http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=3482
Let’s see if anyone could beat this one? [%-)]
This one is a close tie [:)] . :
Link activated.
I have a pic of one at the house. I’ll have to dig that up, but it’s close!
This is my entry
I guess no one ever saw a PRR caboose made from an X23 outside braced box car. Ugliest thing to ever roam the rails.
Rock Island made some cabooses out of outside braced box cars and they looked quite good.
There’s one on Pg.50 of Mike Schafer’s book “Caboose.” I used to see them in Maryland Heights.
Ugly by design or neglect? The Chef’s picture is of an old neglected but still classic “northeast” caboose. Designed by the Reading and duplicated (even in wood sides) by many a road, including American Flyer!!!
Shortline home-builts and a few manufacturer’s products were really bad boxes on wheels. In my opinion, the largest class of ugly cabooses were those NYC jobs with low car bodies and large cupolas. For some reason NYC fans seem to revere them. I suppose that any fan of a particular road loves almost anything unique to it.
The end-of-train device is the absolute ugliest.
RIX
Agreed!
That’s looks awesome! Priceless…
I remember seeing these RI homemades in local switching and transfer service in Chicagoland years ago. Instead of a cupola or bay windows they had an “open air” bench seat mounted on the roof of the car. If I can remember where to find a picture of one of these “beauties” I’ll post it for all to see.
Mark
Gee guys, I hope my “end-of-train device” didn’t signal an end-of-thread device and send it down the crapper.
Crummies…I’d like to see more examples of ugly designs and modifications.
Cumberland and Pennsylvania had some cute bobbers.
Many logging roads made their own crude rolling cabins and so did the Unibomber, though he didn’t know his was rolling evidence.
Rick
Imagine this 
on the rear of one of todays 9000+ foot trains…
What a great photo!!!
These employees seem to have have settled into their little caboose for the “live long day”. Ten to eighteen hours worth I’d bet. They probably paid the photographer to record their friendship in this time and place. I doubt the railroad would have gone to the trouble because it doesn’t look like good (maybe 1922) PR on the B&A. Could the Boston & Albany have had such a low numbered caboose back then?
I like the guy in the window who is maybe minding the bacon, eggs and beans, and the “arms akimbo” proud conductor (?), and the guy with thumbs in his lapels. The whole crew is frozen in time and their biographies were perhaps not written but are wide open for speculation.
Never mind the lousy proportions and (could it be?) tin shingle siding. This was their place to show off their pride in what they did to keep the show going.
Rick
At first sight I thought this was example of graffiti ugly, and not counting as an ugly caboose. On my second view I saw the vehicle as a freshly painted, practical solution to an immediate problem where esthetics didn’t matter. This honest rebuild is still an ugly specimen and almost deserves the spray canners’ feeble “art”.
Rick
Wow. . . .Those are some crummy-looking crummies. . . . .
[swg]
(Someone had to say it)
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