Caboose

Thanks for watching the video! I hope you enjoyed it! The title and thumbnail style is based on a gaming history channel I like called "Ahoy" ( youtube.com/user/XboxAhoy/ ) so check him out if you're interested! Also, this is the first part of a new commentary mini-series that will delve into the origins and evolution of certain railroad cars in the US. The next one I have planned is about reefer cars so I hope you look forward to that too, and let me know what you thought of this video!

wow. never knew! also i just noticed that there is just V E R Y slow mario music

it makes me happy that so many cabooses are in preservation. It seems almost every town with a railroad has at least one caboose somewhere along side the tracks it may have once traveled on.

that just makes me miss the days of the caboose even more. I remember watching the Conrail GP-38's pulling long freight trains down the line, and we always waited till the end. Guy with a coffee cup in one hand, cigar in the other and waving to all us kids as they rolled threw town.

Whenever I worked as caboose host (basically someone to supervise the people who rent out the caboose for a unique excursion experience) at the New Hope Railroad I always tell them that they got the best seat in the house and trust me they do. There was always someone in the cupola, the seats on the south end are like 2 couches, and we plan to get some of accommodations in service on our only operational caboose (A B&M one from 1927) such as a fridge, sink, and a functional toilet. The caboose really is one of the biggest icons of railroad history whether you had an interest in trains or not so its no wonder we quite often get caboose tickets on the busier trains.

5:37 Seeing the pinup girls decorating the interior made me chuckle! Very old timely! This is a great history of the caboose and as I usually do with these videos, I've learned something here. I once saw a caboose at the end of a Canadian Pacific train back in 2016 I think. I honestly couldn't believe it but there it was at the end of the freight train streaked with rust!

@4:56 that image of the NYC Bay Window Caboose and the guy in the window so happens to be my great grandfather! He was a brakemen/fireman on the NYCS and would always ride in the cabooses! He’s the reason my family owns a NYC bay Window caboose today! Great video!

I rode caboose as a rear brakeman & conductor for the MKT from 1976 to 1988. The part about the slack action is very true. Alot depended on the consist of loads vs empties and how they were placed in a mixed freight , how long the train was and the amount of hogback territory (rolling terrain) along the way..A great deal of the credit to controlling slack action went to a really good engineer. I rapidly became familiar with those hog head's that gave consistently smooth rides as opposed to those that made you wish you had a hockey player's suit on. All in all it was a great experience. Today retired MKT cab 140 is on display at the Temple Heritage & RR museum in Temple TX. One that I rode many times back in the day.

The Railroad caboose will always be remembered for railroad transportation

They are pretty amazing rolling stock for railroads. I have saw a lot of these Cabooses.

Miss them, seeing life at the end of a train made train watching more interesting.

CNR caboose 78175 built in 1929 in the Tramnscona Shops in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Served on the CNR for 6 decades. Retired from service in the late 80's. Exterior Restoration completed in 2017. Interior Restoration completed in 2020. The Caboose belongs to the Thunder Bay Railway Historical Society. Currently, CNR Caboose 78175 sits at the south entrance to the Marina in Thunder Bay, Ontario. I've seen this Caboose before throughout the past decade and during the Restoration of it from 2017 to 2020 and I went in it as a little tour. Even got a keychain, Christmas postcards, mug and a T-shirt

Something of note for those wondering about how British "Brake vans" differ from a caboose, haven ridden in my fair share in preservation. typically they're of just two axles, like a bobber caboose, with the earliest examples sharing a 10ft wheelbase with standard goods stock at the time, but this was increased to 12ft to allow for greater stability at speed. the Southern Railway and LMS both trialed "Bogie" brake vans, with the former known as "queen mary" brakes, but overall these weren't a huge success crew accommodations consist of padded seats positioned to let the crews look out the "duckets" (side look outs), a coal or wood fired stove with a hot plate to keep a tea thermos warm off to one side) and a desk up against one end. no provision for a toilet was provided as the journeys were a lot shorter, and being a goods train the guard would have plenty of opportunities to releive themselves if the train was shoved into a passing loop to let a passenger train pass. one area where the operations differed was breaking, here in the UK we used a single three link chain with sprung buffers and a sprung hook to absorb any jarring, but this gave up to a foot per coupling of slack (and when trains could be as long at 70 wagons it's easy to do the math) and the guard had to be skilled enough to control this to prevent both couplings braking when the chains "snatched" and the train surging forward on downhill gradients. It's even been said that in the heyday of loose coupled goods trains the guards could be skilled enough with the brake to maintain uniform tension even if the train was snaking it's way over multiple grades at once.

For my wedding, I chartered a caboose on the White Pass & Yukon Route behind a Fraser Turn train. Had the crew stop on the way back to Skagway and we did the short ceremony right on the tracks at Inspiration Point. My 20th Anniversary will be in a few months, but alas, the caboose we chartered has been permanently laid up behind the rotary at the depot...No chance for a repeat. :-( The caboose was also done in by the fact the modern device also known as an "SBU" by Canadian Pacific for the Sense and Brake Unit capabilities. I repaired them for about six months, and found they had a fair number of things aboard that would replace stuff in the caboose, such as: 1) Brake Pressure Valve. The engineer and conductor at the front of the train could monitor the brake pipe pressure at the back end of the train. Handy to know if you've got bottled air. 2) Ability to put the train into emergency from the back end of the train. Again, handy if you really need the train to stop in a hurry. Especially if they're 10,000ft long monsters like we see today. 3) Ability to know if the back end of the train is moving. These things have ability to detect if they're being shaken (aka, moving) and advise the head end accordingly. 4) Some units are equipped with service brake valves. These can initiate brake pipe reductions instead of brake pipe evacuations (like you'd find under emergency braking) to help a train slow down, but not stop. 5) They've also got some other electronic telemetry type stuff going on as well, like GPS receivers and can provide more data to the people at the office about the performance of the train. And like you eluded, they also satisfy the "markers" requirement for definition of a train, by having a red reflectorized plate or bright red light to indicate the end of the train. So in addition to the capabilities above along with the wayside talking hot box detectors that can radio the report of the train, the people needing to be at the back end of the train could now be eliminated and/or brought to the front end of the train. I still like the fact they're being used as shoving platforms though...

They're making a come back!! Seen more now as shoving platforms. I never saw any growing unless as a display but now as an adult I've seen a few on some trains. Great video

Where I work our work train (for track maintenance - hauling ties, rail, etc) we have a BN caboose at the end of the train, ironically with a ETD coupled to the back of the caboose as well. When I was a conductor trainee during the summer of 2022, I was able to have the experience to ride in one of these with the brakemen. It was neat to have the experience of looking through the cupola in addition to cooking hamburgers on the stove for lunch. I'm fortunate to be able to have this experience knowing that the caboose could be eliminated off the work train tomorrow. People will always ask when they see a caboose still active on the rails and say "I haven't seen one of those in years!" and I'm glad they get to see it too. Fun fact: Our railroad actually calls it the "tool car" although we all know it as a caboose.

in the 70-80's I worked as a carman in the departure yard. In the winter, there was nothing better after you inspected the cars, closed journals, and laced the hoses to spend time in the Cupola waiting for the air pressure to equalize. Those stoves put out some awesome heat. Thanks for the memories.

To me, as a Limey, the caboose is as iconic of American railroading as a pilot, bell, oil headlight and balloon stack. Freight trains just don't look right without one, either here or 'over there'. Although we didn't use the term 'caboose' for the vehicle, according to historian G R Weddell the term was used on the London & South Western Railway for the raised 'birdcage' (other companies preferred term) with deep lookout windows at the end of their four and six wheeled passenger brake vans. This shouldn't perhaps be surprising given that the LSWR served Southampton, and particularly in early days recruited a lot of sailors as brakesmen. I'd often wondered why the spelling 'break' was often used on English railways rather than 'brake', which was after all what it there for. Your explanation is a good one. Going back in time to the 1950s, the old US model firm of Red Ball (was it Howell Day?) offered a model of a pioneer L&N caboose, which was a box car with a garden seat on the roof! Thanks too for the film, both still and moving of early US trains; several of my favourites in there.

While its sad that I've never seen a caboose in action on the end of a freight train, I'm happy to know that I live near a small freight depot filled with them. Caboose Village, Northfield - New Hampshire

There’s a man in New Gloucester, Maine who has a rescued caboose and now has it sat out in his front yard. You see it everytime you pass by. It’s great 👍🏻