Mal,
Thanks for posting the photos. The first and third are from the California RR museum's Paul Darrell collection taken in February 1939.
The first photo shows the original #3 (later the second #5) in the rear. It's distinctive high side windows and damaged corner make the identification easy, though it still has its original round roof that was replaced by a peaked roof when it was rebuilt and renumber in 1940. In the foreground is the first #4 which was unique by being on the 28 ft. Carter flat, which shows up in many far shots over the years. While this looks similar to the #2, close detail examination shows they are not the same. Some of the lettering on this and the third photo are the result of markings by rail fans or joking employees. The "WSL" is bogus, but the #4 is correct in style and placement for the shop. The letter "B" is also, as most of the early flats were grouped by a classification letter.
The second photo of the first #2 was taken by Bert Ward in March 1937. However, it is no longer riding on the #46 flat in this photo. Sometime prior to this photo, the original #46 flat was replaced with this unidentified flat. Side by side photo comparisons makes it easy to distinguish the two flats.
The third photo shows the first #5 caboose. Again, there is non-company lettering on the car (perhaps it may be actually on the original print), the "WSL" and the "#1". However, if you look closely at the door, you can see the faded #5 in correct car shop application.
All of these five flat based cabooses from the later 30's were remarkable in their many similarities of construction and detail. But as mentioned before, close examination will reveal unique differences that differentiate the five cars. All these cars show up in various train shots, but at a distance that mostly prohibited accurate identification. These close up photos finally enabled some definition to identification. Also, all of these cars had seen many years of service and with the known soon to be arriving two Swayne cabooses, they decided to upgrade the caboose fleet and scrapped all of the flat based cabooses except for the #3 which was rebuilt and renumbered #5.
The new fleet would consist of ex-Swayne #1 and #2, the newly built short #3 and #4 and the newly rebuilt and renumbered #5. Dissatisfaction with the short cabooses soon led to their replacement in 1942-3 with the construction of the long #3 (3rd) and long #4 (3rd). Finally, caboose #7 was built and added to the roster in 1949. In the mean time, during the mid 40's, the short cabooses that had lost their numbers were brought back into service as the un numbered woods locomotive sand car (ex-short #3) and as the Camp 44 and Camp 45 switch engine's caboose #6 (ex-short #4).
As for the small size of the West Sides cabooses, apparently they were adequate for the West Side, especially in the early years as the brakeman were usually crawling all over the train assisting with brake duties. One of the engineers joked to me, that after the arrival of the Swayne equipment which added additional straight air which became the primary braking service on grades with loads, the brakemen had nothing to do except nap on the train. Perhaps this explains the replacement of the short cabooses which did not provide adequate sleeping arrangements. ;-)
Again, thanks for posting the Darrell photos, as my only copies are copyrighted by the museum.
Tim McCartney
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2015 09:27PM by Tim McCartney.
