Early Day Log Loading

This shot shows one of the ways logs were loaded before steam donkeys and gypsy engines came into use on the Sumpter Valley Ry. The team of horses on the left is pulling the logs up onto the load. It looks like the two guys on top are going to have to make sure that the log doesn't roll on off the far side using their peaveys and brute strength. Note the side of the flat car appears to have the word Sumpter spelled out instead of the letters SVRy which was the norm in later years. That the car is link and pin equipped suggests that this photo was taken prior to 1910 when SVRy seems to have made the conversion to automatic couplers. This image is scanned from a slide in our SVRR archive collection. A clearer copy of it appears on page 20 of "Rails Sagebrush & Pine".