Re: Sumpter Valley Caboose #3

Thanks Bob for sharing your research. I hope you will continue to share what you find along these lines. There is a lot left to be learned especially about the early years of the SVRy. On Caboose 3, the old plain style triple valve for those not familiar is not like an H1, K1 or P1 which is swapped out fairly easily for service by removing two bolts, one 1" pipe union and another small one on the retainer line. Rather the early style screwed on to an extra heavy weight nipple screwed into the auxiliary reservoir, plus 3 more pipe connections, that is it was much more mated to the car it was assembled to. The train line was 1" rather than 1 1/4" as on later equipment and run under the framing cross members like a lot of cars and appeared to be very old. There are also holes drilled through all of the cross members for an earlier train line no longer in place that had to have been installed when the end beams were off of the car. This was one of the bits of evidence that we were looking at a car that had a history prior to that which is known. We may never know what car the framing members and brake system originated from. As you say they likely scavenged/ cannibalized what was useful, and was the least cost to the goal of creating a caboose.