A few miles west of Oxford, Ohio near Liberty Indiana there is an interchange where the E-W running CSX track crosses a N-S running track. On a siding there I occasionally see a train sitting over the weekend and an old rusted caboose sits nearby. I thought the caboose was abandoned when I first saw it, from the road it appears to be overgrown with weeds and brush. Today at work I saw it being pulled by a lone CSX locomotive towards Cincinnati and I thought it was headed to the scrap yards. About an hour later the same caboose and locomotive was headed back the other way, the caboose being pushed this time.
Is this caboose being used as a layover stop for train crews? Was what I saw just a grocery run by a train crew on a weekend layover?
Great post, thanks. I have no answers for you, but to me the caboose is an important part of railroading, and I refuse to model the modern era because they did away with them.
I think your guess about the caboose being used to house layover crews might be close to the truth. The movement of it was probably to empty the toilet holding tank and fill the water reservoirs, as well as stocking up on food and cooking fuel.
The plural of caboose is cabeese, just like goose and geese or moose and meese.
[:D]
Try this: the plural of caboose is crummies! or way cars!-CBQ terms.
I just use cabooses, but I do agree with the previous poster-no modern
era because of no cabooses-there are other reasons, too, like STEAM![:D]
Contrary to what some believe, cabooses are still used today. Locals that do a lot of switching in populated, and industrial areas use them because they have whistles on them for signaling at grade crossings when the locomotive is pushing a string of cars ahead of it. Some use a regular caboose, some use a “transfer” type caboose. Now if the plural for caboose is cabeese, then if there were a bunch of cabeese you would have a gagle of cabeeses!!![(-D][(-D]
A more important reason might be that way cars usually have “conductor’s valves” allowing the air brakes to be applied from the rear if something happens.
The Old Dog once seen a NH-PBS show. It seems that a group of people had rented siding space from one of the local short line railroads where they stored their privately owned way cars. On occasion, say a warm Sunday afternoon, they would call the railroad and request a engine and crew. The cars would then be gethered into a train, and hauled up and down the short line.
Can you picture a train made up of all way cars, with the cars being originally from several different railroads?