The term "Drovers", predating RR's, was another name for cattlemen/stockmen
when driving cattle, etc to market. Per Holbrook/Lorenz "Waycars..." book,
the Q's NE-4 class was comprised of the 189 waycars that had been ALL the
drovers' waycars of the Q & it's affiliates (B&MR, H&StJ, CB&N, etc) prior
to 1904 when they, and all other waycars, were renumbered & grouped.
Subsequently in the 30's (some were 50 yrs old then plus a surplus of
passenger equip due to the Depression) many reverted to strictly waycar use
while older coaches became "drovers" cars. I suspect Bill Glick with all his
research on pre-streamlined Q passenger cars might know some of the car #'s.
H&L do not indicate that the CW (COACH-WAYCAR) Class were used for Drover
service; as for the White frt car book, when he used the term "boarding"
it's unclear to me whether that is his term or the Q's as I've always seen
"boarding" on the Q to mean MoW bunk cars. In any case, RR's from the early
days would offer free or discounted fares to stockmen accompanying stock
cars; sort of a cattle drive on wheels. Some Q public TT's spell out the
various special tickets: clergy, drovers, banana messengers, circus, etc).
Early tickets had provisions for marking them for these various special
"classes" as did conductor reports. At least at one time the deal was one
free fare for each carload of stock. Thus waycars used as drovers cars
would have extra bunks (tiered) for this service. From what I heard from an
oldtimer such cars were not liked by train crews as stockmen often went
unbathed for periods of time plus the manure on their boots. I also
understand the practice of special ticketing for stockmen existed into the
60's on the Q & other RR's. I owned #14560 which had been a drover car at
one time - evidence of where the vertical supports for the bunks had been
affixed to the floor & ceiling was still evident even after remodeling to
its mixed train baggage/coach/waycar service in the Black Hills. By my
count roughly 20 of this class of ex-drovers waycars exist, several @ public
parks/museums in addition to private owners - I'm sure the new Waycar book
will have added info. I have several RPPC's of Q stock cars - in 1 or 2 the
attached waycar is an NE-4 class. As the Q was the 1st RR into was once the
world's largest stockyards (Chicago), it's fair to assume they were among
the 1st RR's to offer drover service. I suspect there may be good photos &
stories of same in books relating to the old west, cattle drives, etc. And
yes, there was either a BB or some other recent source that had some pics -
darned if I can remember what/where. In any case I suspect such coaches,
for obvious reasons, tended to stay in drover service until retired just as
some box cars remained forever "hide" cars.
I know at least one older gentleman who, although not a drover per se, used
one of the free tickets his Dad rcvd for shipping cattle on the Q to ride to
Chicago in a drover's coach just for the fun of it back in the 40's or early
50's - of course drovers tickets were R/T. While on the subject of cowboys
- have at least 1 old Q TT that says saddles could be taken on coaches if in
a sack; otherwise had to go as checked baggage. Also have an old Q poster
distributed apparently to the Dude Ranchs it featured in brochures into the
50's showing stop-by-step how to get astride a horse. Talk about a
full-service RR! Just one more reason to be a Burlington fan! Gerald
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
|