It is true that the Sumpter Valley was a more interesting railroad in the era before the early twenties. It continued to haul what ever freight was offered, but LCL and misc. cargo dropped off as roads and trucks became more reliable. The very last revenue train was machinery for the OLC at Bates however. Livestock was hauled right up to the end, but this was commonly done with extra trains after the Prairie City line was abandoned. Stoddard Lumber Co. continued to ship logs into the 1940's; there are photos of the malleys pulling such a train. The refridgerator cars must have been used late also as one of them still exists.
For us though the point is that the most commonly used car after 1920 was the flat car, and even if we had enough of these to put togather a string we could not get loads for them. Logs and lumber are not available to us except in small quantities. As I said before, most of the restorable original SV cars are one of a kind. As of now we have one box, one refridgerator, one tank and four stock cars on site, plus the tank from tank car no. 99. The box car is cosmetically restored, needing mostly brake and draft gear to be operable. One of the stock cars is in fairly good condition, again needing draft and running gear as well as a new roof, but the others will need serious restoration. There are a few other box and stock cars extant, in fair to poor condition. We do have one Stoddard Lbr. Co. flat car, of which only the hardware is usable.
So for the time being we are more or less stuck with non-prototypical freights. We could put togather a string of hoppers but, except for a few home made ballast cars, the Sumpter Valley never owned any of these.
BTW, Bret had a senior moment in his post. The dam on the Powder River is called Mason Dam, which he well knows.
