Many narrow gauge railroad switched trucks out from under standard gauge cars as the only way they could make profit on the car handle and stay in business. To first answer the question, yes that is the photo from the LofC showing the Ramsey’s Transfer apparatus at Phoenicia, NY at the junction of Ulster & Delaware RR and the NG Stony Cove & Catskill Mountain RR that went to Hunter, NY. The Kaaterkill RR also branched off of it and handled the Standard Gauge cars, mostly to Tannersville.
A beautiful model of the entire terminal and Ramsey’s Transfer is on display at Empire State RR Museum in Phoenicia during most of the year.
Not commonly know, the East Broad Top had two eras of handling standard gauge cars. The EBT first crane at Mt Union was just east of the water tank in front of the engine house, with one end on the existing wall. They lifted box cars and gondolas and replaced the trucks with ng wheels. The ¾ size knuckle was removed from the connecting car to the SG car and replaced with a knuckle that had a full size hand that coupled to the SG car on ng wheels. Many empty PRR gondolas were delivered to a scrap yard at Three Springs, PA. There was a flour miller in Saltillo that ground local grain but made a superior product by mixing half of their grain with grain obtains from the mid-west. Cars of CB&Q, MILW, and ATSF were some of the names the extant owner of the company could remember. These cars were unloaded in Saltillo. They sacked their product in a very artful colorful cloth bag, one being framed for display in their home in Three Springs. One time the railroad delivered a UTLX tank car of kerosene to Robertsdale. When the empty car was returning north, it would not fit through the tunnel and had to be loaded with water to get it back to Mt. Union to be re-trucked with its own wheels.
Only the rod that connects the brake cylinder to the brakes in the trucks had to be disconnected by cotter pin removal. The air line glad hands were all the same size on all air systems, and if the hoses would not reach, a goose neck hose was added to lengthen the hose. What is not know if the EBT skipped connecting the brake rods on the narrow gauge truck and operated the one or two cars as no-air-brake cars. Some air brake rules could have been exempted.
In 1923 a new Timber Transfer was built at Mt. Union that handled the new business of the McKelvey Lumber Co. that was shipping cut lumber and props to coal mines in the Northeast Pennsylvania area. Many PRR, LV, and RDG flat cars were lifted and given ng wheels to interchange with McKelvey’s logging line at Rockhill Furnace. Those props could be loaded flush with the floor on the cars and did not need to be spaced off the floor, like they did when using EBT or McKelvey own flat cars, which had the loads cabled and transferred to SG gons at Mt Union’s Timber Transfer. And when the PA Turnpike was built in the early 1950s, hundreds of cement and sand hoppers were shipped to Neelyton for tunnel and road construction, all having the wheels swapped. This time the knuckles were not switched but an overriding lap adaptor was used.
