As part of our vacation last week, we visited the
Railtown 1897 State Historic Park
in Jamestown, California, in the Sierras. We have several railfans in the family,
including Daniel, my little nephew. One of the exhibits was a caboose without
markings and much-modified but which we recognized as a sister to our own WP668.
We spotted her original designation still faintly painted on the frame underneath.
She is indeed Western Pacific caboose #695, now serving as the crew office at
Railtown 1897.
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I looked her up on the
The Western Pacific Caboose List and the
Central California Rails Caboose Index and found WP695 correctly listed
as being in Jamestown. I also found a book in the museum store:
Western Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment
by Jim Eager (2001, Morning Sun Books, Inc., ISBN 1-58248-063-X) which not only
has a color photo of WP695 but also a photo of our own WP668 on page 122.
The text is:
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WP 668 NE series 644-668
Converted in October 1943 and still two years away from retirement, the 668
was at Sacramento in September 1974. That is the axle-drive for the generator
silhouetted inboard the right hand truck. (Peter Arnold)
We were interested to see how the museum’s stock was blocked from rolling.
Most of it wasn’t but then Jamestown is not in earthquake country. Two examples
we did see of wheel blocks:
Wood wheel block:
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Chain wheel block:
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Images by John Plocher and Katy Dickinson (Copyright 2006)
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