palmer

That's got to be the biggest stack and cinder arrestor I have ever seen. It looks like an 0-6-0 logging locomotive and the cinder trap forces live cinders down onto the roadbed so that they cannot start a forest fire as these wood-burners often did. This is a beautiful portrait.

KK

That is an amazing portrait, and thanks @ Bluesguy from NY for the background info--do you know anything else about the forest fires started by wood-burning locomotives during this period?

If you would consider contributing this photograph to a worthy project, check out our Historypin site, Living with the Railroads: www.historypin.com/project/42-railroads
Our mission is to crowdsource the creation of knowledge and metadata for railroad photos in repositories around the world, so it would be awesome to feature the Field Museum Library! It only requires a Facebook, Google+, or Twitter account to start contributing!

CESTA Railroads Not much more I can add. I know that the Colorado & Southern 3 ft. gauge railroad famously applied a similar device to their steam locomotives. My sometimes faulty memory tells me it's called a beartrap. Google the C&S for images and you can see many of them.

And it would be fun to build a G scale model of this one too.
And, yes, primarily because of the spark arrestor!

www.flickr.com/photos/jacksonstreet/10968704293/in/album-...

If I had the time and resources it would be fun to build a G scale model of this critter.

Interesting that fireman's side rail, the one nearest to viewer, ends under pilot beam and footboard.

Man in his environment - thank you as always for posting!