Hol, those little cars on top of the trestle are most interesting. And they appear posed to dump into the gon. There are at least 11 or 12 carts. But I don’t think the load is cinders. It looks more like coal, shale, ore or some other kind of rock that has been broken into uniform size. Something that has been mined or quarried and is being shipped out. Maybe even ballast. The gon has two piles of fist size rock showing above the sides. The same rock is under the trestle and piled up along the rails next the trestle. I don’t recall seeing cinders of this large and consistent size. Plus you can see the one of the dump carts has a broken end door, indicating a heavy load has been inside the cart. Something I would not expect from cinders. There is also a variety in the doors on the other carts, indicating that doors have been broken and replaced. Another sign of heavy loads, ie rock.
Note how the support beam under the carts is cantilevered out toward the track, to get the end of the carts over the gon for unloading. It also looks like a workman with a shovel underneath the trestle, behind the second bent in front of the gon. Almost like he is hiding. There is a floor underneath the trestle just above the ground level, you can see the edge of the boards. So whatever was being loaded was valuable enough to pick up the spillage.
And it is not the same trestle as seen in the yard photo you shared. The construction and bents are completely different. I suspect this was a loading facility for a nearby mine, hence the small carts. Still have not figured out how they got on the top of the trestle. But I would guess this was taken near the end of the line where the mines were located. I don’t see any evidence of an engine facility. The second engine in the background appears poised to run up a track on the backside of the trestle.
Just behind the carts it appears the trestle is lower, and could even have track mounted, so that the carts could be rolled off a flat car or be filled with a laborer and shovel empting a narrow gauge car into a standard gauge car, using the carts as holding bins.
Doug Harding
www.iowacentralrr.org