I am modeling a circa 1970’s - 80’s B&O, C&O layout. My main objective is switching so I have a large freight yard, interchange junction and somewhere down the road a second yard.
My question is about the use of caboose’s in the yard(s) and switching local industries. When to use them. I can’t find any information on the internet as to when the prototype railroads used them.
Thanks
Don1942,
From what you are referring to for the roads in question,they would use a transfer caboose,
Google, Railroading Transfer Caboose… and you will find what you are asking,info and pic’s…
Hope that helps,
Cheers,
Frank
Don,
I’m not by any means an expert on the prototype use of cabooses (cabeese?), but as an old timer told me (a former hoghead for the Canadian National Railway), anytime you have a “train”, presumably that would be anything that is to be worthy of going out on the main, a caboose should be used. Also, a train is not officially a “train” until it has the appropriate markers (lights) on the front and rear. In the era you’re modeling, you would still be using a caboose at the ends of trains, for the most part, as cabooses (I prefer that word) were not eliminated and replaced by automated rear end devices until the early to mid 80’s, as I recall. These devices now serve as the appropriate rear marker for official trains, as well as other functions that they perform…
Also, even to this day, cabooses are still used on locals and work trains. or on push-pull operations or other movements where necessary viewing from the rear end of the train is critical. there are likely other uses for a caboose that I have not thought of here, but others who post here will fill you in on.
Finally, it must be said here that it is your layout. You don’t have to be 100% prototypically correct if you don’t want to. Many modelers who are replicating the modern era still use cabooses. Why? because they’re cool! Have fun, that’s the main thing.
An old law requiring cabooses was repealed in 1988 in Virginia, perhaps the last one to be enforced. So, for your region and era, it would still be appropriate to have a caboose when your trains leave the yard.
All through freights and trains with local crews would have a caboose.
Varies from road to road. Generally trains with local crews had cabooses. Generally trains with yard crews were less likely. Generally trains that had long shoving moves had cabooses. Generally trains that operated where they had to line switches behind them had cabooses. Generally situations where trains had to provide flag protection required a caboose.
Yard limits have nothing to do with cabooses per se, there is no rule requiring cabooses outside yard limits or relieving the use of a caboose inside yard limits. The yard limit rules are silent on cabooses.
Being on the main track does not require a caboose. The requirements would be to be able to have a marker, provide flag protection and to line main track switches back for the main track. A caboose facilitates all of those activities but they may all be taken care of without a caboose under other circumstances.
I feel you have received some good replies as to it’s use. I too somewhat follow this when running '70s Chessie freights. For the real skinny on them ask on the B&O yahoo group where all those B&O 'experts" hang out. http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Baltimore_and_Ohio/
And have you checked out the Spring Mills Depot I-12 wagontops? 1st run sold out real fast, 2nd run available now. http://www.springmillsdepot.com/index.htm The blue w/ yellow end “pool service” would be perfect for your time frame. http://www.smd.cc/images/SMD_I12_Flyer_v7.jpg
Order info from BORHS http://www.borhs.org/shopping/index.html
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Baltimore_and_Ohio/message/65617
On the C&O under Chessie we used caboose on all trains until the '83 then FRED started showing up on road trains.Locals and mine runs kept cabooses.
As far as using a caboose while switching in the yard I only seen that twice on the PRR…As a rookie brakeman I decided it was best not to ask the conductor why we was dragging a N6B cabin with us…
While switching a industrial park or several industries close together we would drag it with us…Some times between the engine and the cars to be switched.
Why?
The empties would be behind the caboose and we would simply run around the train and head back toward the yard.If there was no run around track the caboose was kept in its normal location and we would simply reverse move back to the yard caboose lead.
Thanks for all the great information. I would have loved to ordered a couple of the Springmills Depot cars but they are HO and I’m N scale. However, now that I know what I’m looking for I can start searching for something that will work.
Thanks to all that replied.
Don, The BORHS also has offering in N scale, C-16 and M-53 wagontop boxcars
http://www.borhs.org/shopping/index.html
Maybe Spring Mills or Fox Valley will do the I-12 in N scale, lots of you modelers out there
A train without a caboose is like a dog without a tail: they both look funny. My trains all run with cabooses.
What kind of caboose would run with a passenger train, 1950’ to mid '70’s, say?
Ah, an 85’ tail car or obs. If one was on the tail, maybe for an equipment move? Never really seen it done, but anything is possible
Now that most roads have done away with cabooses on freight trains, the only place a lot of people have seen a caboose is on the rear of a tourist railroad train.
In general, back in the 1950 - 1970 era the use of a caboose on a passenger train was very rare. Some roads did use a caboose on the rear of mail and express trains- considered passenger trains, although some of them did not carry paying passengers.
One exception was the Pennsylvania Railroad, which up until the mid 1960s or so used cabin cars on the rear a a few passenger trains between New York and Washington, if there were a lot of Mail and express cars on the hind end. The train would have a GG1, then a string of occupied passenger coaches, then 8 or 10 or more mail and express cars, and then a cabin car “assigned to passenger service” for the flagman. All the flagmen I recall seeing on those jobs were in passenger uniform, although I don’t know if that was required or not. Having the mail and express cars on the rear made adding and removing cars easier and faster at intermediate stations.
Unless you are modelling a specific passenger train that you know used a caboose, it would be best not to use one. Of course the only proper way to run a freight train, model or prototype, is with a caboose (or cabin car, van, way car, etc.)
None.
Passenger trains don’t operate with cabooses.
Dave,Some of the goofy PC passenger trains would have a express cabin tacked on the end since there was flexivans and express cars behind the coaches…
Silliest passenger trains I ever seen.
2 or 3 raggedy looking E8As, mail storage baggage cars, express cars, baggage car 2-5 coaches,more email storage cars then the flexivans then the express cabin-some was exPRR cabins painted jade green.[xx(]
Terrible…Nay…Down right horrible…
This disaster ended with Amtrak.
The only reason I asked was that I recall Canadian National announcing, mid-'70’s, that they would no longer be using cabooses on their passenger trains…
LION moved to North Dakota in 1983. All trains had cabeeses. Conductor and Flagman in back, Engineer and Brakeman in front.
One day I was out in Taylor, ND, (next town over) and they were installing new switches. To access the siding the conductor would have to get out and PUMP the switch to move the points. When the train cleared the switch, the points would move back to the mane lion on their own. They called it a poor man’s interlocking plant. It also spelled the end of the caboose, and the advent of two man crews.
Now if a train goes down, the conductor must walk the entire train by himself, a mile out and a mile back on the other side, and no matter if the snow was 18 or more inches deep.
If it was me, I’d climb down onto the ground and have the engineer move the train forward, and once he passed I’d cross the tracks and have him back up until the engines were in my location, and then I could tell him that I found nothing wrong and we could continue on our way.
ROAR
