Link and Pin

The link and pin coupler joins the combine car to the parlor car behind the engine house of the El Dorado Western Railway. The Diamond and Caldor Railway used these basic couplers throughout its 47-year history. The dangerous devise spelled the death of at least one trainman on the common carrier line.

Ultimately, the existence of the coupler, which was outlawed in the U.S. in 1893 for common carriers, caused the demise of the railroad. They were common on many logging railroads in the west.

These two rail cars came to the El Dorado Western from the defunct Westside and Cherry Valley Railway, a tourist line owned by fast food mogul Glen Bell in the late 1970s.