I been seeing loads of trains every day and night. North south rails through northern Kentucky. Not one of them has a caboose car. Why not and where are they all? Must be a caboose grave yard somewhere. Any one know?

My grandpa has one in his back yard. Bought it a state away, delivered to a local siding, crane took it off track in 2 pcs, loaded on trucks. We installed ties/rails. It's his farm 'office' and outside bathroom for the workers.

Red Caboose Motel, near the Strasburg Railroad in Lancaster County, PA. They have a bunch of cabooses they renovated into motel rooms.

It and the men who use to ride there (brakemen) have been replaced by the "Rear End Device", often referred to as a F.R.E.D.

Article link: http://trn.trains.com/railroad...the-colorful-caboose

Short version:

" Technology catches up

In railroad jargon, the caboose was classified as "non-revenue" equipment.

Cabooses were expensive to build and maintain, unlike regular freight cars, which earned their keep. Extra switching moves were needed to add or uncouple a caboose at the end of a train, and they required caboose tracks at major yards, as well as carmen and laborers to work on them and service them.

In 1980, the cost of operating a caboose was 92 cents per mile. One terminal superintendent on the Cotton Belt estimated his railroad spent $300 a day in crew time switching out cabooses at terminals. To many railroad accountants the caboose was "just along for the ride."

As railroad technology advanced, the caboose's function became less important. The introduction of remote switches thrown by dispatchers at CTC consoles meant that a rear brakeman wasn't needed to close a switch behind a train. Increasingly taller freight cars blocked the view from the cupola.

Many railroaders believe the final nail in the caboose's coffin was the "End-of-Train" telemetry device. This small metal box was first used by the Florida East Coast Railroad in 1969. The EOT fits over the rear coupler of the last car on the train, and is connected to the train's air brake line. Powered by battery, the EOT sends a periodic signal to the locomotive indicating the brake pressure at the rear of the train, whether or not the last car of the train is moving, and in which direction. EOTs are also equipped with a flashing red light, activated at night by a sensor, which serves as the train's rear marker.



By 1972, Florida East Coast had replaced all of its cabooses with EOTs, and other railroad soon began to follow suit. In 1985, Robert Claytor, then chairman of Norfolk Southern, summed up the reasons for doing so in an address to the Railroad Public Relations Association.

"Today's caboose costs about $80,000 - more than the cost of most freight cars - and weighs about 25 tons. It can be replaced with a box that costs about $4000 and weighs 35 pounds. The end-of-train monitor doesn't have to be switched through terminals and doesn't require expensive maintenance….The fact of the matter is that the caboose is certainly the most dangerous place to ride."

By the mid 1980s new labor agreements reduced the hours of service for train crews, eliminating the need for a caboose to provide overnight housing. The labor agreements also cut crew size from five to four, and finally two - an engineer and conductor, both of whom could ride comfortably in the locomotive cab. Included in the agreements were provisions for the removal of cabooses from the rear of freight trains.


One by one throughout the 1980s, individual states repealed age-old laws that required the use of cabooses in train operation. The last state to do so was Virginia, which relented on July 1, 1988. Not long before, in December 1987, the Canadian government approved the cabooseless operation of freight trains provided a two-way EOT system was used in its place."

It links up with the "head end device" on the control stand of the locomotive to relay info to the engineer...

Oh well, all cool things come to a end. No more cabooses on the end...

M-11's post is pretty much true...cabooses were really a pain in the ass to maintain and were always filthy...

Ours on the Southern and later on the Norfolk Southern were still heated by coal in the winter. Each one had a pot belly stove and a coal bin...just the normal vibrations from moving would grind much of the coal at the bottom of the bin into a fine powder which would cover everything in the caboose with coal dust. Some of the Northern railroad cabooses had propane heaters and theirs were somewhat cleaner...

There was no air conditioning and in the summer with the windows open, all the dust kicked up by the train was sucked into the caboose to mix with the coal dust, making it even worse...

The older "rest room" consisted of a urinal that emptied out on the tracks and a toilet that did likewise...this was phased out in the 70s and replaced over time with one of the worst possible set ups you could imagine...the MicroFor composting toilet...which propelled your waste via air pressure (think about it) into a redwood lined steel box to "compost" into a liquid that according to the company, was safe to dump out on the ground...they never worked, the holding tanks rusted out and leaked shit/piss juice everywhere...which just added to the ambience of the caboose...God knows you didn't want to crawl under one for maintenance...

The floors rotted out from the drainage...

They had no power except batteries that had to be charged...the axle generators on some cabooses would work...most didn't...

When the slack was taken up with the movement of the train...you had to be prepared for a jolt...if you were standing, it was more than possible to end up on the floor...the ride was jerky from there...

Yes, they were a "romantic" part of rail history...but most if not all were not see them go.

I never knew they were so crude. Saw a couple brass caboose whistles at a resteraunt up in Pennsylvania Amish country years back. Kind of wish I bought one.

Ours were pretty rough pieces of equipment...same with the L&N and Seaboard (later to be CSX...I can't remember seeing a caboose other than one carrying the L&N logo on our property and they were about as bad as ours)...when we merged with N&W and their cabooses started to filter in, they were much better...cleaner and more modern. In M-11's post it mentions Robert Claytor, President of NS wanting to see them gone...I think the plan had been in place for a long time to just let them rag out and get so bad the crews and maintenance people were happy to see them replaced...we kept a few in Chattanooga for local use trains until 1992 or so...then they were no more.

Years ago my former NJ town restored a local pond used for recreation. the then Mayor got one from the local Croxton Yard Conrail facility .

Thats pretty sweet rscalzo. I seem to remember some of them built from wood. They were so cool to see if you were making rail road track pennies. I even made a few pennies when I was 50 years young.

Interesting post. I never actually really knew the purpose of a caboose. Just figured it was a place for someone to ride at the rear end of the train.

When I worked in Wyoming we actually still had a couple (as of 2008-2010) that were equipped and still semi-nice inside. We used them during blizzards to pick up train crews that got stranded on-line when vehicle traffic couldn't get through.

Most recently, the last yard I managed had three, but they were welded up, such that you could only stand on the end platforms. We simply used them as shove platforms when making reverse movements with the locomotives on the trailing end.

quote:

Originally posted by Redleg06:
It and the men who use to ride there (brakemen) have been replaced by the "Rear End Device", often referred to as a F.R.E.D.

I will watch for this device on a few trains as they pass.

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:
Interesting post. I never actually really knew the purpose of a caboose. Just figured it was a place for someone to ride at the rear end of the train.

The bump-out with windows were where the conductor could watch the train, especially in curves, for problems such as "hot boxes" (over heating wheel bearings which were an ongoing problem with the old felt wick-in-oil type friction bearings before the advent of roller bearings), sticking brakes (which along with hot boxes resulted in many fires as well as derailments) as well as shifting loads that would cause problems...hot box detectors which monitor temperature from overheating wheels and relay that info to a control center have replaced eyes on the ground...it can detect an overheating wheel and tell the control center the exact location in the consist before it could have been spotted by a conductor riding in a caboose...

The caboose also carried replacement coupler knuckles and train line air hoses (as did the locomotives) in case of a separation towards the back half of the train. It was equipped with an air-line pressure gauge to monitor air pressure throughout the consist (air pressure keeps the brakes off...if an air-line rupture occurs a secondary air reservoir applies the brakes until the hose is repaired and train line pressure is restored to allow the brakes to be released)...

It was also a rolling office for the conductor...

All of this is now monitored by the electronic devices at the front and rear.

What is in the box atop the caboose in rscalzos picture?

That is the cupola...they also had windows and were accessed by a ladder. It was another vantage point where the conductor could look out on the train cars in front of the caboose for issues...

Very few of the cabooses on Southern Railway had them when I started in 1978...most of ours in service at that time were equipped with the side bump out windows. Cupolas were common with other railroads...

My grandfather was an engineer with Southern Railway for many years. He retired in 1969. Where they lived in Granite Quarry NC there were tracks that went by the house and I would run down to the crossing from the yard and he would blow the horns as he passed. Great memories.

One time he took me to Spencer NC to the Southern Railway yards there. There were many of those cabooses sitting on spurs and he said that SR offered them to employees- if you wanted one you could have one...
Gramps said he couldn't figure out what to do with one given the pain it was to move them.
Evidently a lot of the caboose and old dining/various wooden cars were just burned in those days.

Thanks for the thread, David Lee, a good read.
Another thing gone that knowing about dates me, more than just the last car on a freight train, RIP caboose.