Hi Jon,
Its been many years since we walked those woods, or what is left of the Mt. Union Yard, but I just donn’t remember seeing trucks I would have associated with the Timber Transfer. Looks like it might be sitting on rails covered with leaves and other ground debris. Certainly an interesting picture.
Pete Thornton said:
The EBT used an overhead crane to lift the cars and swap trucks. Much more fun is the Ramsey Transfer, which uses a pit. I’d love to see a working model of that !
See http://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/builders/ramseys_cartruck.htm
Very simple and cool idea, although the article referenced being written in 2007 was not PC for even that time! His example of instability was: (Think of a fat woman in high-heeled shoes.)
What is the “crane type thing” in the right side of the picture? It appears no lifting by a crane was involved, could it have been used to pull the cars back and forth? (But you see a horse doing that)
Would be a cool model.
Greg
Regarding the crane on the right. The man is walking on dual gauge that quickly ends. I suspect it was used to transfer freight from cars that wouldn’t go on the line, to other ‘home’ cars.
John Caughey said:
Regarding the crane on the right. The man is walking on dual gauge that quickly ends. I suspect it was used to transfer freight from cars that wouldn’t go on the line, to other ‘home’ cars.
Or maybe to lift bogies off flat cars ?
Wouldn’t you have to lift the end of the car to roll out and in the trucks? Maybe that what the crane is for. Or maybe its for stacking/storing the trucks off to the side.
Yup, the caption with the picture says that the crane was used to lift the trucks onto the dual gauge track to the right for storage.
David Maynard said:
Wouldn’t you have to lift the end of the car to roll out and in the trucks?
David you missed the point of this “apparatus”. The car is held level by a beam riding on the side tracks and the trucks go into the pit where they can be rolled away. A new set of trucks can then be rolled in and the car rolled onto the new trucks.
read the link from Pete’s post, interesting
Joe Zullo said:
David Maynard said:
Wouldn’t you have to lift the end of the car to roll out and in the trucks?
David you missed the point of this “apparatus”. The car is held level by a beam riding on the side tracks and the trucks go into the pit where they can be rolled away. A new set of trucks can then be rolled in and the car rolled onto the new trucks.
Yes Joe. I realized that when I found the picture in question in the book “American Narrow Gauge Railroads”. But I left my off the mark post, but added part of the caption for the picture, explaining that the crane was used to lift the trucks out of the pit and place them on storage tracks.
And the mystery is solved… I thought that crane was too close to that first track… so the crane only had to be stout enough to lift a truck, not the entire car…
Greg
