Coach-baggage #26 - Page 2

HISTORY (Continued)

The 1902 photo above shows a distinctly different placement of the baggage door in what would have been a 13 window coach (count the clerestory windows) with a distinct beltrail connecting the windows. The roof has a bullnose profile (which was usual when roof work was required). But the eave line, which before was flat, now has a significant droop, and most cars with a flat eave line kept that feature through roof rebuilds. Furthermore, the stoves are now on the same side. It seems to have escaped the covering-over of lavatory and stove windows so frequently done about this time, probably because of the wider-than-usual corner panel.

When the C&S renumbered cars in 1906, DSP&P #26—after being DL&G #705 and then C&S #127—became C&S #26: the only car in the C&S fleet to go out with the same number with which it started. ( ... or was it the same car?) The C&S rebuilt it again in 1915, and undoubtedly removed the baggage end platform if it hadn’t been removed already.

Coach-Baggage #26 was sent to the shops for repairs and for a "thorough inspection" in mid-1926, as it had been derailed a half-dozen times within 30 days. No doubt part of the problem was the intensive use then being made of combination cars.

Sometime between 1916 and 1937, most likely when it officially became a “tool car” in 1937, an additional stove was placed in the middle of the right side of #26. The window beside it, and the window beside the stove near the passenger compartment door, were patched over (see photo #5). It was stationed at Leadville, and was apparently used as part of the rotary consist. Ed Haley writes of riding in “C&S red combine 26 in rotary consist  ... June 1937.” ^{48} It was dismantled 23 September 1942 and its body sold.

Ferrell/SoPk-325 has a photo of what is thought to be its body sitting on the ground at Leadville. No date is given, but the implication is that it is current.

WHAT ABOUT THAT “REBUILD?”

There are several possibilities —

Continued