Whats the largest caboose made and who made it? Are they hard to find?
Purpose built or home-made?
Some railroads created cabeese from box cars, which were likely longer than the cabs of their day. Old passenger cars fell to the same fate from time to time.
While I’m sure some of the last actual cabooses built would probably hold the record, the drover’s cabeese of old would certainly be in the running.
The longest cabooses built as cabooses were “drover cabooses” used by several western railroads, including I believe, the Santa Fe. These were used on stock car trains, cattle-car trains, where the drovers would accompany their shipment of live cattle. In addition to accomodating the normal crew in their working situation, they actually had berths for the drovers to catch some sleep while traveling. The were wood sided, had a cupola, regular open platform at each end, and about eight windows along each side. Regular wood buring stove, desk for the conductor to do his paperwork, and bunks for the drovers, which could either be longitudinal to the car, keeping the center aisle or across the car, putting the aisle at one side. I think as many as eight drovers could be accommodated, with four double-deck bunks. The bunks were more like what you would see at a college dorm or a youth hostel and not the same as Pullman sections.
Some others might fill in additonal information. From what I recall, they rode on regular freightcar trucks, like most cabooses, so they could not have to terrific as regard comfort.
They were about 55 feet long, if I recall correctly.
Measured how - length, volume, seats, etc. ?
Other than rebuilt drovers cabooses and the like, the last of the International Car Co.'s extended-vision ‘cabeese’ have to be in the running. My vague recollection is that one of the Midwest railroads had the last and supposedly largest. Without the benefit of or accuracy from any research, I 'm thinking of like DT&I, GTW, MoPac, TH&B, maybe others, etc.
- PDN.
Jennifer Lopez
Or Kim Kardashian?
He asked ‘largest’, not ‘nicest’ . . . [swg]
Like he said, J. Lo. or Kim K. are the largest, but far from the nicest (IMHO).
The C&O converted an undetermined number of ex-Pere Marquette 1100-series heavyweight coaches into cabooses, giving them numbers with an “A” prefix (that’s the caboose numbering for PM). I’m not sure what was added to or removed from these cabooses (save for a coal stove added) in the conversions, but do recall seeing one of these for a year or so in the mid- to late 1950s. At 85 feet in length, these would be close to the biggest cabooses ever out there–including some of the gender-specific examples named above.
During the late 1960s, Penn Central ran a Chicago-to-Manhattan mail train weekday afternoons. It was mostly piggyback trailers with a few Flexi-Vans thrown in as well. The train was powered by three or four E-units lettered either NYC or PC.
Every time I saw this train, the tail end markers were hung on something that looked like a 72-to-85 foot rider coach, but really it almost wasn’t. Just two or three windows on each side had glass while the rest were plated over with steel. The coach was painted either a very dark Brunswick Green or Penn Central black.
Because this train was carrying the United States Mail and also because it ran through some less-than-savory neighborhoods, between The Windy City and South Bend, Ind., it ran with armed guards on both ends. I’m sure the local residents with criminal intent on their minds learned that if they were to shunt the signal system and stop this train, a display of “cinder-dick” firepower would quickly emerge.