In the days of steam and cabooses, long long ago, what were the rules for caboose use and installing and removing marker lamps on cabooses e.g. when required, who did it, who serviced them etc.
My understanding is that a caboose was required for a train to be official outside yard limits and had to have marker lamps installed but removed when parked e.g. caboose yard.
Isambard
Legally railroads weren’t required (at least not in all states) to have a caboose at the end of the train, but they were required to have red marker lights or a red flag on the last car to indicate the end of the train. In steam days the markers were kerosene lamps that were put in place by the rear end crew (conductor and brakeman) who rode the caboose. They generally maintained / refilled the lamps themselves, drawing oil and other supplies (like fusees, torpedos etc.) from the company storehouse as needed. In those days cabooses were generally assigned to one conductor so he and his crew generally were responsible for keeping everything up to snuff (short of problems needing shop repair work).
don’t forget that markers were turned to show yellow or green (depending on the railroad) to the rear when the train was in the clear on a siding adjacent to the main line and then turned back to show red when the train was going to pull out or foul the main.
grizlump
Yard limits also have nothing to do with it. A train is an engine or engines coupled, with or without cars, displaying markers. So regardless if it was in yard limits or outside yard limits, on the main track or in siding or in a yard, if it was train it had to have an engine and a marker (as others have pointed out, a marker, not a caboose). All yard limits do is allow trains or engines to occupy the main track without other authority. So a switch engine sitting in a yard track with a red flag stuck in the knuckle of the rear car is techincally a train. Granted its not going to go very far unless it has some form of authority, but it has met the minimum requirements of a train.
Modern rules may add that the train has to have authority on the main track but that wasn’t typically added until after the late 1980’s, after cabooses were pretty much gone.
I have argued (unsuccessfully, I might add) that under the modern rules, it is impossible for one train to meet another at a siding, because once one train pulls into the siding in TWC or CTC it typically has no more authority on the main track and thus fails to be meet the definition of a train. So therefore every "meet’ is between a train and a cut of cars. 
From a couple of Eastern roads:
One of the first things to do after boarding a caboose was to check the flagging equipment and the markers. The markers could be put up/turned on after the brake test, just before the train started to move, but some crews like to do it sooner so as not to forget. Upon arrival at the final terminal the markers would usually be turned off/ taken down when the caboose entered the receiving yard. Usually the rear brakeman (flagman) would take care of the markers and also check out on the road from time to time to make sure they were still working. It was usually up to the train crew to fill and adjust the oil lamps and put fresh batteries in the electric markers.
Markers were displayed on the last car of the train. Two red flags or two unlit portable lamps by day. Two lighted red lamps by night. If the last car was not equipped for markers a red flag could be used by day and a single portable red lamp at night. One marker meant the same as two, but “the proper display of all signals was required”
If the last car was equipped with built-in electric markers they were to be turned on by day and night.
The oil markers, if adjusted right, were just as visible as electric ones at night.
Markers wasn’t a night time thing…A caboose would display markers during the day as well.
Maintaining markers fell to the caboose servicing crew…The conductor would check and hang 'em while the rear brakeman did a roll by inspection of the train as it was leaving the yard.
In the flagman era the flagman’s job was to clean and service the markers…After the elimination of that job the servicing fell to the caboose servicing crew.
As far as the last car in a cut while moving on the main a red flag by day and a red lantern by night was to be displayed on the coupler.
Electric markers required a flip of a switch-some times the markers wasn’t turned off from the previous run and the caboose may be displaying 4 markers before anybody notice both sets of markers was on!!!
Just to muddy the waters a little bit, it was entirely possible for a moving train to display a yellow or green marker on one side, with red on the other. That was done on multiple track, where a slow-moving freight on one track might be overtaken by a faster train on a different track, and indicated to the engineer of the faster train that it was safe to pass.
For more than you ever wanted to know about marker lights in the TTTO era, find a copy of Peter Josserand’s Rights of Trains. It’s heavy reading, but very informative.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
After CTC replaced TT/TO main line operation the train being overtaken could display red to the rear since the train passing the slower one was on a different track…
Even at that its was still a tad unnerving to see a fast approaching headlight from the rear since the approaching train seem to be on the same track at a distance…I never could get use to it like the older guys.
Would pushers and helper locos that have been cut off have to display markers as well? Would a single locomotive be required to display markers front and back? White flags on the front used to signify an extra train. Would the first section also display white flags to the rear telling people it is the first section?
Thanks
Pete
Definition, from Rights of Trains:
Train - A locomotive or locomotives, with or without cars, displaying markers.
Markers have to be displayed at the rear of a train, even if that’s the smokebox of a pusher running in reverse.
The lights on the front of a locomotive are classification lights. The rules for their color (and the color of flags to be displayed by day) are:
Regularly scheduled train running on timetable authority - no lights or flags.
First and all but last section of a timetable train run in sections - green lights, green flags. The last section does not display flags or lights - when it passes a control point the operator is free to log that timetable movement as complete.
Extra trains, not on the timetable - white flags, white lights.
Slightly OT, but pertinent. During WWII, the N&W scheduled freights on the Shenandoah Valley line frequently ran in ten sections.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Once the crew was on the train the Markers would be out!!! Kevin
Absolutely not, essentially exactly the opposite. A train authorized on the main with a crew on it would most definitely display markers, but even then the presence or absence of a crew has nothing to do with markers. If its a train, it displays markers whether or not the crew is on it.
To get real technical, it wasn’t done on “multiple” track, it was done on double track or current of traffic, rule 251, main tracks (multiple track implies rule 261 or CTC).
Since it was only for current of traffic, rule 251 operation, Brakie’s comments about it not being used in CTC was because CTC is not current of traffic. The trains that displayed the variants of markers were those that were either clear of the main track or running against the current of traffic. Since there is no current of traffic in CTC there was no requirement to display the marker variants.