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Caboose by Brian Solomon & John Gruber w/ Dust Jacket.
Caboose by Biran Solomon & John Gruber
Hard cover with Dust Jacket.
Copyright 2001.
156 pages. Indexed.
Contents
Foreword and Introduction
1 /A Short History of the Caboose
2/Caboose Anatomy
3/Caboose Stories
4/A Day in the Life of a Caboose
5/Office and Home
6/Owning a Railroad Caboose
7/The Slow Demise of the Caboose
8/The Caboose Today
Index
Whether known as a caboose. a conductor's car, a van, a waycar or by more colorful names like 'hack" or 'crummy: the Mile car at the end of the long freight train Is one of the most popular and celebrated pieces of railroad equipment. Fist designed from spare boxcars as a conductor's office-on-wheels. the caboose quickly became a more specialized component of the train. In addition to cupola or bay windows that allowed the crew to monitor the train and tracks en route, the caboose was fitted with furniture, stoves. and other basics that made It a place for eating. steeping, and card playing during the long days and nights on the rods. Standard caboose designs emerged across the Industry, but most railroads built their own cars to their own specifications, and each conductor fitted it with his own personal amenities.
Caboose presents a thorough and engaging picture of this colorful bit of railroad history. Incorporating both historical records and firsthand accounts from longtime conductors. the book reveals the romantic-and not-so-romantic-side of life on the rails as told by the men who lived it. from the sometimes trying work of switching trains to the playful practical Jokes between trainmen. Author Brian Solomon tells of his own toiling experience riding in o caboose as a young boy, and railroader Forrest Van Schwartz shares his saga of purchasing a retired Canadian caboose. Vintage and modern photographs illustrate these compelling stories and provide a colorful display of the variety of caboose designs. Caboose is a picturesque and personal study of a true American Icon.
About the Authors
Brian Solomon is one of the most gifted talents in the railroad hobby today. He has authored many books an railroads, and his writings and photographs have been featured in the most popular railfan publications around the world, including Trains. Railway Age, Passenger Train Journal and RailNews.
John Gruber. president of the Center for Railroad Photography and Art, has been a freelance railroad photographer since 1960. He is managing editor of Railroad History and a contributing editor to Classic Trans. In 199d, Gruber received o railroad history award from The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society for lifetime achievement in photography.
Foreword
In mid-I984, a group of railfans gathered on a Saturday as they often did in Lowell, North Carolina, to watch trains pass on Southern Railway's Washington-Atlanta main line. They came to see the afternoon fleet of hotshots blast by. General merchandise freight No. 173 rolled by as always, but the next train, piggyback No. 219, held a surprise that day in what it wasn't pulling. The red Southern Railway caboose was gone. It never returned to train 219, and it quickly disappeared from other trains on the NS main and nationwide.
What these people witnessed was the beginning of the end for a rolling piece of the American landscape, the exclamation point at the end of the train, the-pardon the clich"little red caboose." Railroad executives doomed the caboose because it was a few less tons to drag around, a holdover from the days of large train crews and one more expensive piece of equipment for the railroad company to buy and maintain. But far from cold economic realities, the caboose was many things. A home away from home, a mobile office, a tower to view the train, and a shelter from the storm, the caboose was the workhorse railcar for conductors and brakemen on freights across the nation.
Always last in train consists, it held a high position in most minds because of its unique roles. Some crews, on overnight runs where accommodations were scarce, bunked in the caboose, the warmth of a coal stove there to cook a meal and heat the car. They hung laundry to dry in the car, pinned up pictures of family and sweethearts, and made themselves a home. A bowl of biscuits and gravy eaten in the caboose of a Nevada Northern train as it rolled through a frozen desert landscape of snow and sagebrush is a true culinary experience. The conductor performed his paperwork in the car, and he and the brakeman took to the cupola to watch the train ahead and look out for any trouble. Short of riding the cab of a steam locomotive, riding the caboose cupola is among the finest experiences in railroading. It is a poor man's dome car, a place high above the train with an unobstructed view as it twists and winds its way along. Railroaders gave the cabooses on their respective railroad various names: "crummy," "van," "cabin," and others. Over the years, red gave way to just about every hue in the rainbow, and cupolas gave way to bay windows and customized viewing ports.
Save for a few local freights here and there that require a platform for crews to ride during extended switching moves, all of that is history. Today, the caboose is a piece at the regional railroad museum, a display at a preserved depot or an oddity in service for passengers on a tourist railroad. Out on the main lines, the caboose has been replaced by a blinking electronic device attached to the coupler of the last car of the train. Conductors ride the engine. Nobody waves at the back of the train any more. But in our hearts, the caboose rolls on. A conductor or brakeman is braced in the cupola or on the rear platform, flashing a greeting to those of us waiting to go along for the ride.
Jim Wrinn is a staff writer for The Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer and the author or co-author of four books on railroading. including Steam's Camelot: The Southern and Norfolk Steam Excursion Rains.
Introduction
The caboose-an enduring symbol of traditional railroading-is as much a part of our railroad heritage as the steam locomotive, semaphore signal, and country railroad station. An endless list of common names, such as van, wagon, cabin, and waycar in addition to caboose (expletives deleted), suggests how diverse the slang and operating practices were among railroads tied together by a standard track gauge. A Wisconsin railroader, Delrosa Bruns, summarizes the role of the caboose. Since Delrosa and Bill, her husband, worked as agent-operators on the Milwaukee Road's Madison Division, she and their three daughters had easy access to the car. "You could ride up in the cupola, you could ride on the deck, you could ride with the window open," she said. "The caboose was just like a little home. It had a stove in there, there were sort of bunk-type seats you could lie down on if you wanted to. It was just a fun place to be."
"That's where a lot of the stories were told over the years. This one guy on the crew always wanted a Christmas tree from along the bank on the right-of-way. One day they were stopped at Stoughton, and he had gone to the office. So the two trainmen cut down a tree and dragged it in from the rear of the caboose. When the guy came to get on the caboose, he couldn't get in the door. He couldn't pull the tree out because the caboose was at the end of the train, and they pushed it with the butt end up against the boxcar that was ahead of it. So that was a lot of fun; at least he got his Christmas tree.
"Little pranks that the guys pulled on each other to break the monotony of the work. Whether it was hot, cold, icy, or snow-whatever-those train crews really slaved, but they were successful, and they were wonderful guys to work with."
Delrosa may have been more charitable than some-conductors, who were in charge of the train, also could be cranky and cantankerous. But that's the purpose of this text-to tell not only the history of the car hut as well its human side as an office and home away from home for the workers, and its safety functions. Two full chapters are devoted to the experiences of the railroaders, who on some days spent more time in the caboose than at home. For a car that draws so much attention, its origins in the 1840s and 1850s are surprisingly vague. The story begins in Chapter 1 and continues throughout the hook. Sometimes cabooses took on additional roles. For example, an enterprising photographer on the Union Pacific turned a caboose into a photo car in the 1870s. In the early years, conductors "owned" their cabooses (they were assigned to them by the railroad company). While the railroad maintained the exterior, crews generally could modify the interior to suit their individual tastes-as along as they kept the cars clean. Today, many cabooses are individually owned for museum or chamber-of-commerce displays or backyard ornaments. The role is different, but they still are attention-grabbers.
The transition from individually assigned cabooses to pooled cabooses extended from the 1940s to the 1960s, and as is often the case in railroading, brought labor/management confrontations. The agreement between the conductors and trainmen and the railroad companies, signed in 1947, provided that "where an individual carrier not how having the right to pool cabooses considers it advisable to establish such pooling, appropriate committee or committees of the Order of Railway Conductors and/or the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen representing the employees involved and proper representatives of the carrier will conduct negotiations relating thereto." The same words were in a 1951 agreement.
Although the wage rates got more publicity, the pooling practices remained a part of the bargaining. When the Chicago & North Western management cancelled a pooled caboose agreement dating from spring 1959, the Order of Railroad Conductors and Brakeman called a strike in July 1964 but had to pull back and agree to have the issue decided by the National Railroad Adjustment Board. The Clinchfield Railroad unions contested a mediation board award in the federal district court in Tennessee in 1967. But by then, the handwriting was on the wall, and in 1982 agreements were made to eliminate the cabooses. In some areas, local freight trains with complicated switching or back-up assignments are still assigned cabooses. An early rear-end device, which allows the train crew in the locomotive to monitor air-brake pressure at the end of the train, itself has become an artifact. The Train link, donated by Pulse Electronics to the Smithsonian Institution in 1985, is part of an exhibit at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Media across the country, from the Smithsonian magazine (February 1986) and U.S. News & World Report (September 30, 1985) to local newspapers lamented the passing of the caboose, then started to chronicle the sales and moves away from the mainline track to display areas or to locations on shortlines. There's an amazing array of caboose history and lore stretched throughout this book. We hope you will enjoy the text and photos as much as generations of Americans enjoyed watching the caboose roll by at the end of the train.
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