The Dictator

[Jobe Holiday]

Excellent research, thank you!
J.

 

[rob63]

Found it... it looks like the gun itself has been mounted on a permanent platform, but it is served by a railroad cart on a spur line that was used to move it.

 

[redbob]

Had you fired that mortar on that railroad car, I would think that you would be looking at a Wily Coyote situation.

 

[Jobe Holiday]

Great photo of the mortar on the flat car! Now, looking behind the mortar...note the fellow in the dark jacket just behind the guy in the white shirt with suspenders. Looking back through the woods behind them, do I see a huge Seige Gun wheel through the tree line?
J.

 

[rob63]

Great photo of the mortar on the flat car! Now, looking behind the mortar...note the fellow in the dark jacket just behind the guy in the white shirt with suspenders. Looking back through the woods behind them, do I see a huge Seige Gun wheel through the tree line?
J.

I think it may just be an optical illusion. There was another, even higher res version available that I didn't link to just because of the size. I went back and zoomed in on it, and that area looks like this:

As an aside, while looking at the higher res version I noticed this on the train cars:

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the initials stand for United States Military Rail Road , so I am guessing that the previously noted accounts of the gun being used on the Military Rail Road were referring to the command responsible for moving it rather than a specific rail line. The name probably also became a general use term that also referred to lines built and operated by the military, thus the reason it came to be used on the maps for the line that was built by the military to supply Grant's soldiers.

 

[Jobe Holiday]

Rob63 - By enlarging the photo is how I discovered what I believe/believed to be a huge wheel from a siege gun transport carriage, as was shown here in a different discussion last year. Yes, the letters do in fact stand for "United States Military Rail Road". Your enlargement came out much better than mine did, thank you!
J.