The other night I was watching an old western movie (Suppurt Your Local Gunfighter) and at the start of the movie there is a steam powered train pulling four passenger cars but no caboose. Did the passenger trains not use a caboose? I always like look at the trains in the old movies.
I thought this was odd because I thought all trains before about 1980 had a caboose, is that just for the freight trains? Thanks, Mike
Passenger trains did not use cabooses.
I’d say “never,” but then someone would find examples and show me I was wrong.
Cabeese were rolling offices for conductors and crewmen, and those folks have (nicer) accomodations aboard passenger trains, so they caboose wasn’t required.
Don’t forget thr “drovers” They were half passenger and half caboose.
Drovers were most often found on freight trains, to give the guys driving the cattle (in the stock cars) some place to ride. Drovers’ cabeese were rarely, if ever, found on passenger trains.
The last car on a passenger train was usually an observation car, complete with an outdoor balcony style platform on many.
Check your prototype; the ACL, for example, didn’t have close to enough Observation cars to outfit all its trains and many didn’t carry one. As passenger service began to wane, railroads frequently didn’t want to see with a car that could only be used in one spot in the train (the end) and rebuilt a lot of them without the rounded ends.
I admit that my knowledge is limited to the trains I actually saw and rode, The Erie Lackawanna and The Delaware and Hudson, but I have ridden in the observation cars, and they were on all the trains that I saw in my hometown. The Phoebe Snow still had an observation car until her last run in November of 1966.
I, of course, cannot speak for the rest of the country.
Amtrak, on the other hand, doesn’t even know what an observation car is…
I believe I’ve seen pictures of a mixed trains both with and without a caboose. A caboose on a straight passenger train would be almost unheard of. I’m sure there is an exception to this, but I’ve never seen it.
Midnight Railroader
I won’t say you’re wrong but I do have an example of a waycar (caboose) on a passenger train, sort of. The CB&Q ran train #14, called the Express 14, that was technically a passenger train but hauled no passengers. Mainly it was for mail and express along with meat reefers and piggybacks with refrigerated trailers. It would be pulled by the passenger E units and have a waycar at the end.
Rick Keil
Fast forward to the present:
I have seen crummies run at the rear of passenger consists on a number of tourist operations, either on disconnected track or as weekend-only runs on short lines that make their freight-hauling money on weekdays. When they were run, the cupola seats seemed to be the most popular!
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
OK OK … I am familiar with ONE passenger train that runs a caboose.
It’s the Caboose Train at the North Carolina Transportation Museum.
When I was stationed in the Air Force at Amarillo, Texas during the 1960’s, there was one Santa Fe branch local that came down from Kansas (I believe) that would usually have a baggage car and coach mixed in with freight. And yes, right behind the coach there was a caboose. I always thought it looked rather clever and quaint. Someone told me that it was a fairly regular occurance on Midwestern branch-line trains.
Tom
The old Auto Train ran cabooses.
A number of midwestern roads (I am thinking of examples from the CB&Q) had cars that were essentially combines with a coupola over the baggage section.
But cabboses were rarely used on passenger trains, although I seem to remember seeing a few pictures of passenger trains with cabooses. Hollywood has also depicted passenger trains with cabooses.
The Kamloops Heritage Railway runs an old BCR caboose on the tail of their train. I don’t recall the price (not cheap), but you can book the caboose as a private car on their day excursion. As can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crHzTTnfE7w
The Kettle Valley Steam Railway, we have a CPR caboose that makes it on to the train for the off season runs when most of the open air cars are out of the consist. During the normal season the caboose sits on a siding and serves as accommodation for out of town folks who work on the train.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DisUmRY3-PA
Generally, I have usually seen passenger trains WITHOUT cabooses, and freight trains of the steam and transition era, up to about 1980, WITH cabooses.
General rule. But I have seen and ridden on trains that were exceptions.
In 1974, I rode all-Pullman all-first-class Regiomontana on the NdeM between Mexico and Monterrey. It left Mexico City with a round-end observation on the end, but later in the trip, a freight-type caboose was added, presumably as crew quarters.
For about 3 or 4 years in the late 1980s, Texas Mexican operated a mostly-tourist-oriented but still genuine intercity train on a 288 mile round trip between Corpus Christi and Laredo. Yes, Amtrak took over nearly all private railroad intercity passenger operations in 1971 but Tex Mex had ended its passenger operations some 25 years previously, and started them up again on its own initiative. The operation started with 3 heavyweight coaches (apparently ex-PRR), a streamlined coach and streamlined dormitory-lounge, but the dormitory space had been converted to catering space for food service. Some time after the service began, the TexMex added a former freight caboose on the end to use for baggage.
I rode Moscow Camden and San Augustine steam-powered mixed train in 1964. The common carrier took its parent-companies lumber from Camden Texas 7 miles to the SP interchange at Moscow. When any passengers showed up and bought a 50 cent ticket at the W.T. Carter & Brother Lumber Company company store, an 1888 wooden combine was added in place of a caboose. The combine had a section for baggage and the conductor’s desk, and a passenger section divided with markings for White and Colored, but segregation was not enforced.
There is an entire book, Coach, Cabbage and Caboose on Santa Fe mixed trains. My wife used to ride in a Santa Fe caboose when she was a girl to get between her home in Hillsboro Kansas and McPherson Kansas, where she and h
The Rock Island ran some of their late-era passenger trains with cabooses on the tail end. In order to suppliment the passenger revenue, they would attach pig flats to the rear of the coaches - likely trailers full of parcels and storage mail. A classic RI bay window waycar brought up the end of the train for the rear brakeman/flagman.
Phillip Hastings’ Remember the Rock and and old Prototype Modeler magazine article, Rickety Rockets, have photos of these passenger runs with cabooses.
Dan M.
The Canadian National ran mixed trains with coaches or combines used in place of a caboose. I use a similar set-up for mixed trains on my free-lanced layout. There’s a section at the rear for the conductor and his desk.
Wayne
Gee whiz Wayne, that scene looks absolutely real except for that ugly switch machine. What’s up with that?
Thanks, Bruce (I think). [%-)] [:)] Here’s a different view, although the ugly edge of the layout is visible. [swg]
The only other picture I can find of that combine without a ground throw in view is this one:
As you can see, the car’s not really in view, either. [sigh] [swg]
Wayne