I believe the Gramps field and Pipeline to Chama came into production in 1938.
The Narrow Frame were converted from standard gauge cars by UTLX in 1924. The original frames on the cars were disassembled widened and reassembled ib two batches, one with Channel frames and another with I beam frames. about 40 cars in all. There seems to have been some prejudice against Van Dyke cars at that time although they had been around since 1905 or so. These were for the Farmington traffic. Farmington crude was very light and didn't require car heaters. They were heavily used in this service untill the mid Thirties when a combinition of events, the depression and construction of a pipe line to Gallup, caused the traffic to decline.
Prior to 1937 I don't believe there were any Van Dyke cars on the Colorado Narrow gauges, although I believe that the White Pass had some success with them a few years earlier.
In 1937 the Colorado Dept of Highways was involved in a large road oiling program, probably part of the federal recovery program. this required moving road oil into narrow gauge country. Some of this could probably been handled in the narrow frame cars, however about half of them were without heaters, which was a requirement for the heavier road oil.
UTLX was requested to supply 25 cars, They elected to send heated Van Dyke cars, as they required less work to change over for Narrow Gauge.
Rio Grande supplied the trucks. They were equipped with Andrews trucks removed from 3900 series Stock cars, until new ASF trucks could be obtained. The Andrews trucks were then returned to their stock cars.
You see these cars on the RGS out of Durango in a number of Kindig and Perry photos. I believe these were moving oil for highway 160.
I'm not sure if I cvered all your questions or not, but I hope this helps.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2014 12:29PM by davegrandt.
