{"product_id":"caboose-country-kalmbach-memorial-library-soft-cover","title":"Caboose Country! Kalmbach Memorial Library     Soft Cover","description":"\u003cbody\u003e\n\u003c!-- HTML Generated by Auction Wizard 2000 - http:\/\/www.AuctionWizard2000.com\/ --\u003e\n\n\n   \u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e\n   \u003cmeta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0\"\u003e\n\n\n\u003c!-- AW2KLOT#:198867 --\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:98%;padding:2px;margin:auto;border:5px outset #673434;background-color:#FDF3D0\"\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd style=\"border:1px inset #673434;margin:5px;\"\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"width:100%;border:0px;padding:5px;\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd style=\"padding:5px\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\n\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial Black;font-size:1.5em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration: underline;\"\u003eRailroadTreasures\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial Black;font-size:1.5em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration: underline;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial Black;font-size:1.5em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration: underline;\"\u003eoffers the following item:\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003c\/td\u003e\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd style=\";padding:5px\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.13em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eCaboose Country! Kalmbach Memorial Library     Soft Cover\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.13em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eCaboose Country! Kalmbach Memorial Library \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eSoft Cover\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003e1995 FIRST Edition  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003e24 pages\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eIf something's importance can be measured by how many different names it has, then the caboose must be a very important thing indeed. Just as Eskimos have a hundred words for snow, the Arabs many words for sand, and the Irish a dozen words for peat, so railroaders have over eighty different names for the caboose. Excepting locomotives, there are more names for it than any other single element in railroading. Crummy, hack, van, cabin car, bone-shaker, brain cage. hearse, zoo, even library, are among the caboose's eighty different names-official, affectionate, or otherwise.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eWhile the caboose is no longer as important for railroad operations as it once was, it still evokes more fascination, for more people. than any other railroad car. According to John White, Jr., this is because it's \"the most alive and friendly of all railroad freight cars.\" Alive. because the caboose is a focus of human activity, the trainmen's home away from home. Friendly, because traincrews have the unspoken responsibility of waving back to all those trackside who wave at them.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eBut the caboose is popular not just because it's a focus of human activity and gypsy comfort. For many of us it was once a dependable part of the North American landscape, a rolling symbol of reliability and reassurance. North America was caboose country. Nowhere else on the globe did the caboose come to symbolize railroading like it did in North America. Nowhere else could it be so depended on to appear at the end of a freight train. Such a permanent fixture in our mind's eye are they that poets and railroad experts alike often describe the caboose as being \"like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence.\" Songwriters too, voiced the sense of security and comfort afforded by the caboose in dozens of popular folksongs like the \"Little Red Caboose Behind the Train:\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eToday no angels watch over the caboose. Sheer economics, technology, and the realization that cabooses are a safety liability are taking away the delight of seeing cabooses at the end of freight trains. A glance around the contemporary railroad yard suffices to reveal that the caboose is \"not just an endangered species?' as one railroad labor union official we spoke to put it, \"it is all but extinct:'\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eThis selection of caboose photos, many from the collection of the National Model Railroad Association's Kalmbach Memorial Library, as well as several NMRA members' private collections, is our tribute to a fascinating species of rolling stock now entering twilight. While still used here and there in transfer movements, work extras, and other special applications, such as on branch lines where signaling is inadequate, the caboose will become increasingly rare as labor agreements expire and efficiencies are looked for in train operations everywhere.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eCaboose Country! includes portraits of the caboose-in a variety as wide and colorful as the North American landscape itself-from early \"bobber\" types up to current \"state of the art\" cabooses. To many of us a single image of the caboose comes to mind: it's red (like some other enduring North American icons: firetrucks and schoolhouses), with platforms at either end, a cupola, and a smokestack protruding from the roof. But model railroaders and railfans know that the caboose came in an amazing variety of colors, forms and sizes. It was, as Lucius Beebe dubbed it, \"the Bohemian of railroad rolling stock:' Much of the caboose's rich diversity seen in this book can be explained by the different functions assigned to it. Corporate pride and individuality explain some of the other variations you'll see here. Still others are explained by some of the same laws of economics that are now causing its demise. Last, but not least, because the greater distances trains traversed in North America helped bring about the necessity for the caboose in the first place, it should not be a surprise that some of the caboose's seemingly infinite variations relate to the countryside itself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Calibri;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eIf this book helps you choose a variety of caboose to model or helps recall one summer evening long ago when you waved at the caboose and the conductor or brakeman inside waved back-and you felt knighted. akin somehow to the inhabitants of that trusty caboose whose duty it was to watch and protect that long train rolling into the horizon, then it will have served its purpose. As long as remembrances like those live, the caboose cannot truly be said to have vanished and trains without them will always seem to be lacking something. Like a sentence without a punctuation mark at the end.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eAll pictures are of the actual item.  There may be reflection from the lights in some photos.   We try to take photos of any damage.    If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the railroad.  Please email with questions. Publishers of Train Shed Cyclopedias and Stephans Railroad Directories. Large inventory of railroad books and magazines. Thank you for buying from us.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.13em;color:#CE0000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eShipping charges\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eUS Shipments:  When you add multiple items to your cart, the reduced shipping charges will automatically be calculated.   For direct postage rates to other countries, send me an email.   Shipping varies by weight.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.13em;color:#CE0000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eTerms and conditions \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.0em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eAll sales are final. Returns accepted if item is not as described.  Contact us before making a return.  No warranty is stated or implied. Please e-mail us with any questions before bidding or buying.   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family:Arial;font-size:1.5em;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;\"\u003eThanks for looking at our items.   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:left\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003c\/td\u003e\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd style=\";padding:5px\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align:center;width:99.9%;margin:auto\"\u003e\n\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003c\/body\u003e","brand":"RailroadTreasures","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45617327964356,"sku":"336206308094","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2232\/7333\/files\/57_00b137a4-a31e-4fc1-bcb5-9bce472b13e4.jpg?v=1766358923","url":"https:\/\/railroadtreasures.com\/products\/caboose-country-kalmbach-memorial-library-soft-cover","provider":"RailroadTreasures","version":"1.0","type":"link"}