Steam & Excursion > Is That A Dog House Or A Card Room On That Tender?!

We all are used to seeing dog houses on the tenders of some steam locomotives back in the day. These were usually small structures built to keep the head-end brakeman out of the cold weather as he kept an eye on the train behind him. Well, as we see here, the San Luis Central took this concept one step further.

Located in South Central Colorado the San Luis Central was a 12-mile long shortline that operated in some very cold winter climate and the necessity of a dog house on their lone steam locomotive was a good idea. However, when the dog house was built on the tender of 1913-built Baldwin 2-8-0 #1 they went all out to accommodate the brakeman conductor and anyone else they decided to invite along for the ride!

Photographer Stan Borden from California was obviously impressed with the dog house on SLC #1's tender when he was prompted to capture this rear view of the engine in the early 1950's at Monte Vista, Colorado.

I wonder how many hands of poker were played in there?

Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/15 05:14 by LoggerHogger.

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First Class Accommodations. Looks like they did a lot of reverse moves and needed it. Wonder if there's a brake valve in there?

If it were in Manhattan, it would rent for $3000 a month, or sell for $1.2 million.

Gotta have some place to hold union meetings.

It even has a porch light above the door! Looks as if the company had a cab carpenter who was proud of his work.

I wonder how that shack interfered with the water spout and coal chute!

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography

I like the cow catcher on the rear - very unusual, though
it implies the engine was intended to be used in reverse
quite often, no?

Dog house is impressive - plenty of room to bring "Rover"
along for the ride, too!

/Mitch

As there was no wye on the SLC besides the one at the D&RGW interchange at Sugar Jct., SLC #1 spent half of it's career in reverse. Having the brakie up in the doghouse for the reverse moves was a good idea. I'm quite sure the 'house had a dump valve and steam heat. The D&RGW's less palatial doghouses were equipped with such.

And I'm not sure that the Rio Grande would allow them to use the wye at Sugar Jct, very
much a bidirectional locomotive.

Out

Martin, I still think the ones made of old auto bodies on the logger tenders were even better. Nice shot, penthouse on the tender.

Martin - This is pretty good - two days in a row!! If this plate could talk it could tell us what went on in the large doghouse!! Please keep those photos coming and I will see if I can supply a photo of the builder's or number plate!!

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That's the Penthouse Accommodation!!

1st Class upgrade!

Mike

callum_out Wrote:
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> And I'm not sure that the Rio Grande would allow
> them to use the wye at Sugar Jct, very
> much a bidirectional locomotive.
>
> Out

Probably true, as one leg was the mainline. I seems that all the pics I've seen of #1 show her facing north.

Ron,

I was waiting for you to put up a photo of your plate form SLC #1. Now I can show where her other plate went.

Martin

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Thanks, Martin for posting this picture of SLC #1.

I sent it to a friend of mine, Ed Burkhardt who bought the SCL several years ago when he was a young man.

Your posts are always interesting.

exprail

An interesting bit of trivia is that the SLC has owned only 3 locomotives in it's entire existence - the #1 seen above, and two diesels - a GE 70 tonner (which replaced #1) and an EMD SW9. The two diesels are still on the roster. Normally they run the EMD, but when I ran for the SLRG, we'd meet the 70 tonner every now and then. Sadly I never had my camera with me when it showed it's face.

I asked and got permission to shoot the 70 tonner some years ago (it was in the shops
facility) and at the time they had just finished a rebuild on it. It's well maintained
and is in excellent condition.

Out

duel cowcatchers

But it looks like even an average size person would have to duck to get in...