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These "short" Baggage Cars saw service all over the line. Transporting such
varied items as Ice Cream and Coffins; and everything in between.
You can tell from the way #164 is outfitted that she's modeled after a car in service in the forties and later. Note how the far end appears to be enclosed ? Click on the photo below and you'll see that this "enclosure" was only a sort-of closet. In reality, it housed a pair of "SKEL-GAS" tanks which supplied fuel for the Delco Light Plant inside the car. ( The "Knight in Armor" flag on the large chimney was atop the exhaust vent for the light plant. The "Flag" kept the vent facing the proper direction during travel (( Rearward )) so the car wouldn't fill with fumes. ) Beneath the car. just to the left of the center "stirrup" hangs what we originally thought was a battery box. But after talking to old friend David Grandt, it turns out this was really was a radiator, there to cool the light plant. Old Friend John Coker tells the story about how, during the long hot summers, the guys working the Chili Line would run a load of fresh ice cream every Saturday from Alamosa to Espanola. Dad would load up the kids on his buckboard and make the trip from Chimiyo down to Espanola, some - 10 miles - just to get some of that ice cream as it was dispensed right off the train.
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