Well, no, they weren't. F-3 and -7 steam generators were in the short end of the unit. Those tended to be delivered, or at least they were photographed when new, nose-to-tail with their cabs (as much as boosters had noses and tails). Looked at that way, the boilers were in the rear ends of the units. The space on the other side of the dynamic brakes from the prime movers (where the cab wasn't, but was on cab units) was used for water tanks. The Santa Fe had FS models officially, for Fourteen (hundred horses, approximately) Single, meaning the four unit sets had eight couplers. But they were delivered the way the Fourteen (hundred) Twins were semipermanently coupled--"back to back". Not that the long end of the boosters wasn't the back end. But the accessories in the back end of the cabs were in the front end of the boosters. That said, I'm not having much luck finding an overhead shot of even the Santa Fe's passenger-equipped members of the 100 Class. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if they differed from the F-3B and F-7B. But Mr. Straw's arrow points to the end where the cab would have been, had that FTB been born an FTA. That's definitely not where a boiler would have been on an F-3B. This is turning into a pretty long thread, considering the original question was answered in post #4.
I first looked at the scale of the station and the background, and ruled out Washington, New Orleans, Birmingham and Chattanooga. That left Memphis or Bristol, but those made me think of the Tennessean and lightweight cars, so I ruled those out. That left Meridian and I found a Hotel Lamar there, pretty much confirming my guess.
But it had to be where the boilers were on FTBs, because (half) the radiators took up too much space in the short end.
On the F-3Bs and F-7Bs, the steam generator stacks were on the #2 end. They were on that panel on the roof (or they poked through it)..
I am guessing mid-to-late 1950s from that photograph. Most DL-109s were gone by the 1960s, as the railroads worked the Dickens out of them during the Second World War. Was there not one Southern Railway subsidiary that had only a single FT; an A unit, only? I do not see any subsidiary lettering on the FT-A in the photograph, but it simply mmight not be visible or not there. Was there another road that had only an A-A pair of FT s? .............one of the Grange roads, perhaps?
Heavyweight passenger cars were around a long time. Most were modified and often mixed into service with some lightweight equipment on secondary service. They outlasted steam locomotives and could be found behind early passenger diesels. Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk
That was the easy part. Those solidly-built old battleships outlasted post office contracts, too. They were about forty years old at that point and many were still around (though they were the first to go when service was cut back). Some were still in service until Amtrak.
