I recently bought the attached postcard photo on eBay and spent a good deal of time cleaning it up. The image was unidentified except for the penciled notation on the back, "Wreck on CB&Q RR out of Marsland [Neb.] where Santafe Johnson was killed." Looking
at the image I was able to identify the boiler about to be raised and loaded on the FM-7 steel flatcar coupled to the wrecker's boom car as belonging to an O-1 Mikado -- the same class of engine coupled to the wrecker. The FM-7 flats came in 1909, as did
the 75-ton Industrial wrecking derricks, and the O-1s came at the end of 1910 and beginning of 1911, so at least I had a starting date for trying to pin down the actual date of the accident. Even with Rupert's help we got nowhere searching for accidents near
Marsland, but when I Googled Santa Fe Johnson I was quickly reminded that he was the engineer killed in the boiler explosion of O-1 5020 on Provo Hill, well beyond Marsland in the southwest corner of South Dakota, on Feb. 15, 1913. Several group members (myself
included) posted photos of the remains of 5020 after the crown sheet rupture neatly separated the locomotive's boiler from its running gear. Pete Hedgpeth posted a view of the right side of the boiler after the explosion, taken from the front end, where this
photo shows the left side from the rear end. But there is no doubt that this is indeed the 5020 after it blew. The scenery -- or lack of it -- is the same in both photos.
I actually bought the photo as much for the pressed steel truck under the derrick's boom car as for the overall scene. The Q was not an advocate of pressed steel construction for either passenger or freight cars or their trucks, and it simply did not purchase
cars with pressed steel trucks. Thus the boom car is in all likelihood a wreck victim itself, which the Q was forced to pay for and recouped some of its loss by repairing the car and converting it for company service. But just what is that truck?
With those leaf springs above each journal, it's not a Fox truck, the most common of the pressed steel freight car trucks that flooded the market in the mid- to late 1890s and remained in favor not much beyond 1910. Again, Google found the answer for me,
and I'm attaching an brief article on the Cloud riveted steel freight car truck patented by John W. Cloud in 1896. Cloud was secretary of the Master Car Builders Association and the Master Mechanics Association, and his truck began to be produced by Schoen
(soon to become Pressed Steel Car Company) during 1897.
It's hard to imagine how long it would have taken to uncover the information about this photo before the advent of the internet and Google. It certainly could have been done, but it would have taken many hours -- days, probably -- and visits to one or more
libraries.
Hol