Re: No pockets

Hi,

FWIW,

1) I'd guess that there were enough gons and/or flats with stake pockets that this conversion to an idler flat did not need the pockets.

2) New side sills and the high demand for idler flats I suspect that the stake pockets were declared a luxury.

3) The IH leads me to think this may have started out as a gon. It needed rebuilding and since it was on the roster as a gon, it was lettered as a gon even though there were no sides or stake pockets.

4) I seem to recall that sides were added or removed depending on the need for more flats or gons.

5) As for the original 14' 4-wheel cars and the 1873 2-truck equipment, the 4 wheelers had all the same underframes. The super structure was different - flat, stake flat, gon, house car. same for the 1873 2-truckers that had the 24' end silll to end sill length. Between about 1873 and 1890, several longer flat cars were added (26' and 28' sill-to-sill).

6) The practice of adding or removing parts of a car continued with the drop bottom gons. Coke being less dense than coal, the 700s(?) were originally equipped with a loose wood and wire above the top boards for coke service while the 800s(?) were for coal service and the stropped at the top board. As coke service dropped off, the 700s were converted to be the same as the 800s - stop at the top board.

7) Many stock cars and box cars had their house car top removed for idler flat service during the Farmington Oil Boom.

8) I recall an article in NG&SLG (I think) that showed the long cabeese. Letters instead of dimensions were used to show length, height and width. No tow of the Long cabeese were identical. The dimensions were within about 6" of each other but it appeared to me that the D&RGW did not car about exacts, just close enoughs.

Did the 1700 go out on the road like the photo shows and later return to the shop during "normal" shopping to get the stake pockets reattached?

We've sever examples of D&RGW steam power with different tenders and all the K27s did not end up the same after rebuilds. Some were saturated, some were super heated, some piston valve. some slide, some inside canted cylinder blocks and some outside canted.

I am interested in what the various versions of the 1700 were but the narrow gauge way of keeping things on the road regardless of short cuts does not worry me.

This is what make the narrow gauge so interesting - few standards were absolute.

Doug vV

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