I picked up the attached image of Q R-4
Prairie 1958 a couple of weeks ago on eBay and Rupert and
I have been trying to figure out just what it depicts ever
since, with no real luck. The scene is most likely
Newcastle, Wyo., about 1910, as the original print is
identified on the rear only as "Newcastle - Cambria."
It's obvious that the photo was not taken at the coal
mines at the end of the Cambria Branch out of Newcastle,
as it appears to be at an engine terminal. Newcastle
had a roundhouse and engine servicing facility in the
early years of the 20th century. The oldest Lines West
locomotive assignment sheet I have, however, is for
September 1914 and shows the 1958 assigned to the Omaha
Division, though assignments changed frequently.
At any rate, the interesting elements of the photo are the
cars, not the locomotive. First, the car coupled to the
1958. This one matches nothing in the 1912 freight car
diagram book, and the fact that it has no visible
lettering or numbers anywhere lends credence to our theory
that it is a flatcar with locally added sides and ends and
is used strictly in the yard for moving materials from one
place to another -- cinders, gravel, ballast, whatever.
The little cars up on the trestle are another matter
entirely. At first glance there appear to be three side
dump cars, but closer examination shows that there are
actually at least 10 small four-wheel cars with a dump
door on the forward end. Their wheels are at right angles
to the length of the trestle and the track below, where
they appear to be dumping cinders into the car ahead of
1958. There are curved wheel stops on the trestle to keep
the cars from rolling over the edge. But there is no
visible ramp or track on the other side of the trestle up
which these cars could have been pulled or pushed. How
did they get to the top of the trestle? And what are they
being used for? Our best guess is cinders from the
locomotive cinder pit, but that's an awful lot of cars for
a facility the size of Newcastle's. The little cars are
of two different types, and the two "ends" (actually
sides) that are visible carry CB&Q initials but no
numbers.
Has any member of the group seen anything like this
anywhere, or does anyone have a better idea as to what
we're looking at here?
I'm also attaching an April 1919 view of the depot, coal
chute and yard at Newcastle, taken from atop a building or
smokestack in the area where the locomotive servicing
facilities are located. Unfortunately, it looks the wrong
direction to verify the existence at Newcastle of the
mysterious trestle. But the lone gondola on the short
spur at lower right, while not the car coupled to the 1958
in the other photo, does lend credence to the idea that a
car was based at Newcastle for moving cinders and other
materials.
Amazing the previously unknown things that continue to
turn up 100 and more years after the fact!
Hol