What is it? Who put it out there in the middle of nowhere? It’s been a puzzle for years, with only guesses and speculation as to what it might have been. The Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad completed their line past this location by 1907. They ran their last train through there in 1933, after flooding made rebuilding this stretch economically impossible. Is this anything the railroad could have used? It doesn’t look like railroad equipment to me, but if it is perhaps someone here will know and finally be able to solve the mystery.
I’ve never been there myself, but here are some accounts with pictures.
…Wild…weird…and my first thought is by what means did {whomever}, get that “megaphone” up that elevation on top of the rocks…Looks like it might weigh several hundred lbs…!
[2c]…for what its worth…the one picture showing the interior…piece of re-bar and galvanizedized pipe welded inside…to me dates it to a more modern age…i.e. today back to maybe the 50’s…i see it as one of those eccentric hoaxs to make people wonder…and it appears to be working…[;)]
i would agree with that…kinda…2 nozzles attached?..but again going to the one close-up pic…the welds dont appear to be “quality” you would expect from RR’s…even a small line like this one
…Wouldn’t it be doubtful the manufacture of the steam engine that would use such an Item…{exhaust nozzle…}, would be using re-bar for assembling it…On the other hand, the inside cross bracing looks like it might have been added later…Guess all we can do is guess until someone might have evidence of what it really was…
From a distance, I thought those lines running lengthwise were creases made from a press brake forming a flat pattern into those cones. But those are individual tapered strips all welded together. That fabrication approach makes it seem as though it were not a manufactured part. Yet it seems too purposeful to just be a whimsical attention getter. It would have taken one person a very long time to make that thing.
by the same logic tho…a real fab job for a locomotive would have those welds ground smooth…unless of course it was a quick patch job towrd the end of engines life…but still why make 2?
I think it is a whistle that sounds a very low pitch sound when the wind gets up to and above about 50 MPH. Its purpose would be to warn people in the area that the wind speed had risen to dangerous levels.
…One thing it sure is, a mystery. How did it get up on that elevation…It’s not a light weight. I’d say it had purpose in mind with all the labor required to cut the pieces and assemble all together. It’s roundness shape was not accomplished by amateurs either.
The two halves do resemble nozzles of some sort. A locomotive blast nozzle would have the discharge out of the smaller end of each of the halves. But wouldn’t a locomotive blast nozzle have a heavy mounting flange at the wide end? They seem way too big for locomotive blast nozzles.
What are those funnel shaped features on the discharge of a rocket called? Whatever they are called, these nozzles of the megaphone resemble them. However, with those rocket devices, the discharge would be out the wide end. We need a rocket expert here.
Cordon’s suggestion of a wind whistle is intriguing. Say the two parts were originally built for another purpose such as a rocket, but were never used. Then say the owner decided to use them as a sculpture just to look at. I can think of a few different ways of displaying them that would seem more likely than connecting them end-to-end and mounting them horizontally on a high perch. Standing them up, for instance, would seem to make them more balanced and statuesque. So the speculation that there is some functionality to the megaphone makes sense.
It also suggests what a lonely spot in the desert that is. The UP main, some distance north, is one of the most isolated stretches of track in California (no highways or permanent population for miles), and that megaphone location is even more remote. It’s really hard to imagine why someone went to the trouble of putting that thing up there.
…I can imagine a function of each half as: Possible bottom of a one legged tower of some kind stablized with cables. Each half has a mounting flange…{quite heavy metal}, and what looks like a machined ring at the other end that a metal tube could slip down over and possibly welded in place. But for this location…that heavy thing up where it is…boggles my mind. Did someone drill holes in the rocks for the mounting shafts…?
PS: And yes, that is a very good photo suggested above…I magnified it 400% and it was still sharp…!
It isn’t conveniently-accessible enough to draw that many people. Indeed, I doubt its presence in the desert affects the ranch’s bottom line even in the slightest. I noticed they also ‘promote’ the abandoned T&T ROW as well.