Photo Of The Crowd, But Look What Is In The Background

The group of people and the occasion of this photograph are not recorded. I think we can assume the photo was not taken by a rail fan to record the historic passenger car in the back ground. It can be quite interesting to observe the people in these kind of photos and how they dressed. Take the ball player for instance. And, someone must have been expecting rain since we see an unfurled umbrella. What about that historic passenger car? This is either Sumpter Valley Ry coach #20 or #21, which were probably at least 30 years old by the time this photo was taken. They were originally Utah Northern narrow gauge equipment which came to the Sumpter Valley Ry 2nd hand no later than 1903. I presume this photo was taken in the late 19-teens', since #20 was retired from passenger service in 1920 and #21 in 1923. If by chance the coach is #20, it continued up to 1943 in work train service, then as a maintenance of way shed at S Wye. It was cut in two at some stage and eventually was recovered and restored by SVRR. It is often in the regular passenger consist. the scan is from the SVRR Archive.