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