putting on the caboose

Classic Trains General Discussion
1

I have a HO layout and the main yard will fit 50 or so cars comftorabley still with room to work. I usually run 30 or so cars on a train, with some trains departing eastbound and some westbound. My question is who is likely to put the caboose on the train? The road locomotives or the yard switcher? I model the NYC in Dayton Ohio in the mid 60s, so I do not believe that conductors were assigned a cabosse at that point in history. I do have caboose tracks at each end of the yard, with the engine facility and roundhouse at one end of the yard. Thank you in advance for your insites as to how things were really done. My Grandfather worked at Air Line Yard in Toledo and I still have the key to his caboose, as well as his switch keys. I also have my Fathers (they were both conductors) who worked at Walbridge on the C&O, but he was never assigned a caboose.

Paul

2

From where I come from, yard crews would put the cab on, even if it was a time when conductors had assigned cabs. Of course, at outlying points, the crew would cab its own train.

3

Different locations had different procedures. Some places a yard crew would place the Cab on trains and Hostlers would place the Power on trains. When road crew arrived, they would get on the train, knock the brakes off and depart.

Other places one or the other of those actions may take place - but not both.

In still other places the power, cab and crew originate from another location and move several miles to the yard where the train is to originate. The crew will then place the cab on their train, or maybe a yard crew will take the cab from the road crew and place it on the train while the road crew is attaching the power. If the train had been tested on yard air, the crew would perform a set and release and be on their way. If the train wasn’t on yard air, then the train would have to have it’s air line charged to the proper air pressure for the train and then a Class A Brake test performed with both the application and release observed from both sides of the train.

YMMV

4

On the Cotton Belt and Santa Fe in Texas the yard crews caboosed the trains. This included the L&A (KCS) and Frisco on the ATSF in E. Dallas Yard. Road crews couldn’t perform yard work within Yard Limits. This even included making a pick-up of freight. A yard engine coupled onto the road power and performed the duty. Unions were still strong in Texas in the 1970s.

5

Posts up to TRRBBoomer’s 453 AM Mar 1st, are from my experience inclusive, though I guess a goat could pull the caboose track and hump cabooses into a bowl to joints with the rear car of an outbound train’s rear cut of cars.

Local frts originating or terminating where there wasn’t a (switchman’s union) yard engine, took TLC of their treasured caboose. A local frt crew might take a through train to an outlying yard for classifying and grab a train going through their home terminal, with a caboose from a previously classified train made up at that outlying yard.

Many cabooses at West Oakland were “through” as were a bunch of trains…like at San Jose, Watsonville Jct, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barb…

In Houston, by 1978, 1979, pool frt engine and train crews running to (Looz e anna) grabbed a caboose and took it from the cab track at the Hardy St Shop to Englewood Yard, where after being amputated by switchmen was tacked on the out-bound, your train, by (switch, yard engine) a goat.

But, emphasizing, most cabooses, ran thru and were supplied when the Yard(monster)master asked the conductor of an inbound train “is your cab’ OK to go thru?; What does it need?”

6

On the PC when I first hired out, we had “Pool” cabooses…that is none assigned to any one crew. Cabs were put on out bound trains in the make up yard (Selkirk, NY) by the yard switchers, at crew change points (say Syracuse, NY), the rear end crew hopped off at the station platform and the out bound crew got on “the fly” and headed out of town. The “Pool” caboose agreement between the NYC and the BRT/ORC in the late '60’s, put an end to assigned cabs. And this carried over to the PRR/NYC merger. Now on various locals I worked…the transfer cabooses were assigned to a local crew, and they took pride in keeping them clean. The “pool” caboose agreement in my PC/CR days stated we didn’t have to leave a terminal if the cab lacked: tea kettle (never used one), 2 large mattresses (not made of feathers either!), 2 knuckles, 5 sticks of grease for journal boxes, 10 fusses (5 and 10 minute durations), cable, sledge hammer, ice box, working stove, and a few other items I can’t recall right now…oh, working lights and markers. I hope this helps some.

7

Since we’re on the subject of cabooses, (and does anyone besides me think a freight train looks a little strange without one?), let me suggest a marvelous book on the subject.

It’s called “The Railroad Caboose” and was written by William Knapke in 1962. It’s a history of the caboose and full of caboose lore, caboose “war stories”, even a chapter on caboose cookery.

The really remarkable thing is Bill Knapke started railroading in the 1880’s, and was 97 years old when he wrote the book! It’s as close as you’ll ever get to having a BS session with a turn of the 20th Century old-time railroad man. The book’s been through several printings so keep your eyes out for it at train shows and if you see it, grab it! You won’t be sorry!

8

Absolutely, Firelock, and my N-scale freights will never run without one.

At the same time, I think most of us can agree that train crews are better off without them. They were OK with shorter consists and slower speeds, but the slack action on modern freights could be killers.

Way back in the 1960s, I watched a freight that was merely leaving the yards stop in its tracks for some reason, with a great “boom,” and everybody said, “Uh, oh.” Turns out a brakeman was thrown from one end of the caboose to the other and crippled for life.

However, the cost of elimination of the caboose – in color, human interest and employment – is also undeniable.

9

A little strange without one?

firelock76

I do!.

But then, I was there at crew change points, When cab’s were changed,;seeing cab’s go through, crew 'dropping off and crews boarding as the train departed: a little strange?

And then there were no cupola cab’s on trains goin’ thru SLO,) (that’s San Luis Obispo) a little strange?

And then the Local Frts lost their cab’s (many demoted survivors of the cupola cab’s) with replacements being air gages on metal boxes boxes adorned with red reflective tape (air tests and a train will display markers,) a little strange?

And, added to those boxes were battery powered blinking red lights and radios transmitting brake-pipe pressure to a radio-display on the controlling locomotive; a little strange?

Along with a distance counter counter in feet display; a little strange?

Flip a toggle switch to initiate an emergency (air brake) application from the device applied to the rear coupler: a little strange?

And the detectors, talkin’ to you, ( No Defects, No defects), hot boxes, dragging eguipment, flat wheels, high-wide on the road-radio channel: a little strange?

And some, few, conductor’s’ riding with you on the fireman’s,chair, didn’t know the rules applicitabillity? a little strange?,

Brake- pipe-air-powered generators charging the rear end devices’ battey’s? a little strange? ?

I worked with Caboose-aboard conductors that, I wanted to, Others i wished would have layed off sick on the call.l

Strange things (are happening) and have happened and

“B T, D.T”

10

Besides, how are you going to know the train’s over with no caboose on the end? :slight_smile:

Yeah, I can just imagine what the slack action would do to a caboose crew on the end of a two-mile train, doesn’t bear thinking about.

The Bill Knapke book I mentioned has some hilarious slack run-in stories, and mind you these were the relatively short freights of 100 years ago.

Oh DakotaFred, my O gauge freights never run without a caboose either!

11

I have to relate a story my Mom told on herself. When she was about 9 or 10 years old, she and her Mother were taking a trip to Kansas. Her brother and Dad were taking their car by way of the mud roads (she said that from the train they saw them pulling the car out of some mud ruts once and another time saw them waiting at a grade crossing as the train passed).

They were riding in a caboose (RR’s back then [1919 -1920] would carry passengers in a freight train caboose!) and when they got on, she (my Mom) was “up swatting flies” while her Mother was sitting on a bench along the side of the caboose.

She said a man got on and he was wearing some sort of uniform (I am assuming he was the Conductor) and he said, “Little girl, you had better sit down.”

Mom said she thought, “Who is that man that he can tell me what to do?” so she ignored him and continued swatting at flies.

“Then there was a big ‘ker-bang’ and I was sitting on my bottom in the middle of the floor and my bottom really hurt! So I got up and sat next to Mother and refused to look at that man chuckling at me.”

12

I used to watch the Pennsy at Enola and they didn’t have any locomotive attach the caboose to the train. When a train arrived a switcher would remove the caboose and shove it up a ramp with other cabooses. When a train was to leave the front end crew would pull the train out on the main while the rear end crew would board the bottom caboose on the ramp, release the brake, and coast the caboose to the end of the train. Connect the air hose, perform the brake test and go!