Formosa Cafe on the Sunset Strip Lomita Locksmith... https://www.pacificelectric.org/pacific-electric/pacific-electric-no-1258-its-still-here-sort-of/ Pacific Electric 179 and 1046 in Crestline, CA, circa 1974 179 survives as a shell...
When I rode on the Durango and Silverton train, they used a converted tank car refuel their K28s and K36s (3' Narrow gauge makoto's).
That takes the cake!!! That's one of the most bizarre trailers I've ever seen. Out in the rural area we live in we see all sorts of crazy things turned into trailers, but not an open hopper!!!! That will someday be on our layout.
And not exactly the lightest weight contraption. Heck, the empty trailer might weigh as much as the loads of bailed scrap paper it hauls.
Not that I could find. My first thought was how in the heck did they connect an internal combustion engine to that running gear?! I see exposed rotating equipment ahead of and behind the operator. Not the kind of job that would be forgiving to a moment's inattention! Though, if that's an exhaust manifold we see, I doubt the operator found rest at any stage of his workday.
It would indeed be loud!!! During the 1970's I worked my way through high school and college on a road construction crew for seven summers. Six out of the seven summers I was a laborer shoveling asphalt and concrete and running a jack hammer on a patch crew. For a portion of one summer they needed someone on a hot mix laydown crew widening highway 78 northeast of Dallas, TX. I got stuck running the compactor from hell. Picture an early Euclid twin powered scraper (photo attached). Unlike a Caterpillar scraper or later Euclid, the front portion of the early Euclid had four wheels. Take off the back scraper portion and you have what appears to be a truck tractor. Remove the rear axle and add huge steel drums with knob like extensions to compact the dirt. That's what I was operating. The foreman said, "drive it like you live, flat out". So I did. It had no windows. At 40 mph (my guess) or so it was loud and rough. It had no doors or seatbelts, just a chain across the door opening. It had no floor boards. There was a large bank of batteries that I had to drape my feet over to reach the pedals. There was no synchromesh and it was a manual transmission. Finally, It had no radiator cap!! After it got warmed up, there was warm, rusty looking radiator water splashing on me. Needless to say, I would rather have been shoveling or running a jack hammer.
Yikes! One of my college friends worked for a cement company supplying mix on a road project. Somehow the unloading of product from a truck was delayed and the cement started to set up in the mixer drum. After a portion of it had hardened up, they sent him in the drum with a jack hammer to break it up. The noise, heat, darkness and vibration were intense and more than any man could stand. After a gallant try, they pulled him out. He never learned what became of the mixing drum.
What do you think they used that thing for? It looks like California or Arizona, so it might have been associated with a mine, but who knows. It looks to be super light rail.
It looks like they Frankensteined a 4-6-0 to a gas or diesel motor through a steam tractor transmission and flywheel. Mad scientist/mechanic? Even more amazing, I don't see a single strip of duct tape!
Here's one more photo of Frankenstein. It gives a better view of the side, but nobody seems to know what-- or where-- it is.
