Re: Passenger cars.

The Uintah's passenger car roster is a mess. Someday, would like to try to straighten it out. Henery Benders original roster in the orginal print of his book is all but wrong, top to bottom. His revised roster on the reissue of his book on the Uintah is circumstantial and vague on many points - but does clear up alot. Probably will never know what car was numbered what, and for what years. For whaterver reason, the Uintah did not visably letter their passenger cars in a bright way as to be easily seen in photos, and in at least a few photos, there seems to be no number at all. This car resembles Uintah car #1, but it is not as the spacing on the windows is not correct, nor the position of th estove pipe on this side of the roof (#1's was located in the middle o fthe car). This could be a remake of one of th eoriginal Pullman sleeping cars that the Uintah owned. Possibly this is the car now know as Uintah #50 at the Colorado RR Museum. Benders roster reports that one of the car lost it front platform in a wreck, and #50 was built from a car with no front deck (but the roster shows #25 still in existance at that time).
The Uintah had a brisk passenger business in the teens and into the early 1920's before automobiles started creeping into the isolated Uintah Basin. Two car passenger trains were not unheard of in that time period, being pulled up the pass with the extra power of a Shay helper. No passenger service was provided to Rainbow, so passengers from there generally same down by there own means or hitched a ride on a freight caboose. Most of the passenger traffic was coming in from around Vernal, Utah, and Watson was the place to get on to the national rail system. Most people don't think of it today, but when this photo was taken around 1919, train travel was really the only way to go state to state. Sure local traffic was done by wagon or auto, but if you were travelling any real distance, it was by train. Automobiles were generally not considered nor were they built to withstand the rigors of cross country trips, and that was still considered a rich mans folly.