Steam & Excursion > In This Country, You Do Not Pass Up The Chance To Take Water!

The Owens Valley in California is some of the driest terrain in all of the West.  The summers there are hot and dry, and the winters can be extremely cold and still quite dry.  The crews of the steam locomotives that operated on Southern Pacific's Keeler Branch knew the importance of water stops while en-route to their destination.

Here, in 1954, SP #9 has stopped at the water tank at Kearsarge to fill her tender and possibly the auxiliary water tank car behind her.  With nothing more than a pumphouse and awater tank, Kearsarge was still one of the most important stops along the way.

Martin



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/20 03:38 by LoggerHogger.

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That is a very peaceful photo. I can hear the air pump and smell the dry grass.

for the model railroaders this would be:
Build a prototypical diorama in under an hour.

Rick z

LoggerHogger Wrote:

> Here, in 1954, SP #9 has stopped at the water tank
> at Kearsarge to fill her tender and possibly the
> auxiliary water tank car behind her. 

Pretty sure that's an "eastbound" (southbound) at Aberdeen.  There was no side track in front of the Kearsarge tank by 1954, and the boxed-in vertical pipe below the tank was forward-of-center at Kearsarge, but aft-of-center at Aberdeen as shown in the photo.  What I can't find is a photo showing that little shed south of any tank between Laws and Keeler, but Kearsarge had a pumphouse with a roof perpendicular to the tracks north of the tank as late as 1956. 

Aberdeen (the "windmill" was gone by 1949):
http://carsoncolorado.com/historic-route/the-route/aberdeen/
http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/carson_n_colorado/c_n_c14_aberdeen_793_sml.jpg

Kearsarge:
https://carsoncolorado.com/other-projects/kearsarge-station/

The description of "a typical trip" on pages 99-101 of Mallory Hope Ferrell's Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge suggests it was usually only necessary to take water at one or the other.

Looks like the colorization software got confused by the shape of the cloud on the left and didn't fill in the blue between the two "lobes."

Looking at the photo take with pickup in it beyond in the back ground is the high tension power line support so think it is the Aberdeen one. Just my take as that would set it apart from the other due to where in relation to the tank in both photos. Boyd in Chiloquin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/20 07:24 by BAB.

Fantastic image

Posted from iPhone

Evan_Werkema wrote:

> Aberdeen (the "windmill" was gone by 1949)

However, in a photo on pg. 102 of Dill's "Southern Pacific's Historic Overland Route" showing the Aberdeen tank supposedly taken in January 1953, the windmill is still there (I realize it's within the realm of possibility that the date in the book's photo caption is incorrect).

At the bottom of that page is a photo that shows the Kearsarge water tank. Besides the differences between the Aberdeen and Kearsarge tanks mentioned by Evan, the roof ladder for the Aberdeen tank was on the back of the tank (like in the photo posted here by LoggerHogger) while at Kearsarge, the roof ladder was on the side.

Posted from iPhone



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/20 10:45 by johnsweetser.

Just to muddy the water a bit, there are clear photos of both tanks in "Slim Rails Through the Sand" on pages 100 and 101, Aberdeen and Kearsarge, respectively. The pic of Aberdeen does not appear to show a siding and the shed's roof is perpedicular to the tracks. The Kearsarge tank is as noted by others (ladder and boxed-in water column).

cg

cgarch Wrote:

> Just to muddy the water a bit, there are clear
> photos of both tanks in "Slim Rails Through the
> Sand" on pages 100 and 101, Aberdeen and
> Kearsarge, respectively. The pic of Aberdeen does
> not appear to show a siding

I don't know for absolute certain that there was a side track at Aberdeen in 1947 when that photo on page 100 was taken, but I would argue that the weeds are high enough that we can't tell conclusively from the photo if there's a side track there or not.  Note that in the photo Loggerhogger posted, even though the weeds have been trimmed much lower, you still can't really see the rails of the side track.  Its presence is only betrayed by the freight cars atop it.  Aberdeen in general seems to have been a much wetter, weedier spot than Kearsarge, something modern aerials suggest is still the case:

Aberdeen: https://goo.gl/maps/hh2b6TkKkChusUWR8
Kearsarge: https://goo.gl/maps/BBfPHbWdUaZrpc3VA

Photos taken at Kearsarge in the 40's and 50's show far fewer weeds obscuring the main line, and I have yet to see one showing a side track in front of the water tank. 

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4833618,4833619#4833619
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3786303,3786303#3786303
http://carsoncolorado.com/historic-route/the-route/kearsarge/

> and the shed's roof is perpedicular to the tracks.

The sheds in close proximity to the Aberdeen tank appear to have varied quite a bit.  The Robert Behme photo here doesn't show a shed south of the tank at all:

http://carsoncolorado.com/historic-route/the-route/aberdeen/

The same photo is on page 162 of Mallory Hope Ferrell's Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge.  The side track is there, but barely visible through weeds much lower than the 1947 photo in Slim Rails Through the Sand.  A photo on pages 164-165 of Ferrell's book shows the scene looking north at the Aberdeen tank in 1949 from an angle similar to the one Loggerhogger posted.  There is no shed north or immediately south of the tank, and both main and siding are almost completely obscured by weeds.  I've seen other photos showing a small shed with a roof parallel to the tracks located *north* of the Aberdeen tank after the "windmill" was removed.  The photo Loggerhogger posted shows yet one more variation in the shed placement at Aberdeen.

> The Kearsarge tank is as noted by others (ladder and boxed-in water column).

The two key identifying details of the tanks themselves seem to be consistent across photos taken in the 1940's and 50's: Aberdeen has its boxed water pipe aft-of-center and ladder on the rear; Kearsarge has its boxed water pipe forward of center and ladder on the north side.

One more thing for what it's worth: according to Henry Bender's Southern Pacific Lines: Standard Design Depots, the Kearsarge depot wasn't demolished until December 1955.  It and the pumphouse would have been visible in the background if the photo Loggerhogger posted was taken at Kearsarge in 1954.