Worker homes


Photo courtesy of Levi Ballard, Alaska Military Historical Association

Patrick Durand says of the photo, "Best interpretation is Seward looking East along what today would be 3rd Avenue.  The Water tower structure would be right in the baseball park today.  The rectangular water tower and the attached structure is a wonder of engineering and would be a great imagineering scratch built structure because the chances of ever getting another photo of it leaves the details up to your imagination.  The coach mid train among the bunk cars is probably the kitchen car.

"The water spout is on the lead down toward the old engine house. The makeshift structure to the right would hold a small boiler to run a pump for the well and provide heat to keep the tank warm in the winter. the large A frame beyond would support a stiff leg crane with a clam shell bucket that would empty gondolas full of coal and stack it where it could be picked up by the resident locomotive crane equipped with a clam shell bucket to fill locomotive tenders. There was no other coaling facility in Seward that I have ever seen a photo of. This pile of conjecture is the best my old filing system can produce."

From Don Marenzi, "Portable camp car bodies on ex-Panama flatcars, these are some of the bodies with the side doors. The closest 3 cars I would guess to be bunk cars. Not sure about the fourth car (maybe a foreman's car). The fifth car is a converted wood coach probably from the #1 to 8 series coaches, a number of which were converted to camp/bunk cars. At this distance it's hard to count the windows though. The sixth car (portable body with 2 windows/no side door) could be a shower car ? The last (seventh) car another bunk car?"