Model Railroading > Good Bye you guys

Many of us remember the late 1980s after FREDs had replaced them we would see cabooses being moved to their place of sale and scrapping.
Here it is happening on my SWP. Adios mi amigos!
(Actually I am back-dating  my layout.  All of these have many miles to go; I will be selling off my FRED equipped cars soon.  Next up, strings of ATSF and SP "retired" cabooses will be coming.)

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About time you've come to your senses.

In the mid-1980s I attended an SP staff meeting in Oakland (CA) hosted by Western Div Supt L P Marsh. I can still remember his exact words on a new subject: "Cabooses - Learn to hate 'em!". While I learned why they were doomed to extinction, to this day I still miss them. Every model RR needs them! 

Yep, I am a caboose fan. My cutoff used to be 1994 but I came to my senses and backdated.

Posted from Android

Well, the Yard Forman still had the good sense to put a "low car" ahead of the caboose{s}

-LD

{Extra credit to the responder who first explains that!)

LarryDoyle Wrote:
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> Well, the Yard Forman still had the good sense to
> put a "low car" ahead of the caboose{s}
>
> -LD
>
> {Extra credit to the responder who first explains
> that!)

Thst means something other than a hicube boxcar, autorack, etc.  That was done so the view ahead from the cupola wasn't blocked. 

railstiesballast Wrote:
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> Many of us remember the late 1980s after FREDs had
> replaced them we would see cabooses being moved to
> their place of sale and scrapping.

During the transition, there were lots of stories of FREDs (F doesn't stand for flashing - never did) finding their final resting place in the Columbia River.

TAW

Nice "lash up" RTB!  

The railroad was never the same without 'em...

Kirk Out

I opened this thread fretting you were saying goodbye to TO, but was pleased to find it to be a nice caboose thread.

Great photo and models.

Rich

Ya scared me for a minute but now my heart is back to beating right.
To me, cabooses gave character to a train and its owner.  I have 15 of them, in 4 body styles of the T&P and a couple of Rio Grande.  No train leaves the yard without one..

The title seemed ominous to me too.  yikes

Well, maybe I was a little too creative with that headline.

Glad you're keeping caboose operations.  Me too.  I'm modeling the 1980's due to that being the peak era of my railfanning.  To me a train looks wrong without cabooses.  Plus I hate to admit it but my caboose to general freight car ratio is way off.  I can't help buying cabooses so I would guess about 15% of my whole model train collection is different cabooses.  I'm even a part owner of a real caboose.  So keep those cabooses rolling!

Off topic, but where did you get the bridge piers.  I've been looking for piers like that and haven't had any luck so far.