Amother find from the Archives. Reverse merely notes... Flood Work @ Cairo - 'Cairo Division - Wabash St Louis & Pacific Ry'. Lawrence Baggerly Collection. And now, the rest of the story... The companion photo from the FLOOD ACTIVITIES in 1889....looks like the photog had a real slow shutter speed, as demonstrated by those BENT steamboat stacks! (and the blurred couple on the tracks to the left.) Lawrence Baggerly Collection.
Nice photos, Roger. Interesting that the main line tracks appear to be ballasted with cinders, or similar fine material. I wonder when rock ballast became the standard. A photo I have shows the NYC Harlem Division used cinders when the double track expansion north of White Plains, NY was done around 1903.
Looks like they were sandbagging both sides of the railway, and is that a trench they have dug on the right of the first photo? Very interesting.
A little off the subject,but Hytec and others if you get a chance to buy or read ,(Steam Glory 3),do it. they have an article on the ,Valve Pilot, and it is good.Hytec do you remember asking about line on line in an answer I gave you about the valve pilot? They give the same answer as I did ,but it is explained to easily understand.And our good old NYC played a part in its development. Hats off to Roger for his contrbution in Classic Trains about the C .I. R.R. Yes that is probably Cinder ballast.This is old stuff but the Mich. was called the Cinder Line.You could not tamp cinders ,so we would raise a joint 2 in. or more above level and fan the cinders under the ties until full and then drop the track jack. Then nip three or four ties each side of the point and run the gap full. First train over would level track. When son Larry and others was running from Carthage to Emporia we would go out on the curves where the cars were rocking and it was usually the inside ,low rail, raise the low joints and that took care of the rocking. It would not take over 30 min. 0n each curve. LEW
Guess I really am getting old. Didn't connect the digging of the trench with filling of the bags.. Duh.. LEW, I had to go back and re-read that loco valve pilot article in Steam Glory 3. Very interesting.
