From: texaszephyr <texaszephyr@sw.rr.com>
To: Skip Waters <wgcrush@swbell.net>
Sent: Mon, August 20, 2012 11:42:35 PM
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Re: FW&D Cabooses
FW&D bay-window caboose #82 was NOT constructed
from either of the ex-FW&D baggage cars 109-110 (ex-kitchen cars). 73 and
102 were, and were basically identical.
I have no record of what happened to any of these
three which in my opinion were the oddest of all the FW&D
waycars.
TZ
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 11:09
PM
Subject: Fw: [CBQ] Re: FW&D
Cabooses
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: William Barber <clipperw@gmail.com>
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, August 20, 2012 9:37:52
PM
Subject: [CBQ] Re:
FW&D Cabooses
Hol,
If FW&D only had two troop kitchen cars converted to baggage express
service and these two were later converted to way cars in 1968, it appears to
me that they became nos. 73 and 102. Photos of the two cars after conversion
to way cars seem to show them to be almost identical and both exhibit the
blanked off side door and triple windows. That is clearly evident in the
photos shown in the new way car book on pages 589 and 600. No. 82, on the
other hand, was certainly a custom built car, but it doesn't exhibit any
evidence of being converted from one of the troop kitchen cars as the other
cars do.
I don't know what the authors' source was, but they indicate that no. 82
was built from parts of the wood way car that it replaced which had been badly
damaged in a fire.
Bill Barber
Gravois Mills, MO
Mon
Aug 20, 2012 6:24 am (PDT) . Posted by:
Steve
Goen is quite close to the truth of the matter, at least as it was told to
me by FW&D mechanical department personnel involved at the time. The two
were indeed converted at the Childress shops during 1968 from box express
cars 109-110. They were built to fill a desperate need for cabooses for
local service, as the FW&D's fleet of aging wooden cars was in poor
shape, and while the company had been allowed (by the Q) to purchase a dozen
modern extended vision cupola cars (at the same time the C&S got an
identical batch), these cars were strictly for mainline service, and the
cars released by their arrival were in as poor condition as those already in
local freight service. So the mechanical people took matters into their own
hands, and without approval or authority, converted the two former troop
kitchen cars, one -- the 102 -- a copy of the new extended vision cars
(though without the wide cupola) and the other -- the 82 -- a bay window
design concocted by several Childress shop personnel. This latter car, with
its Jeep Wagoneer doors incorporated into the bay window to provide an
opening window, porthole windows in each end, and old Andrews trucks from
the car it replaced, is a real "classic." Both of the existing cabooses
carrying the numbers 82 a! nd 102 -- the latter a former Q car -- were
quietly scrapped and no record made of their scrapping. A thorough search of
company records would seem to indicate that the two old wooden cars were
still in service -- I know, because I made that search when working on the
roster for "The Colorado Road," and before I was aware of the existence of
these two oddball home-built cars. Thus they did not appear in my FW&D
caboose roster when "The Colorado Road" was published in 1970.
That
the new 102 was painted aluminum like the extended vision cars it copied,
while the truly odd second 82 was painted Chinese red is unexplained. I
would love to see a photo of it coupled to one-of-a-kind Chinese red NW2
605!
We have the
FW&D AFE files at the Colorado Railroad Museum (along with those of the
C&S and CB&Q), and there is absolutely no record there of the
existence of either of these cars.
In a somewhat less blatant
example of taking matters into your own hands to get what was needed, the
"Denver" removed the cupola from caboose 63 in 1976 or '77 to create a yard
service/transfer caboose for Fort Worth. This, too, was done without formal
authorization. The farther from the general offices you were, the easier it
was to get away with such things! Maybe that's the real reason BN moved its
headquarters to Fort Worth! (JOKE! Please don't take that comment
seriously!)
Hol
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