Since the line was absorbed by the Pennsy by 1900, finding overlooked photos is always fun, but surviving builder’s photos are even more rare These are Harrisburg Car Mfg Co photos from the U of Penn archives. My buddy from Cali stumbled across them yesterday.
Of interest is the lettering on the sill of the tank car… it appears to be raised rather than just stenciled! Adnah Neyhart was one of the biggest oil barons of the late 1860’s, so maybe he insisted?
Could also be ‘drop shadow’ painted. Hard to tell with the photo quality.
Bob C.
Is it just me, or does the tank seem to have a steel frame? No visible trussrods, so perhaps it is painted to look three dimensional
the tank IS the frame support. That’s a ‘boiler’ tank car, as in boiler plate. I doubt there were many steel frame cars, or even wrought iron ones, before knuckle couplers and air brakes became standard… and it sorta looks like it only had the manual brakes on one end as well.
If you zoom in on it, the lettering on the sill looks like it is actually 3-dimensional.
The sills appear to be there to support the deck, nothing more. So no truss rods would be needed.
Also, it looks like the trucks have wooden beams.
I agree with Ray. Compare the shadows of the deck and railing posts with that of the lettering. It would be quite a coincidence if painted drop shadow was at the same angle as the sun shadow on the rest of the car!
Neat looking cars. I think they would fit in the KMRR well.
Shawn said:I needs to scrounge me another Kalamazoo tank car... old Adnah deserves to be remembered. I'm guessing it was probably red or brown & off-white?
Neat looking cars. I think they would fit in the KMRR well.