Horses switching cars

Very interesting.  I learned something new today.  Thanks FIREWOOD.

Haven't seen a photo, but I would bet that the small grain elevators around here ended up using horses a few times to pull the boxcars forward when loading wheat.  I do have photos of them using tractors to do that now.

Kent in SD

That was interesting, thanks for posting. 

A horse switcher from Cadillac, MI. 

http://www.wexfordcountyhistor...otos/?gal=19&ts=

Firewood - Nice thread!  I think the folks on the Switcher Saturday thread will enjoy your photos and video.  Tomorrow is the SS two year anniversary your topic would be welcomed there for sure!  

Thanks for sharing!

Horse team moving a boxcar in Lawrence, Mass.

http://chace.athm.org/singleDisplay.php?kv=4048

Great idea for a topic, Firewood.  I hope others will find additional information and photos to post.  The horse in the video looked really well cared for.

TRRR

This is a GREAT thread!  Thanks Firewood!  I own a small farm in central NJ.  I named it All Aboard Farm because of the carriage horses I own and my love of model trains.  I learned something new when I saw the first photo of the 1 horse power switcher.  It made my day!

Ultimately the iron horse replaced the horse, bitter sweat for me.  But I can honestly say I never get tired of being around the horses or seeing live steam whenever I have the opportunity.  My place is located between the Black River and Western Railroad and the New Hope and Ivyland Railroad.  Both run steam.  Some nights when I am feeding the horses I can hear the steam whistle from old #40.  It's a neat feeling to when you think this is what it was like 100 years ago.

Tony

Tony_V posted:

This is a GREAT thread!  Thanks Firewood!  I own a small farm in central NJ.  I named it All Aboard Farm because of the carriage horses I own and my love of model trains.  I learned something new when I saw the first photo of the 1 horse power switcher.  It made my day!

Ultimately the iron horse replaced the horse, bitter sweat for me.  But I can honestly say I never get tired of being around the horses or seeing live steam whenever I have the opportunity.  My place is located between the Black River and Western Railroad and the New Hope and Ivyland Railroad.  Both run steam.  Some nights when I am feeding the horses I can hear the steam whistle from old #40.  It's a neat feeling to when you think this is what it was like 100 years ago.

Tony

I'm glad you're enjoying it! I grew up among my area's last horse ploughmen, but there were still a lot of horse loggers around. Charlie the shunting horse himself retired in 1967 (!)

http://s866.photobucket.com/us...20h54m23s94.png.html

These steel 4-wheel cars were usually around 16 tons loaded.

A three-horse multiple unit on a Centerville, CA narrow gauge mixed train. I think we can actually get away with calling it a lash-up.....   http://www.nilesdepot.org/centerville/horsecar.html

Quite a common thing in California, apparently: http://www.santacruztrains.com...ks-cpw-junction.html

When a mule train was a train - South Africa, 1870s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...ilway_mule_train.jpg

A one horsepower switcher. There's a prototype for everything.

We probably shouldn't forget the horse logging lines.

From the Sierra Nevada Logging Museum: 

And sometimes we see the opposite....from 2011: 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-13437279

Something like the old joke where a man is waiting by the elevator with a horse. Another guy walks up and says, "Surely you're not taking that horse up in the elevator!" to which the other guy sez, "For sure! The stairs will kill him!"

I thought this thread was about a horse who moved from the Pullman to the dining car.

Arthur P. Bloom posted:

I thought this thread was about a horse who moved from the Pullman to the dining car.

Might have been the one that passed on through to the bar car, but that's a horse of a different color.

Superb topic!  Love that Charlie the Shunting Horse lasted until 1967!!!

Now, If I get a horse puppet for my hand, which does a fair amount of switching on my pike.....

CRUEL

Great topic!!!  BUT....please keep it real trains and not layout pictures/videos which should be posted in one of the other appropriate categories....

Thanks,

Alan

A Chinese horse switcher from sometime around the turn of the 20th century. I'm pretty sure that's a horse-blanket there.

https://www.railway-fasteners....way-development.html

The South Pacific Coast RR refers to their Belgian draft horses as "1-1-1-1 NG articulated hay burning" or "all-terrain" locomotives.

http://www.spcrr.org/Our_collection_Notes.html

Actually the use of the "0-4-0 Hay-fired or oat-fired" switcher makes sense from a historical perspective when you factor in that early trolleys were horse drawn. Someone at Budweiser obviously did some homework for this Super Bowl commercial.

I never new this, loved watching the horse getting the car moving from a dead stop.
Thanks for the information.

And all non-horse locomotives can be rated in HORSEPOWER!

OK, this is not exactly switching but it's horses and a tramway in Australia that was once a railroad ... so it's sorta kinda.

Victoria Harbor Tranway

Tomlinson Run RR

I assume they also moved cars with oxen?  Burros, well, mules, maybe?  Wonder what Eddie woulda thought about attending a Mexican bullfight? Totally off topic but  l thought l was going to get clobbered by a mob when l took an old girlfriend into an arena as a cultural experience, not knowing there were people loose in the environment that had no clue what a bullfight was.  She, animal lover, went ballistic, when the picadors started placing the darts. I dragged her outta there in a hurry!!

Yep, the predecessors to the....ahem...  iron horse. It just amazes me how long some of the practices lasted.

The last British horses actually worked a yard where racehorses were brought into the famous Newmarket track in England by train. Therefore the carthorse frequently switched the horsebox cars containing the racehorses.

http://www.newmarketlhs.org.uk/lhs9.htm

Budweiser is truly the king of Crap. Yuck    The horses are beautiful. 

Yes, a horse-drawn explosives train. Not too many sparks, I guess......

http://users.tpg.com.au/borcla...orses_newington.html

Naturally, World War 1 should get honourable mention: a mule train with no coal smoke or steam plume to aim at...

http://members.kos.net/sdgagnon/milb.html

For the more genteel among us..... it even has a trunk. This is a hotel tramway from possibly Alta, Utah.

http://archive.sltrib.com/stor...&ui-state=dialog

For the more workman-like among us, a mine tram from Park City, Utah. An interesting scene for a layout maybe?

http://archive.sltrib.com/stor...&ui-state=dialog

A couple of pics from Romania.....in 1995. The locomotive, er, horse shed is the shack, right background. The horse switches cars on and off both ends of a funicular railway.

http://www.internationalsteam....k/trains/roman04.htm

Not horses, but will this do

The bottom photo is a RBB&B "steed" pushing a SAL diesel-electric railcar.

A 2 h.p. switcher in Ipswich, England:

Bob Delbridge posted:

Not horses, but will this do

The bottom photo is a RBB&B "steed" pushing a SAL diesel-electric railcar.

Looks more like a Burlington Zephyr to me.

This was one of Seaboard's railcars:

Rusty

Less than a mile from my home is the road bed for the Heath Gravity Railroad. Coal from the mines in Midlothian Va was loaded on cars. The train would travel via gravity to the docks in Richmond (Va). Horses were also loaded in cars and accompanied the coal train. The horses would then pull the empties back to Midlothian.

Rusty, could be.  As a SSF I just assumed it was one of theirs 

Don’t recall where I got that photo but if I find it again I’ll post if the location is known.

Glad to see this thread active again. The photos are great and they remind me that I have some O-scale horses to paint someday and outfit with tiny little harnesses. 

Tomlinson Run Railroad