This photo was posted in a group I belong to, and I was trying to determine the year/era it may have been taken in. It was taken in a town served by the MKT railroad, and the town is about 20 miles north of the Oklahoma border. The Katy reached Ok. in 1870....

A cursory search for "tank car types" on the 'net lead me nowhere. I thought there would have been definitive descriptions of what year they were basically phased out.

Don't know if it makes any difference, but I see the tanks aren't externally held in place like tanks in the few pictures I did find. It's got a truss rod supported underframe. And, at first I thought those were logs on the ground this side of the car, but maybe they are ties, crude as they may be.

Judging by the women's clothing, I at first thought 1920's, but had second thoughts because of the nature of the car and it's load.

So, it's between 1870 and what year?

The knuckle coupler and air brake hose will likely push the early date closer to (or possibly past) 1900. But I don't know exactly when MKT would have started using those...

The ladies do have that flapper look going so I'd say early-to-mid 1920's. Previous to that would be more of a Victorian/Edwardian style.

...now don't start accusing me of 'chasing skirts', but looking at the ladies' dresses, the hemline appears to be mid-calf in length. Wikipedia shows this length first showing up around 1915 or so.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemline...and the 'bobbed hair' styling tends to push the date into the 1920s...hope this narrows the timing for the photo.

I agree that the knuckle coupler and air brakes limit in to not before 1900 or so. I don't think it's a tankcar. Were cucumbers grown in the area? It looks like an early pickle car to me... Wait, the car number appears to begin with an X, which is usually reserved for company service cars. I bet it's the water car from a work train.

You just made me think of the Dust Bowl, Dennis, if we want to go into the thirties. Perhaps this was emergency water brought in since southern Oklahoma was one of the hardest hit areas.

The National Museum of Transportation has a similar looking flatcar:

https://tnmot.org/wp-content/uploads/20 ... -Flyer.png



https://tnmot.org/the-collection/?rail_freight

I agree with the others that it looks around the 19-teens or so.

Ok, late teens, early twenties... thanks.

I did a little fashion research, BO. That particular dropwaist dress style was popular in the late 20's and early thirties.