Sail Cars

From: "Don Ball" dlball1899@gmail.com

I was just reading through the Central Pacific Annual Report of 1884 and found a listing of the number of cars owned by the railroad. In it, I see that they had 58 sail cars and had just added two that year. In an earlier report in the 1870s, I saw that they had one or two and then there was no further mention of them so I concluded that the experiment was a failure. By 1884, they had 58 (compared to 384 section cars, which I presume to be hand cars, and 31 push cars). This was more than an experiment and, apparently, was successful enough that they were still acquiring the cars. Has any of you ever seen any mention of these outside of an annual report? Any photos?

—Don Ball