Re: 73 burning coal *PIC*

The pic of 73 burning coal at Carcross illustrates a number of points. Notice that it has a 190 series tender and that the tender is lettered with the 'fat W' White Pass logo. That dates this logo as early as 1948 or possibly 1947. Also since the 70 class specs posted at the White Pass corporation website show that 72 and 73 were ordered for oil fuel, it appears that the oil burning conversion was not installed until the early 50s. This makes sense to me as it would give the railroad shops a couple of Baldwin 'conversion kits' which they could then duplicate for use on the other locos. It would seem that the WP&YR was certainly contemplating oil burning when they ordered 72 and 73, but didn't do the actual conversion of the fleet until a few years later. I'm just guessing, but it's possible that the WP&YR had a long term contract for coal which didn't expire till 1950 or thereabouts.