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October 1, 1901. "Track elevation and stone mixer, Chicago." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Photographic Company. View full size.
Thirty-two years a surveyor and if I'd EVER left the level alone, my party chief would have shot me. Also, that level now (looks to me like a Wye level), while a genuine antique, would bring between five and ten thousand on the open market. Our division had two of them, both serviceable that one of our bosses ordered thrown out ("Nobody uses them anymore!") Somehow, they never made it to the dumpster.
The gents you mentioned are the big four of the Central Pacific, but the sign on that car here is the railroad nicknamed that way from its corporate title cities. Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis. The line was a subsidiary of the New York Central.
Officially known as CCC&StL has appeared in Shorpy before:
The rods beneath the car are truss rods. These old cars had wooden center sills and the truss rods helped support those sills. As the car aged, the frame would tend to sag, so the truss rods were tightened through turnbuckles, visible in the middle of the rods, to compensate.
The railroad nicknamed "Big Four" was the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway. CCC&StL.
It wasn't Romance of the Rails so aptly depicted at times. Somebody had to do the actual work.
Was never really sure what this meant until I saw the gondola car in this picture; apparently hoboes would crawl up on the brace rods under railroad cars like this one and hang on until their destination. What a ride!
That wood scrap is treasure today. And to imagine where that tongue and groove, and I'll be guessing, 2 x 6 came from, would be amazing. I would love having some of that wood now.
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