I did some hunting on the net and on this forum, but nothing I could find really seemed to match up with the question I was trying to answer. So, I’ll ask it here in the hopes that some kind soul can point me in the correct direction.
I am working on a design for a model railroad, set in Western Virginia (as opposed to West Virginia) in the early 1960’s. What I am looking for is a guide on how and when cabooses were used during that time period. When were they required, etc etc. Also, if they needed to be turned after runs, and when (or if) they were used on the back of passenger trains.
The only time you’d see a passenger train with a caboose would generally be a mixed train (both freight and passenger cars on the same train). Since passenger cars required steam heat from the engine (whether steam or diesel) they would usually be put behind the engine, then the freight cars, then the caboose. However if the passenger car was an older one with it’s own stove for heating, it could be put at the end of the train, often instead of having a caboose.
For generations the rear-end crew (conductor and brakeman) lived on the caboose when away from their home terminal, and had their own assigned caboose that they would adorn with new interior paint, curtains, etc. As noted, by the sixties that became less common as cabooses were “pooled” and you just got whatever caboose was assigned to that train, and the crew slept in a hotel or Y etc. like the engineer and fireman did.
Most state laws required a ‘caboose’ on any road train. Even passenger trains with mail cars on the back might require a caboose or coach if there was no ‘rider’ compartment in the rear express car.
By the 90’s most of the laws had changed and the FRED-EOT became the norm. I remember watching the Rock Island ‘Plainsman’ with a couple of cement hoppers and a caboose on the rear end in 1968. A couple of ‘hot’ cars of cement were attached at Mason City for Interstate constuction in the Twin Cities!
I’ve been told by a fanatic of details that cabeece, especialy ones with the couploa at one end, were turned when the opportunity to answer to a railroad’s preference to how it ran.
Cabooses were bi-directional. Visibility is the same frontwards as backwards. There are seats or benches facing frontwards or backwards. In my experience we never turned cabooses, even the ones with the cupola on one end.
That pretty much confirms what my research has found. I always used to wonder about that. But I was more wondering about chimney to cupola orientation.
But I think I remember hearing the theory Flash proposed somewhere. My research doesn’t back that up, however.
I duno, he was the expert. I thought it was odd too. It sounded to me as to whether or not you had to look over the entire caboose, or just the back deck. NAd he knows the rest of his stuff. I guess it wouuld follow the same rule as long or short hood forward, you ran the way the engine was facing.
Some of that makes sense, Flash. But from the pics I’ve found of cabooses actually in a train I can only find about a 50/50 ratio of cupola/stack facing forward/backward.
It may have been a safety thing also, for fear of rear end collisions.
If someone can shed more insight on this, I for one would like to know for sure.
Well I’m not sure how the stack enters into it, unless someone is thinking that they’d want the stack to the rear so the smoke wasn’t getting in the way of the view from the cupola?? Problem with that is that most cabooses that had an offset cupola (i.e. the cupola wasn’t dead in the middle of the car) were designated to have the end with the cupola as the rear, with the stack towards the front. So obviously it wasn’t really an issue, or they would have designated the short end as the front and required the cars be turned so the stack was always in the back.
Anyway, in real practice the caboose was put on the rear of the train facing whatever diretion it was facing. I’m sure you might have found some old conductor somewhere who had enough clout to get his caboose turned one way or the other at some time, but it wouldn’t be normal practice.
(BTW yes I know cars don’t have ‘fronts’ and ‘backs’ they have ‘right’ and ‘left’ sides.[:)])