Located in the U.S. Army Museum Hawaii photographs of Schofield Barracks is this photo, USAMH 2126, of a 40 foot flat car with a capacity of 70,000 lbs. It looks to have six truss rods. The visible lettering is C &. There is lettering between the C and the & but cannot be made out. At least by me. There were no such flat cars on Oahu or at Schofield Barracks. Any idea of what railroad this might be? Everything on Oahu was 3 foot NG or less except the coaling plant at Pearl Harbor and they didn't have any flat cars.

Jeff Livingston

Capy 40,000 Lbs, 40 FT, C & ...

Messing around with brightness and contrast, the first word on the top line after "C" is Steel. Second word looks like complex, though it's really blurry - I'm just guessing based on the letter shapes.

Perhaps it could have been bought second hand from the Colorado & Southern Railway?

C&H Sugar?

Judging by the uniforms, this is a pre-WWI photo. Are you SURE that it was taken in Hawaii? 40 feet seems like a HUGE car for 3' gauge railroading.

At this time, Chesapeake & Ohio cars were lettered "C. & O. R. Y.", offset to the left like on this car. I suspect that this is a standard gauge car on the mainland.

Let me provide my thoughts (or question) about photo.

Could this be a photo from a state-side training exercise of a unit that later was stationed at Schofield Barracks or from an officer that was later stationed there?

Could even be during the time period when General Pershing was chasing after Poncho Villa on the US/Mexico border about 1915?

Gentlemen,

I'm quite sure this photo was nottaken in Hawaii. No such car existed on Oahu and to the best of my knowledge nowhere in Hawaii at any time. The car looks standard gauge and at 40 feet and 70K capacity likely is. My background is Navy and narrow gauge so I'm not to good at dating Army uniforms. C&O is a good possibility but may be one of many. The Army didn't arrive in Hawaii until August 1898 and Schofield Barracks didn't get train service from the OR&L until 1909. I scanned this photo in a much higher resolution than I posted but couldn't make out the lettering between the C and &. I guess next time I'm down there it's time for a 2400 dpi scan or greater. Any C&O experts out there?

Jeff Livingston
Living in paradise

I concur. The length is long, the capacity high, the floor height is also high for narrow gauge, and the wheels are a more appropriate size for standard gauge. Now, the question is, what road? C&O is a good guess, but it could also be C&S, C&EI, C&I (Cambria & Indiana), or a number of others; the lettering style was pretty common.

I'm inclined to think C&O myself, but this would have been a relatively old car in the modern steam era, for which I have some data. It also has truss rods, but other comments suggest it's still steel.

I've got to look up my C&O freight car book, see if something like this is in the older car listing there.

Based on the canteens alone, the photo is pre-1911. The headgear appears to be the M-1902 service hat, which makes the photo pre-WWI, but post-Spanish-American War.

Comparing the flat car to the photo evidence that I have, the lettering most closely matches a C&O car.

I looked in the C&O freight car book, but since it's for the year 1937 the archbars - if not replaced - would have relagated this car to MofW service by then, and nothing in the book matches this car. The oldest flatcars shown in that book were steel-framed 80,000lb cars built in 1911... but.... they were classified as class "F4-1" as of 1926, so there were likely three other series of flatcars in service in the mid-20's. The 1911 builders photo in the book does have the wide spacing between the C and ampersand, just like this photo.

That said, and it's hard to tell in the photo, but the coupler pocket/draft gear does look pretty lightweight to me, almost link and pin era, although a 70,000lb 40' car was pretty big to be link and pin.

Nick

I think the ventilator to the campaign hat on one of them (second guy to the left on the trail) looks like an M1899 to me. The belt on the trooper to the left of him looks like a M1903 one, and he's wearing what looks like the cavalry suspenders for it. Looks like they might be wearing the M1898 or 99 cavarly leggings (the height makes it hard to tell) and the uniforms look like cotton twill.
That to be strongly suggest regular Army cavalry, in the 1904-1910 timeframe.
Sadly, there are no saddles in the shot, which would make dating it easier to a degree. The tack looks odd for military ones, I strongly think these are all commercial rigs. The apparent water wagon isn't a military model I'm aware of, but I am rusty on wagons.

Hi Jeff,

I am going to agree with others and suggest that this isn't a narrow gauge car, and likely isn't Hawaii... but instead stateside...

The trucks are nothing like anything we associate with narrow gauge, those are deep truss rods... Its a nice car in good condition... not something beat up and sold to the government used...

Randy

Hi Lee,

The draft harness is military: the blinkers have copper "US" rosettes in the middle, which is typical for circa 1903 tack (and matches what I have in my basement). I think the water wagon is standard Army too, but I'll have to ask around. I'll defer on the headgear: someone's walked with my copy of volume three of Steffen's "The Horse Soldier", so I can't look them up right now.

This is pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if a look at the Library of Congress photographic archives might not turn up companion views? A couple of years ago, while researching the 1913 50th anniversary events at Gettysburg, I remember seeing views of both horsedrawn and automotive equipment being loaded onto flatcars and into gondolas for movement to Gettysburg by similarly-attired Army personnel.

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your continued input.

Jeff Livingston
Historian
Hawaiian Railway Society