I Miss That Caboose

There you are in the car.  You come upon the railroad crossing.  The lights come on, and the gates go down.  You here the horn.  The locomotives come, and then many train cars roll by.  Then, there it is.  You see the caboose.  The train is now gone.

For over a hundred years the caboose was at the end of the train signaling that the train had gone by.  While the locomotives pulled the train, the caboose was at the end.  Because the trains were long, the engineers in the locomotives could not see the end of the trains.  Men in the caboose were there just in case something went wrong they could radio the engineer and vice versa.  With new technologies, the caboose became obsolete, and they were removed from the end of the train.

What happened to the cabooses?  Some were sent to museums.  Some were sent to parks where they are displayed in the parks or by old train stations or by rail trails.  Some became hotels.  Some were sent to the scrap yard.  Some were just left to rust.

Let us remember the old caboose.  Let us remember the railroad days of old.  May the old caboose never be forgotten.

 

The first caboose is Number C-2824 from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on display at the Ohio Village in Columbus, Ohio.

The second caboose is Number 90219 of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway on display at the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Heritage Center in Clifton Forge, Virginia.

The third caboose is Number 903503 of the Chessie System on display in the town of Rainelle, West Virginia.

The fourth caboose is Number 35886 of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad on display at the Whippany Railway Museum in Whippany, New Jersey.

The last caboose is on display in Caboose Park in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.