I don't know of any other board where the members are so anxious and willing to meet each other in person. This says a lot about the quality of our membership. Besides, I am having a lot of fun meeting the guys. I just wish I had the time and money to go longer distances to meet more of you.
I just relooked at this topic and realized that Peirce posted a pic of me in the cupola of the caboose (page 1). He said that I was adjusting my camera but it really look slike I am adjusting myself for a nap!!!! Russ
In that case, fasten your seatbelt. Yes, that caboose was equipped with seatbelts. Sort of takes away the engineer's fun. "Let's put it up to notch 8 to take out the slack and see if any of the rear-end crew is still standing." [ 27. April 2003, 19:15: Message edited by: Peirce ]
Some cabooses I have been in had rounded edges on counters, tables and other "normally square"things as to avoid a good poke in the ribs when the train lurched. I can't remember if it was a paticular railroad that used that idea, or was it a one of the caboose builders that came up with that........or did it eventually become mandatory all around? Or, was it one of a kind?
Since the interior design of cabeese seems to have as many variations as there were conductors using them, those ideas could have come from almost anywhere. During the era when a conductor was assigned the same caboose for almost his entire career, he was free to fix up the interior any way he wanted. I have seen pictures of many varieties of design. Remember the contrast between the two cabeese I showed you at the DRM.
Yes Peirce, I remember them. They were in good shape too! I wonder how many conductors had pin-up girls adorning the walls of their cabeese! Phew, I've been in dozens of cabooses from West Virginia to Brooklyn, NY to Maine to Iowa. I'll never remember where I saw that one, and I do guess that it was customized by a conductor!
I am hoping to have an International Trainboard meet sometime in the next few years (more likely 3 years) where we can all meet somewhere in USA. I would be hoping for Alan as well to come over for the trip
That's good news, Paul. With the geographic diversity of our membership, that will be an ambitious project. I will predict it should be well received, however. Let me suggest before a big discussion starts here, you might want to give this a thread of its own.
Thanks Peirce. Them pics seem to have got missing from my railimages folderI will have to find the pics that went with the posts and repost them Russ
