There are articles that the turntable was repaired after the fire in 1905 and was used in the shed until it was moved in 1906/07. I just posted them elsewhere on this thread. Also, the St Elmo turntable is missing in at least one DL&G- or very early C&S-era photo. I'm not sold on Mal's date. There are other data issues that I've found, in photo captions, in the maps, and in the text in the book. The picture on page 138 I believe is mis-captioned, for example, as being 1880s. I think it is actually 1890s and possibly very early C&S--the stone section house roof appears open in better prints, and the passing siding is there, something I can't find any evidence for before the C&S other than it's been stated in many books. Construction and early South Park photos lack it--the snowshed had a single track right from the start. D&LG photos lack it. There's an approval document for it by the C&S early on and I suspect that's when it went in. I think the photo is late 1890s. Other issues I have with the history in those pages are his comments on the telegraph office, the section house, the 1906 fire damaging the stone section house and the dates of the new water tank. It could be simply we have access to information and knowledge he didn't at the time.
The drawings in Mal's book are by Joel Crea and published published in Slim Gauge News around 1973 -- and in that publication are to scale, unlike in Ferrell's book. The turntable's inclusion was influenced by the then recent (1972-ish) excavation that substantiated the pit's existence. Crea also talks at length about the roof trusses which he had to imagineer using examples he found in other buildings.
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2020 02:30PM by degg13.
