Wahoo, NE: Museum/CB&Q Depot and Lost/C&NW Depot and Freight House

CB&Q: (Satellite)

C&NW: (Satellite, my guess is that the depot was by the grain elevator and the freight house was by 6th Street.)

Michael Emerson Avitt posted
Wahoo, Nebraska on December 28, 2009.

Mike Bartels: Part of the Saunders County Historical Society Museum complex. Agency discontinued in 1972. Last train by it in 1982.

Tom Weber posted six photos with the comment:

The Wahoo Burlington Depot in Nebraska was built in 1886 for a subsidiary of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad and is still standing on its original site (not including 2 restorations).

Over the decades, the depot was used for both passenger and freight traffic.  But with ridership declining in the 1930s and 1940s, the main use of the depot was for freight traffic up to the time of the merger in 1970 when the line became a Burlington Northern route.

The depot was closed two years after the merger in 1972, and the line abandoned in 1982.

The Burlington Northern first leased and then donated the building to the Saunders County Historical Society in 1984, and the Depot was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

The CB&Q caboose was built in 1929 by the Santa Fe Railroad who eventually was bought out by Burlington Northern.  The caboose was retired in 1982 and donated the same year to the museum grounds.

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The town used to have three railroads. Only the UP route is left.

1969/71 Wahoo West & East Quads @ 24,000

1969/71 Wahoo West & East Quads @ 24,000

Wahoo was on a branch between Ashland and Schuyler.

1902

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C&NW Depot and Freight House

Chicago & North Western Historical Society posted
Wahoo, Nebraska.  What a name!  This photo from the J. C. Seacrest Collection via Lou Schmitz is of the C&NW depot and freight house there about 1900.  Wahoo is located on what was once a C&NW line from Fremont to Lincoln, Nebraska.

This grain elevator would have been served by the C&NW and the CB&Q. The short spout on the left would be C&NW, and the long spout on the right would be CB&Q. I think the depot was on the vacant land in the foreground.

Street View, May 2012

I started with a hi-res photo. The C&NW tracks are just west of Maple Street and the CB&Q tracks are further west about halfway between Maple and Chestnut Streets.

Mar 1, 1968 @ 12,400; AR1VBRC00030049

The photo shows that there were tracks on both side of the depot. My guess is that we see the freight house just south of 6th Street and the depot is hidden in the shadow of the grain elevator. I got another aerial hoping that the shadows would be different. But it demonstrates why I avoid low-res photos.

Jul 23, 1953 @ 66,500; ARA001280030489