Western Railroad Discussion > A swooshed caboose

This was in front of the Amtrak depot in Tacoma Wa today. Nice paint patch with the new logo and it looks like new wheels. Ya never know. Remember when cabooses were a thing of the past?
Roger Beckett

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UPRR & BNSF, it looks like you guys just hop right on over to your sticker cabinet and pull something out of it. This makes it real easy for modelers to do anything they want anymore and get away with it!

Interesting "P" on the left end of the caboose, indicating maybe that this is a platform, not a caboose? A recent variation on the transfer caboose is the "pushing" or "shoving" or "riding" platform. It can be an old crummy with windows wielded shut, or any railcar for that matter, where a brakeman can safely ride for some distance to help the engineer with visibility at the other end of the train.

Fred Harrison
Central Point, OR
CORPpower/JSS/EORS

The "P" indicates that this was a Pool cabooose back in its days as an actual caboose.

-Justin

at least it's not coverd in ugly nasty graffeti.
JC

Wait! That can't be done! It's not prototypical! (Oh, yeah, now it is) Just goes to prove again that the real railroads are not rivet counters... --- --- - --- JLH

bnsfjth Wrote: The "P" indicates that this was a Pool caboose back in its days as an actual caboose.

Reply: I appreciate that information. LOL--how do they manage to get a pool table inside one of those crummies, anyway? And what kind of game do they play--8 ball, regular billards or frictionless pool?

Sure beats this explanation: "The 'F' on the locomotive tells the engineer to put it on the front of the train and the 'P' on the caboose tells him to put it on the posterior of the train.

Fred Harrison
Central Point, OR
CORPpower/JSS/EORS

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While the caboose has the BNSF logo it still carries the BN reporting marks. This is going to add to the conductor's wheel reporting and train make up confusion. Some people should not be allowed to the logo stick on cabinet.

fredkharrison Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> bnsfjth Wrote: The "P" indicates that this was a
> Pool caboose back in its days as an actual
> caboose.
>
> Reply: I appreciate that information. LOL--how
> do they manage to get a pool table inside one of
> those crummies, anyway? And what kind of game do
> they play--8 ball, regular billards or
> frictionless pool?
>
> Sure beats this explanation: "The 'F' on the
> locomotive tells the engineer to put it on the
> front of the train and the 'P' on the caboose
> tells him to put it on the posterior of the train.
Come on, don't you remember Seinfeld when Kramer, Frank and the Maestro put the pool table in the bedroom?. You just get short sticks.

Not much confusion, many railroads stil use reporting marks from railroads long ago absorbed or merged into them.
JC

This is one of 3 shoving platforms the BNSF uses around Phoenix.
location is at Alhambra taken 05/26/2008 ATSF 999726..
Steve P.

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I want to say something about that ATSF cab, but I really can't summon the words. Appalling comes nowhere close to it...

Fortunately, the Corona Local's "shoving platform", ATSF 999778, is kept inside a fenced enclosure with the power when not in use.
This seems to have at least slowed down the graffiti idiots.

This is at Corona, California on the BNSF San Bernardino Subdivision for all you inquisitive, non-local types.

Speaking of Cabooses and graffiti. I caught this one yesterday a bit south of Tacoma on a northbound rail train at Steilacoom, WA.

BN 12622 was built as GN X-142 in 1969 and at the BN merger renumbered 10062.

Brian Ambrose
Renton, WA

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skinem wrote: Come on, don't you remember Seinfeld when Kramer, Frank and the Maestro put the pool table in the bedroom? You just get short sticks.

Reply: All too well! They end up using the conductor's baton as a pool cue.

For those interested in finding out more about the subject of frictionless pool, a "billiard" is the path that a billiard ball would trace out if it were allowed to bounce around, indefinitely, on a frictionless pool table in the shape of a polygon. Sometimes, after a series of bounces, the billiard ball appears in its original position, traveling in its original direction. When this is the case, the corresponding billiard is said to be closed. The study of billiards, both closed and open, is a subject of much current mathematical research.

Play frictionless pool here:
http://www.imathlearning.com/algebra/investigations/index.html

Dispatchers and yardmasters may see moving trains and cars around with locomotives, cabooses and platforms, then returning these back to Point A after the shuffle, as a sort of frictionless pool challenge.

Fred Harrison
Central Point, OR
CORPpower/JSS/EORS