In the late 1960s there was a large troop build up in Viet Nam. Troop trains came into Oakland on the Santa Fe where the troops were transferred to ships. The trains were made up with sleeping cars from all the eastern railroads all mixed together. I do not recall how food service was handled. After the trains were unloaded they returned to Richmond, CA where the cars were cleaned. This is where I had an opportunity to go through all the cars and see the interior decor. Another thing I remember about these cars was all the newspapers that were left behind and all the different cities they were from. After a while, due to the protesters that started to meet the trains, the arrival time was shifted from early afternoon to 3:00 AM. After this change the only opportunity I had to see these trains/cars was in the coach yard.
As for cabooses, some states had individual regulations governing minimum requirements for cabooses. California had requirements for cabooses that included things like first aid kits, stretchers, seats, toilets, heating, etc. Due to these requirements many cabooses from out of state roads were turned at state line and not allowed in the state. On the road I worked for, this occurred at Elko, NV. The UP had cabooses designated as “pool” cabooses, which met most of these individual state requirements. They were marked with a large red “P” painted on the cupola ends, and were run through. Caboose run through were by individual agreement. There were not a lot of cabooses out there and a caboose shortage could be a real problem. I recall using a GP7 as a caboose once because we had nothing else available.
Interchange of freight cars was common and the AAR car service rules encouraged reloading empty cars for return movements. The return movement did not have to be back to the home road, only generally in that direction. Pool cars were a more interesting arrangement. If a railroad had a large industry, like an automobile stamping plant, they could set up a pool. Each railroad that was going to get traffic from that plant could be ask to assign cars to it based on the estimated traffic that was going to be generated to that road. But the pool cars were loaded and shipped without regards to the car ownership. The pool operator was also responsible for maintaining the cars. A short western railroad might have a dozen cars assigned to a pool in Buffalo, NY. Those cars could run for years without ever returning to the home road. Originally pool cars were known for having a yellow square on each side stenciled “when empty return to agent at ……”. These were replaced with computer data and the yellow blocks starting disappearing in the mid 1960s, I believe.
