In all of the steam helper photos I've seen of the Sheridan area the helper is on the head end. The photo at Parkman that Chris showed, Coster's photo of a double header coming up the 1.6% Sheridan Hill, the double header wreck at Sparta (just west of Gillette), the double header photo at the Arvada highway crossing.
This does not surprise me because the main reason to put helpers on the rear end is if the head end already has as much power as the drawbars can withstand. In steam days that was seldom the case so the helpers went on the point. But in diesel days it is common for heavy trains to have as much road power on the point as couplers can stand thus any additional needed power has to go on the rear (or midtrain).
In steam days there was a turntable (later a wye) at Gillette, and wyes at Sparta, Arvada, Ulm. A turntable at Sheridan(still in use today) and wyes at Parkman, Wyola, Ionia (west of Lodge Grass), Area Wye (east of the Bighorn River bridge at Hardin). The wyes were mostly for turning helpers at points where they were added or cut off of trains. For instance, Area Wye, Ionia, and Wyola were each at points where the eastbound grade got successively steeper. The Sheridan helper would run light westbound to meet the train at whichever one of those stations was required depending upon the train tonnage and need for help.
At least during some period there were steam helpers stationed at Crawford Hill with the helper enginehouse near the C&NW diamond. I don't know if this continued to the end of steam? When I came to the BN at Alliance in 1974 if an eastbound train needed helpers then a crew was called off the extraboard to run a couple of diesels light to Crawford. The units would usually be MU'd to the front consist at Crawford. The locos and the helper crew would go back to Alliance with the train. That was possible in the mid 1970s because only the occasional freight train needed help up Crawford Hill. The few coal trains at the time all had 3 or 4 Locotrol slaves buried 65 cars deep for the entire roundtrip from Alliance to the mines and back to Alliance.
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Posted by: runextra@gmail.com
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