This odd contraption is sand car 021.  Its history is lost.  Whatever its origin, it appears to be a product of considerable local building and rebuilding.  The upper photo was taken May 9, 1947 at Canal Station; the date and location of the lower photo are unknown.  The car's purpose was to sand one rail on wet days, to improve traction for passenger cars.  Note the odd, wide, open-ended operator cab on one end of the car.  The car had to have been considered double-ended, i.e., capable of operation in either direction, with either end leading.  But how clumsy it must have been!  It seems that the operator would have to face away from the controller to operate the car with the cab end leading, in which case he would have had the wind and weather in his face.  Even more strange, operation with the other end leading would have required the operator in the cab to peer between the struts of the sand hopper to see where the car was going! — Elliott Kahn photo, collection of J. G. Lachaussee (upper photo); collection of Leo Sullivan (lower photo)