Nostalgia & History > Caboose Question

Since cabooses were done away with when I was a teenager and I never paid attention, did railroads ever share cabooses like they do locomotives?

Todd

They did in the last couple of decades before they were done away with, although it wasn't too common of a thing. The Katy in central Texas fairly often had a C&NW caboose on the rear.

Con

Yes, all the time. When the SP-UP pool locomotive pool started in 1968, cabooses from both roads ran wild on each other's tracks. The efficiency of run-through trains from other roads at interchange required the use of each others locomotives and cabooses.

webmaster Wrote:
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> Since cabooses were done away with when I was a
> teenager and I never paid attention, did railroads
> ever share cabooses like they do locomotives?
>
> Todd

I'm thinking it was done on some run-throughs, but run-through cabooses could be a bigger problem than run-through power. Maybe some old head train crews can comment on this, but typically different railroads and even different parts of some railroads had different agreements concerning the type of equipment required on cabooses. Either a run-through caboose had to meet the requirements of both railroads' labor, or maybe a side agreement would allow an exception for the other railroad's cabooses on the run-through train.

I'm not completely sure about all of this, so I could be full of bull.

Towards the end of cabooses, train crews wo;d glomb onto any caboose they could. I have a friend who bought a caboose from a railroad and had it shipped to his spur. That caboose made its way across at least three railroads over several months before it arived at its final destination. No one wanted to see it taken out of service.

WAF Wrote:
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> Yes, all the time. When the SP-UP pool locomotive
> pool started in 1968, cabooses from both roads ran
> wild on each other's tracks. The efficiency of
> run-through trains from other roads at interchange
> required the use of each others locomotives and
> cabooses.

And if you look carefully at photos of UP cabooses, some of them carried the letter "P" on the cupola, I believe designating them as "pool" cabooses for run through service.

Back in the early 80s when we were handling export coal from the Rio Grande at Provo, Utah down to L.A. some Rio Grande cabooses ran through. I remember because we got a squawk from the air people in L.A. about smoke from the DRGW caboose coal-burning stoves. JB

Here in southwestern Pennsylvania back in the 1970's,
cabooses from the Norfolk & Western (P&WV trackage)ran
through onto the Western Maryland...
And Western Maryland cabooses ran over N&W rails on
the "run-through" Alphabet Route trains.
N&W cabooses ran all the way to Hagerstown on WM rails,
and for a time, Western Maryland cabooses made it to Brewster.

This also included locomotives "running-through".

VW

We were just looking at some old caboose pictures this week. On the UP Overland Main during the 1981-1987 time frame I have shots of Rio Grande, Norfolk & Western, Chicago & North Western, Burlington Northern, Southern Pacific, Conrail, and Frisco. UP used to have so many run-through trains scheduled in and out of North Platte that it was quite common to see both locos and cabeese of other roads on a daily basis.

As with locomotives, certain railroads had pooling agreements with each other concerning the run-through of cabooses. Of course, there were certain limitations of operating one railroad's caboose on another railroads, such as the compatibility of radio frequencies, and the provision of certain ammenities based on union agreements.

As kwo pointed out, the UP was probably the most active railroad in pooling cabooses. They were the earliest to start pooling cabooses when they began an agreement with the CB&Q back in the early 60's, for run-through service at the Grand Island interchange for North Platte to Chicago traffic. UP even had 10 cabooses painted in CB&Q aluminum for this run-through service.

In the 70's and 80's, cabooses from MP, MKT, SP, WP, DRGW, BN, CNW, Family Lines, Southern, N&W, Frisco, MILW, and RI could be found on UP rails. It was even documented in CTC Board back in the late 70's that cabooses from the D&H and Frisco made it out on the WP into the Bay Area. Most likely, these cabooses were interchanged from the UP at Salt Lake City.

On my part of CSX (former Georgia Railroad), foreign cabooses started showing up WAY before any appreciable amounts of off line power. In the SBD days (83-86) I remember seeing plenty of Chessie cabs, along with UP, MP, WP, DT&I, GTW and SP. UP and SP power started sporadically appearing after the CSXT era. Further back, I remember a Frisco bicentennial caboose, also an ATSF cab on the SCL trains that ran the GA on the way to Florence. Never did get to see SCL 1776 though...go figure!

I know that most of the guys I worked with said they liked having a UP caboose. They said the riding capabilities were better than the SP cabooses. Whether it was because of the type of trucks that a UP caboose had or because it was heavier than an SP caboose (which is what most SP guys thought) is up for debate. I just know that the guys liked them better.


steamjocky

Steamjocky Wrote:
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> I know that most of the guys I worked with said
> they liked having a UP caboose. They said the
> riding capabilities were better than the SP
> cabooses. Whether it was because of the type of
> trucks that a UP caboose had or because it was
> heavier than an SP caboose (which is what most SP
> guys thought) is up for debate. I just know that
> the guys liked them better.

I suspect the SP guys liked 'em for the wrong reason.

GN had some very heavy transfer cabooses made out of retired Baldwin VO-1000's, that were real bone shakers.

Steamjocky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I know that most of the guys I worked with said
> they liked having a UP caboose. They said the
> riding capabilities were better than the SP
> cabooses. Whether it was because of the type of
> trucks that a UP caboose had or because it was
> heavier than an SP caboose (which is what most SP
> guys thought) is up for debate. I just know that
> the guys liked them better.
>
>
> steamjocky


The UP cabs were heavier as they had concrete floors. They also had special trucks which rode much better than the SP cabs with freight car trucks. We didn't get very many pool cabs here in California (other than SP) due to the state regulations on self contained toilets. There were even a lot of low numbered UP cabs that were not permitted in Ca. due to the toilets dumping onto the tracks. If they made it into Ca., they couldn't be used as a "working" caboose.-BMT

I know this thread is 13 years old but since it's featured on TO today I will add:

1. I saw several N&W run through freights in Enola in the mid-80's with both N&W power and N&W cabooses.
2. Western Pacific's Sealand-6 train wreck in Hayward, CA on 4/9/80 had a run-through D&H wide vision caboose on the end.  One of the contributing factors to the wreck may have been the lack of a WP radio in the caboose at the train was being pushed at high speeds through undulating grades. The pushers popped the caboose up in the air and off the track at one sag near a road underpass and the caboose rolled down the embankment and came to rest in the middle of a street.  Sadly the pushers derailed off the bridge and landed on top of the caboose resulting in crew deaths.