Image ID: AMQT

Abdill, Civil War Railroads, p140: A highly interesting branch of the U.S. Military Railroad service in Tennessee was the photographic train, operated to aid in securing a pictorial record of the transportation achievements of the Federal forces. J. F. Coonley, a photographer, was instructed by the Quartermaster Department to take pictures of all bridges, trestles, buildings, boats, and railroad facilities used by the Department. He was provided with a locomotive and a box car fitted out as a traveling studio and sent out to cover the operations in the Department of the Tennessee. Coonley covered the railroads from Louisville, Kentucky, to Atlanta, Georgia, including all the lines out of Nashville, the road south to Decatur, Alabama, the Huntsville area, and the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad fro Chattanooga to Knoxville

Coonley’s photographic car is probably the piece of rolling stock coupled behind Engine 56 in this photograph showing Bridge No. 2 over Sullivan’s Branch on the Nashville & North Western R. R. The car contained darkroom and living facitilies, including a stove, cooking gear, bunks for five men, and a barrel of water, the latter serving both the domestic and photographic needs of the outfit. In his reminiscences, a member of this entourage recalls that the staple items of the bill of fare aboard the photographic train were tough mule meat and boiled potatoes.