I have a car or two with a FRED or EOTD. Not my favorites and still looks foreign to me. I usually operate in the era where cabooses were used without fail. I prefer that. +1 for the hack, way car, crummy, captains car, brakeman's shanty, what-cha-ma-call-it and aka caboose.
CABOOSES! I love 'em! Yup, on my UP between Ogden and Wahsatch, there are cabooses (at least one) on every freight train except on returning 3700 class Challenger and 2-10-2 helpers...which were classed as "trains" although they were just engines with marker lights on the tenders. I model any train from 1947 thru 1956, so I get to have both Mineral Red and Armour Yellow UP cabooses. On the SP part of Ogden, there are also SP cabooses...but my son is the SP guy so I don't know exactly what's allowed although I will say I've seen both steel bay-window cabooses and steel cupola cabooses along with wooden cabooses behind SP freights. For me, I get to kit-bash each and every CA or CA-1 UP caboose from MTL's "Wooden Caboose" (a pretty close facsimile to a UP CA caboose), build and superdetail a dozen or more Golden West CA-3/4 caboose kits, kitbash CA-5's from those with new ladders, roof panels and trucks. I've also managed to accumulate a dozen or more brass Overland UP caboose models of CA-3's, 4's, 5's, and 6's. I sold all the later ones which don't fit my era. Every UP caboose has custom-made brass turned marker lights on the rear with MV green and red lenses. I'm happy! I'm just not interested in trains past the caboose era either....dull and boring. A train's just not a train without a caboose!
I fully 100% agree! I used to LOVE watching trains go by and seeing what kind of hack was on the end. When FREDs started becoming the norm it just wasn't the same watching a train anymore. I model mid-late 70s (with the exception of my favorite logging RR which operated 1981-1992) so EVERY train, no matter what size MUST have a caboose. Ryan
NOTHING leaves the yard without a caboose !!! They can make switching interesting, and, well...they're just plain COOL !!!
Yes, how else would I know the train is complete...? Yes, how else would I know the train is complete...? And even if it were, it would just LOOK incomplete....
Keystone N Trak has a policy that an EOT device or a caboose must be used, or its a dollar in the swear jar. I have a few Watkins Salt caboose that serve me well. They look good while modern equipment is leading the pack. Good question, with good replies. Peace be with you. Arthur
The Tickford Valley Railway Co. ( London) Ltd., (a line of railway with which some of the membership will be familiar), wishes to to advise that, in conformity with prevailing national railway safety regulations, and due to the severe gradients it operates over, it attaches Brake ('Guard's) Vans ('Cabeese') to the rear its trains. Thank you for asking. Komata "TVR - serving the Northern Taranaki . . . "
Cabooses in all lengths, LCL cabooses, passenger carrying cabooses, logging cabooses, and M. of W. cabooses. Transfer and stockmans cabooses, and a few old Overtons and at least one 65 foot combine with a bay window in caboose service.
On the ATSF, firmly stuck in 1972, so cabooses rule: Ce-3 999621 (rebuilt Trix) at Winslow on a local caboose hop: Ce-8 9990538 (rebuilt Bachmann) on an westbound intermodal, East Winslow: Ce-1 9990335 (Intermountain) on a 338 at Flagstaff: Like the real railroads though, these things are getting expensive, between the lighting units and IM's better cabooses!
A little more to add to this. Not only do ALL my freights have cabeese, ALL my passenger trains have an observation, or tail car of some sort. The only exceptions are commuter trains, which are just upholstered cattle cars anyway !!!
I run them. Sometimes I have trouble keeping them on the track, but the little people figure out how to get them back on.
One of the reasons I model IHB is that they typically use cabeese on their transfer runs. Many of the run through freights on the IHB don't, giving me a nice mix.
These are HO scale cabooses. Both are wood kits built about 20 some years ago. I have no idea who the first kit is from, of a GN caboose, and the second is an old Silver Streak kit I believe. These were custom painted for my freelance railroad.
Mainline freights get a caboose; that way it is easy to notice if the tail of the train has gotten lost somewhere. Locals or transfers don’t as they typically have only 3 to 4 cars max.
