I saw an ad the other night for a “Drover’s Caboose” from Roundhouse. I am unfamilar with these rascals, but it appears from the picture that besides serving as a caboose, this car also might have carried some frieght and passengers. Is this assumption correct. Thanks
Tom
Here’s a definition from Wikipedia. May not be the last word but it pretty well says what I’ve heard before:
Drover’s cabooses looked more like combine cars than standard cabooses. The purpose of a drover’s caboose was much more like a combine as well. On longer livestock trains in the American southwest, the drover’s caboose is where the livestock’s handlers would ride between the ranch and processing plant. The train crew rode in the caboose section while the livestock handlers rode in the coach section. Drover’s cabooses used either cupolas or bay windows in the caboose section for the train crew to monitor the train.
Regards
Ed
The term drover eventually became Cowboy. Next time one watches a western think about this originally they walked behind the cattle and drove them thus the term Drover , and used a stick to poke the cattle thus the term cowpoke came into being.
The drovers caboose was often times as described in the previous post and a surprsing number were even equipped with open sections for sleeping. The drovers had the reponsibility to load the cattle in the early cattle cars and were responsible for feeding and watering the cattle enroute. They were often seen walking the tops of the cars checking on their charges enroute to slaughter. The more cattle that arrived alive the more money they received so it was in their best interest to walk the roofs of the cars and check the cattle frequently. In most cases they had to return to the boarding station before they received their pay for the trip. Thus it became the problem of towns all over the west to deal with the cowboys one example was Abilene where it was easy to tell when the drovers were in town as the jail was filled to overflowing. Soon as they were broke they went after another load of cattle and the cycle of the drover began all over again.
Thanks guys. I didn’t make the connection with the term “Drovers.” Need to watch more westerns I suppose. I’m thinking they, along with one matching passsenger car, would make a nice excursion train to model on a layout.
Hollywood seems to have overlooked this part of history in its portrail of the “cowboy”. I would guess that you don’t have need of an explaination of the “chuck wagon”. Railroads played a huge role in the cattle, pig and, sheep industry between farm/ranch and slaughter house. There is probably several books of information to be written in terms of the importance of this part of the transportation cycle.
Will