Jim Ehernberger recently acquired this view of CB&Q A-2 326 and waycar 14496 on a work train at Bartley, Neb., sometime between about 1910 and 1919 when the 4-4-0 was scrapped. The most interesting thing about the photo, of course, is the very non-standard
appearance of the waycar. According to company records, the 14496 and 14497 were both built at the Aurora shops in 1892, but no original numbers are shown, though they would not have received the 14000 series numbers until the general renumbering of 1904.
In 1925 both were rebuilt with steel center sills and presumably at that time were modified to the standard appearance of 30-foot NE-1 cars. In this photo the car rides on a rather unusual style of archbar truck that the railroad was employing in the early
1890s (and I've attached another view of waycar 162 at Burlington in 1892 that shows these trucks quite clearly). At any rate, the two cars, 14496-14497, looked like any other NE-1 after their rebuilding, and they remained active for many years, the 144976
damaged in a derailment at Barstow, Ill., on April 10, 1964 and subsequently dismantled at Galesburg on April 14, 1964. Sister 14497 survived to become BN 11007 (renumbered at Cicero on August 9, 1971) and donated to West Chicago in October 1976 and placed
on exhibition there.
The 1904 numbers given these two cars were in a small group reserved for oddball waycars. The only other car known to have been in this series, the 14498, was a former narrow gauge baggage car from the Black Hills that was retired in 1919. And it seems
only logical that there was also a 14999 which disappeared from the roster quite early and whose existence did not survive in the company records.
Jim shared this photo with me because he knew the waycar did not look like other Q waycars, and with his permission I'm sharing it with the group for the same reason.
Hol
