

Steve S