Westbound Passenger Train At Boulder Gorge Tank

This photo was likely taken in the early 1900's on the Sumpter Valley Ry. The west bound passenger train has stopped to take water at the Boulder Gorge water tank. The coach on the rear may be the railroad's private car which was destroyed in a shop fire in 1918, if so, that allows us to date the photo prior to this point on the time line. The railroad converted to knuckle couplers in 1910, so we can set that as an earliest date. Somewhere in our SVRR Archive collection we have a copy of this photo in which the identity of the family on the platform is recorded. Some have speculated that it might be Eccles family members, but as I recall from the photo with a caption, they are the family of one of the railroad's engineer's. The flags on the back of the car might indicate that this is an extra train, so perhaps this is some sort of special ran for company employees and their families. The scan is from the SVRR Archive.