I was thumbing through the Oct. 2009 MR and noticed an article on the back inside of the mag by Andy S on running waycars (caboose) on our layouts. Andy lamented the fact that layouts set in more more modern times were generally caboosless and wondered if some still ran them on more modern layouts.
My Santa Fe in Oklahoma is set in the 1989-90 period, but I run waycars. When Centrailia came out with those great rebuilt modernized waycars, I went berserk and bought all I could get my hands on. Now how to justify them? I reasoned that on my three deck railroad there are lots of spots on hidden areas, helix’s, etc. where a unit grain train (and I run several) could lose a few cars on the rear end and not be noticed immediately. My grain trains average 25 cars, and most are solid Santa Fe or private cars, so the logic sounded good. I then expanded the rule to say all freight trains except intermodal had to have a waycar so crews would know their train was all there (I haven’t lost any cars lately but that is another story.)
Just wondered how many of you still “hanker” for waycars/cabooses and run them even if your layout is too modern for them? What stories do you make up?
Count me in for using and wanting cabooses. They weren’t uncommon on the BN even into the 90s, granted they were “modernized.” Thanks for remiding be I need more!! [:-^]Especially extended vision and slanted coupla cabooses.
Cabooses never completely went away. Canadian Pacific has at least three SOO cabooses (two white, one brown) that it uses on runs from St.Paul down the Mississippi to the big refinery in St.Paul Park. It uses them as “shoving platforms”. The train runs down to the refinery (maybe 10 mi. or so) with the engines in the lead and the caboose at the end. Rather than turn the train, they run back with the caboose in front with one or two crewmen on the back platform with a radio in contact with the engine crew.
There are a number of similar situations around the country where cabooses are used, either as shoving platforms or (like on a local) as a regular caboose.
Bob,My C&HV dropped cabooses in the early 80s except on local/mine runs that make long reverse moves.Cabooses is also used at the club as per the requirement.However,I plan on buying a fred for club running.
Note: I don’t like that job stealing Fred since he stoled my last brakeman’s job but,its a sign of the time
Waycars still ride behind all of my freight trains since I model the Santa Fe circa 1969. [:)]
My club, however, has no set time period, but waycars/cabeese/hacks/crummies/etc. still grace the layout for much the same reasons that you use them for…it makes it a lot easier to spot when your train has separated. We try to make sure coupler heights are set properly, but occasionally a screw will drop out, or a derailment will happen, or a knuckle spring will get lost, or…or…or…[:)]
If I had to give the one single most important reason to NOT run modern-era, it’s so I can have a caboose on my trains. I just recently added a pair of Milwaukee bay-window cabeese. These replace the Milwaukee waycars I’ve had since the 1960’s. Those are silver in color, Athearn’s generic BB caboose model at the time, and are more of a Santa Fe prototype, certainly not Milwaukee.
My caboose is just below and behind my pants pockets…
OTOH, EVERY freight has a brake van, either full or partial, on the end away from the road locomotive. My unit coal trains have hopper-brakes on BOTH ends, since they reverse direction when interchanged from the TTT to the JNR.
When I decided to model JNR and put my layout into a time warp, I picked a time when every self-respecting freight train had a brake van to carry the markers and the rear-end crew. As a result, the breed is well represented. Don’t know what today’s practice is like - but then, I’m not modeling the present.
You diesel guys: at what point did all diesel layouts throw out all their cabooses? and why did you purchase them in the first place, now you know why steam is REAL railroading, so take those boxes of caboosii, and give them to a steam freak.
I model the ATSF during the transition era and have 8 or 9 Cabeese (waycars in Santa Fe lingo). Most are Athearns that have been modified per an Andy Sperandeo MR article of years ago - i.e. kds, full decals, mild weathering, window tint, etc.
I’m 65, and spent a lot of my youth around rail yards and tracks. I have always felt that a caboose “makes a train” in my eyes. I could not imagine my having a modern day layout, especially one without a string of cabeese. Hey, that’s not a knock on modern day layouts, its just what I prefer for me.
Today I drove a road parallell to the UP facilities in North Houston / Spring - mainly to train watch. I saw a switcher working a couple of factories, a road diesel putting a string of auto carriers into the “car depot”, a fast moving southbound freight with a number of grain hoppers, and a slower moving freight with several more auto carriers. All this took place in about 15 minutes of my drive. This was a really nice up close and personal RR experience, but the absence of a caboose just strikes me as an “incomplete scene”.
Hey, that’s just my personal opinion - and I guess it just “shows my age”.
There are two cabooses on my layout. One is at the end of a local freight on the inner loop. The general freight that runs on the outer loop is cabooseless. The other caboose sits on a spur with some mow equipment.
Here are my cabooses all 42, only 12 of them are factory paint jobs…
I still have 10 unfinished on my workbench and to get my fleet where I want it I still need to fill it in with some sloped cupola and wood cabooses, 98% of them are atlas caboose and of course they have no interiors or markers but that is going to change as im casting caboose interiors in resin from a scratch built master and over time every caboose will have a function only decoder for changing marker lights to the correct end.
What color yellow did you use for the yellow on those, I need to paint the grabs on two of my cabooses, and don’t kniow what color yellow I should use.
I only have 7; 4 Walthers, 2 Atlas, and 1 Athearn.
I found a way to model one of the slant coupla ones. The offset coupla caboose by bachmann looks to be close to some of them: http://i.ebayimg.com/03/!Beb)ulg!Wk~$(KGrHqQH-EIErfj4eclCBK9OzVM-ew~~_12.JPG http://archive.trainpix.com/bn/CABOOSE/SLANTED/10410.HTM
I found that one out, after I cut up mine to make a fictional plow. [banghead]
