There is much to be learned and documented when it comes to Burlington Waycars.
The comment Dave Sarther made about #14500 being built as a 28’ car and later rebuilt as a 30’ car triggers some questions. As far as I know there are only a couple of pictures of Waycars taken prior to 1885…..the stereo views of Aurora Shops that appear on the National Historic Landmark Building site. That photo, while it shows some waycars that look like early versions of the “standard” 28’ car, has some earlier cars that look entirely different….with very tall, short length and narrow cupolas…in both eight wheel and bobber configurations, some with side doors. Why no in service photos of such cars have turned up is a mystery.
The “standard” 28’ three window cars we have builders and other early photos of had some of the fancy sprung journal archbar trucks the CB&Q seemed to like while others had the No.7 wood beam truck. Some had short four window arched roof cupolas while others had a “Bombay” cupola roof. There were some built with what became the “standard” cupola with one side window. All of them seemed to have small windows on the upper corners of the sides that could be accessed from the inside of the car to place a marker light box into the opening. At some point they started using “gig top” markets as well (purpose???) which were two or three color lenses exposed to the front and back of the car. Some drawings show such markers built into the cupola facsias front and rear instead but so far no photos have surfaced of such a configuration that I recall.
The “rebuilding” of the 28’ cars into 30’ cars was really a stretching of the carbody by 2’ to accommodate a 30’ steel underframe. The additional length was (normally) placed between the window group and the corner or the cupola. There were variations where the windows were respaced.
Speaking of windows, there seem to be three variations of window sizes. The 28’ three window cars started off with windows that had equal sized squarish panes top and bottom. After rebuilding they seem to have standardized on the smaller of two sizes….some early cars had larger windows than we saw in the transition era. The 30’ four window cars built after 1900 have a window that has two squarish panes over two rectangular panes that overall is larger than the later three window style. Dry Hopper (toilet) windows on the end seem to be the size of the top portion of the four window car window and end windows (for Drovers cars) are the size of the bottom portion of the four window car window.
Due to rebuildings there are some variations in window application. Some cars have the “wrong” window probably due to wreck rebuilding or?? There is a group of 30’ cars that were built as three window cars with the four window style window.
As far as I know no CB&Q drawings survive of any CB&Q waycar prior to 1900 or so….and other than the NE2 Bobber, all are of 30’ four window waycars or drovers cars. I once had a floor plan for the later 30’ three window cars but lost it when I left my briefcase on a dinky around 1972….along with the drawings for the Clyde tower and the fabricated truck for the 9908!!
There doesn’t seem to be much help in the numbering or class system for making sense of what any particular waycar looked like. While they all have a fairly standardized look there are many detail variations (length, windows, letterboard, cupola style, height of side, doors, side doors, etc.. etc.) that bear further research.
Charlie Vlk