|
Charlie Being "a long way from Chicago", could have some effect. In 1976, the Herrin Junction to Metropolis local crew decided that no "Bi-Centential" equipment would ever come down that far. So they decided to paint their waycar red, white and blue. The Metropolis Bridge paint gang painted it with paint bought by the crew. When he found out about it, the Ass't Superintendent blew a gasket. By then Bill Wylde's photograph had found its way to Chicago and brass up there loved it! John From: Charlie Vlk <cvlk@comcast.net> To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 10:03 AM Subject: RE: [CBQ] Waycar mystery - CW class Gerald- A caution about making too much of “deviations from standard” as a function of the remoteness from Chicago HQ. The CW cars, although built from various stock, did get engineering from Chicago. Some of them might be rebuilt from “boarding cars” but other than ORER entries and annual report rosters little is known about them. A big problem is the Chicago HQ fire which destroyed much of the early engineering records. Only cars that were likely to be shopped/rebuilt were re-documented. So the really early cars will not have any drawings for
them, at least from post-fire Chicago sources. Yes, there were local deviations (like replacing the typical small window on a 28’ waycar with the standard 30’ waycar large window)….but it was not the Wild West Everywhere west of the Mississippi……. Recall that the boys in Fort Worth got caught painting the switcher in Chinese Red. Why that was a sin and building a caboose with automobile doors grafted into the side I don’t know….maybe Chicago had a sense of humor at times or it was so late in the game nobody cared anymore….. Charlie Vlk And I would nominate for the “most elusive” pre-1885 photos of the original format waycars. There is a tantalizing view of what they looked like in the stereo view of the Aurora shops…..extremely short bobbers, side door, and three and four window cars with very tall, narrow, and short length cupolas….with early 28’ three window cars of later standard pattern but with Bombay cupolas. Almost no photos of CB&Q rolling stock, especially freight cars, have surfaced, especially on the Aurora Branch/Chicago & Galena / St.Charles Air Line….or the Chicago & Aurora. The most elusive of the Q's 1000+ way cars are
the ex-box cars used in WWII and the CW (Combination Waycars) - converted coaches made into unique way cars with cupolas. However little has ever been documented on them as a) they tended to reside on branch lines & b) most were gone before WWII. The Waycar book amazingly comes up with photos of 20 or so including some unique variations (as one can expect from home-made conversions of different coaches) Among the dispositions, about a dozen ended up in MoW service, 2 of these are shown - one with the more common cupola well 'indented' from the car end, the other with the less common nearly 'end' cupola. The latter #210956 creates 2 mysteries; it's the one not documented as to which CW it came from nor is it readily obvious from its appearance. (from its new window placement it's very hard to tell its original window #). Even more mystifying, nearly all passenger cars converted to MoW service, whether wood or steel, were numbered in the 250000+
series whereas ex-freights cars, steam loco tenders, et were numbered from 200000 to 230000. However 210956 is one exception along with one other CW. My guess is that with any industry, the further a branch office/store is from the home office, the more deviations from 'standard'. More CW's were on Lines West than Lines East and MoW equipment was not as closely regulated as revenue equipment in interchange where numbering must be 100% accurate. My guess is that the car was going to become 250956 & then someone discovered that # was taken so they just changed the 5 to a 1 OR it was the next # available for MoW numbering and the painter was unaware of the usual practice or ??? (In my personal collection is a slide I took in Galesburg where a MoW ar had one number obviously repainted. I happened to be with a Car Dept Mgr and he indicated that after shopping someone realized it was a dup # so had to be changed - mistakes happen, even on CB&Q! The final mystery here is that given most CW's were scrapped before WWII, MoW equipment lasted decades longer (witness truss rod MoW hox cars went that way into BN!), so why are there not more photos, post-WWII, of ex-CW cars in MoW service? Again, most were Lines West as MoW equipment & sadly, then & now, rail fans take pics of locomotives NOT MoW equipment. Perhaps the upcoming Waycars Drawings book with additional tech data and pics may shed some more light OR cause a buyer to search his personal archives. Now back to "Waycars" to find some more 'what in the world?' pics & text. Gerald __._,_.___
Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe __,_._,___ |