Mal,
It's good to hear from you. You are correct, when your books were written very little factual information was available and it has taken many years to piece together the information we have today. To make things worse, often official documents have erroneous information in them too. This is especially obvious with company inventories which were recopied annually and inevitably incorporate errors of omission or commission. To err is human.
As for the short caboose construction dates, engineers Bert Bergstrom, Shorty Maddox and conductor Jack Neil all confirmed to me their construction date around the time of the arrival of the Swayne equipment and the replacement of earlier cabooses. This is somewhat augmented by the absolute lack of any photographs of these cars earlier than this period, especially during the depression and all the winter shut downs.
Recent photo discoveries at the California Railroad Museum have provided photos of the original #3, #4 and #5, taken in the later 30's. The #3 still had its round roof cupola that was replaced when it was renumbered #5 around 1940. The #4 was quite unique as it was built on a 28 ft. Carter car. Also found was a photo of the original #5 with its own unique characteristics. All of these cars had shown years of service and were soon scrapped, as eventually were the original #1 and #2. With the coming arrival of the two Swayne cabooses, the West Side decided to upgrade their roster by building the new short #3 and #4 and rebuilding the original long #3 into the familiar #5. As discussed earlier, the short cabooses were soon replaced by new long #3 and #4 around 1942 or so.
The dates in the records you found perhaps refer to the original #3 and #4 discussed above. The fact that they are listed only by circa year indicates a record perhaps based on memory. There are separate car shop records that probably provide more accurate info, but I have not personally seen them. The odd thing with the Pickering record you found is that they list the short #3 and #4 build dates
after the build date for the #5 (Which at the time was actually the first #3), so in effect the record is listing two different build dates for the same car (short#3, c.1920 and long #3 (later #5), 1919).
This subject is far from settled and hopefully new information will further correct or corroborate the information. However, the recent photo discoveries along with the testimony of the West Side men indicates to me the likely accuracy of c. 1940 as the build date for the short cabooses. Again in no way does any of this take away anything from your two great books which have great importance and have certainly inspired many of us West Side fans.
Tim McCartney
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2015 12:31PM by Tim McCartney.
