Chicago & North Western boxcar 118268

Getting a high pressure stream of water or steam under control?

I came across this photo stuck amongst pictures of babies and stern great grandparents. No context, no related pictures nearby, no writing on the back, no date, no location, no explanation whatsoever.

Apparently the 'C & N W' stenciled on the end of the boxcar stands for the Chicago & North Western railroad. I don't know anything about this railroad other than the internet tells me it was in operation from 1859 to 1995, and at times sprawled over 11,000 to 12,000 miles of track throughout Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, South & North Dakota, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, and Wyoming. 

I wondered if Lucius Beebe had anything to note about the C&NW in his classic 1947 book, Mixed Train Daily. He had a little bit to say, Beebe-style, in an aside about the railroads' vanishing individualism:

The cachet of individualism, a national characteristic somewhat in general abeyance, can no longer be said to obtain among the mainline railroads of the United States, their operations, motive power or other distinguishing identifications. The Milwaukee, to be sure, still cleaves to the bright-orange rolling stock that has so long been its hallmark; the Chicago and North Western holds to left-hand operations, a sort of ancestral mortmain from its days of English capitalization; the Santa Fe is celebrated for the Fred Harvey Restaurants on its de luxe varnish hauls and, almost alone among the great trunk lines of the Southwest, the Frisco adheres to the tradition of beautifully maintained motive power and its engines glitter in the noble old manner with blue paint and red trim, gold leaf, gleaming brass and burnished rod assemblies. 

By and large, however, the main lines have surrendered to the expediency of uniform and interchangeable styles and properties, and the day when they indulged in spacious personal mannerisms, from motives of both pride and promotion, has vanished.