The current thread on what cabooses one would like to see available, caused me to wonder if loggingg roads and other short lines that only used their own rails except when they left a load of timber or other goods at a cut off a class 1 main line had, or were required to have, a caboose.
My limited research has not turned up photos of such, so I’m curious what I may have missed.
I’ve seen pictures of small bobbler logging cabooses around, and there are some kits avalible for them. From what I can tell they were mostly homemade cars. The kit I’ve seen is just a small box on wheels with a door.
Here is a picture of one, though I know it is out of Trainz rail simulator, it is an exact replca of a real logging caboose. These type were basically a shack on a truck.
Kadee has one that looks pretty close to the one in your trainz sim shot nik .n
Paul
I suppose it would depend on a number of factors. Here in Minnesota logging trains usually had a caboose, but our situation was a little different in that logging trains tended to be longer and go farther than in other parts of the country. That is, you weren’t seeing a Shay with 3 cars going a mile or two from a log camp to a mill, it would be a 2-6-0 with 20 cars going 30 miles from the forest to a city like Two Harbors or Duluth. Plus of course Minnesota logging was done in the dead of winter so you needed someplace for the rear end crew on a train!!
Plus it could depend on local laws and such. Again I know more about MN logging railroads…railroads only running on their own tracks as private companies could do what they wanted, but MN law gave tax breaks to common carriers over private lines as far as property tax and corporate tax. Because of this, many remote logging railroads incorporated as common carriers and had to abide by ICC and MN state laws, like Minnesota’s 1911 law requiring all cabooses to be 24’ or longer, and have at least two four-wheel trucks, and all railroads to be built to standard gauge.
In a lot of photos in B.C. the caboose was right behind the engine or in front, mostly used as a lunchroom as there were not too many overnight stays, with those logging roadbeds I’m sure a ride in a caboose at the end of a log train would not be all that much fun.
On my favorite-anywhere log hauler, every train had a brake van - a little shack (smaller than an American caboose’s coupola) with end platforms on a four-wheel disconnect log truck. Appropriately, they were painted red.
The guilty party? The Kiso Forest Railway, 762mm (30") gauge, longest route about 50 kilometers, primary logs carried, cedar. It survived until 1975, when roads were finally opened into the woods.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan - including the Kiso Forest - in September, 1964)
In many cases cabooses used by lumber companies in log train service were purchaced second hand from class one railroads. The Simpson line in Washington used one from the Espee and one from the NP.
Weyerhaeuser in Oregon used some Espee cupola cabooses. The Weyerhaeuser line in Washington used cabooses from several sources.
Here is one, currenlty in use in BC:
