Cabooses on European trains?

These days, the brake van has pretty much disappeared from general use, and a flashing red lamp (FRED) is normally affixed to the rear of the last wagon.

Thanks Nicole. I putting together my first European freight train and I really like the newer Electric engines like the Taurus. Thanks again.

An old business associate of mine was a train engineer with the Chicago & Northwestern and he told me that the caboose disappeared from railroading in the early 80's. Freight trains kept getting longer and they were looking at ways to add more cars. If a freight train was 30, 40 or 50 cars long, it was not safe to have a caboose. Upon startup, the energy from removing all of the backlash in all of the couplers would be transferred to the caboose. Any crew member located in the caboose would be thrown against the nearest wall.

I agree! "No caboose" can panic a modular group member thinking that part of the freight has become uncoupled.

I'm with you Chris!

Doug

Well, someone was sure blowing smoke up your,,,,,,,,! The N&W, C&O, and UP, just to name three, had cabooses on 100+ car freight trains, BACK IN THE STEAM ERA. The N&W was operating 250 to 300 car empty hopper trains out of Portsmouth, Ohio back in the 1960s and 1970s, all with cabooses.

The biggest issue with the elimination of cabooses, starting back in the early to mid 1970s, was more of a union issue. Diesel units could be air conditioned, while cabooses could not, thus the rear end crew members were moved forward. Also, with the development of wayside hot box and dragging equipment detectors, the caboose was no longer needed, since the occupants of the caboose couldn't see the middle portion of long freight trains anyway, in order to detect defects.

It had absolutely NOTHING to do with "slack action" on long freight trains!

Thanks Nicole, I had been wondering if modern European trains used a FRED. I hope MTH comes out with a Euro-style FRED for its modern European rolling stock. I'll have to look into adapting one of the truck-mounted ones from MTH to see if it will fit on one of my Euro freight cars. 

As Nicole mentioned, long-distance European trains in the steam era carried a "brake van," more or less equivalent to a caboose. For shorter runs, some cars were equipped with a doghouse for the brakeman. Some cars had just a brakeman's platform; I assume that's for the brakeman to ride during yard moves, but I really don't know. Here's a photo of an ETS tank car with a brakeman's cabin. Do you suppose he's got a tap for the tanker contents?

That guy always was kind of crazy. He ended up going to jail for bank robbery. The explanation seemed logical at the time but your explanation makes more sense.

While I have zero argument with HW's reasons above, on another tack, there have to be some tales of horrendous rides "way back there" if the engineer didn't manage his slack properly (and probably still some rough sledding even if he did).

---PCJ

True, but two things to remember:

1) Any Engineer that mismanaged his train slack THAT badly, probable would have gotten a knuckle or drawbar anyway.

2) Many railroads had seat belts in their cabooses.

Belonging to a perhaps small group that has little interest in modern trains, seemingly incomplete without one of the endless styles of cabooses, I have a collection of books on cabooses, and one of them refers to brakemen and conductors' opinions of sloppy or prankish engineers who played "crack-the-whip" with the guys on the end.  They were not amused.  I would suspect seat belts in cabooses would have come late in their use, beyond the steam era.

Engineers in the "steam era" where a LOT more careful with slack action due to the potential of breaking knuckles and/or drawbars, which got them "time off". Things definitely got a little more dicey with the advent of diesels and their extremely high starting tractive efforts. 

I saw steam powered freight trains on the German railroad (DB) back in the '60's and didn't notice any brake vans on the ends.  Where I lived at was in a river valley and there often were double-headed 2-10-0's on the trains climbing out.  Being a teenager at the time, I never thought to take any photos.  I did think it odd that there was no cabooses/brake vans.

John

From my observations, brake vans were more common in Britain.  For the vast majority of steam-era Continental goods trains I have seen pictures of, the doghouse on select wagons appears to be more common.  (Note: many passenger cars were equipped with doghouses as well.)  Now, I am aware that France, Germany, and Switzerland had their own versions of the brake van.  Of those I am familiar with, the French and German ones were basically modified luggage vans, while the Swiss one I know of looks like an enlarged version of those used by the LNER.  Either way, I have never seen pictures of any of them used in trains, so I am wondering myself when, and how often, they were used.

For modern trains, I believe they use lights and/or red and white panels, one mounted over each buffer.  I'll see what I can find.

Aaron

Okay, from what I can see on Youtube, where your Tauruses would be running can determine the end-of-train marker configuration.  In Germany, it's two panels like shown below, one over each buffer (although some trains appear to have nothing at all).  For Austrian trains, it's either said panel only over the right rear buffer, or a flat, red, circular light mounted underneath the same buffer.  For Switzerland, same panel over left rear buffer.  Haven't found anything on Dutch or Italian EOT customs.  I'm sure in all cases, red lights are used somewhere at night.

Hopefully someone can clarify this.

Aaron

Thanks. That's something I could make out of brass or styrene - although I wish MTH would make it and include it with their cars, along with the scale couplers and other end details. 

The French freight trains I remember seeing from 1979 lacked brake vans or cabooses. They did have a European version of "Fred" mounted on the last car, though.

That statement is only partially correct:  In Germany and Austria for those freight trains that carried them [ and by 1970 these were very much in the minority ] they were normally positioned directly behind the locomotive.   The major exception in all countries was in some local freights, where due to reversals and pickups/setouts en route, they occasionally ended up mid or end of train.

Best regards, SZ

Because in my little world where I control what is 'right'.....I run cabooses on all era trains.

So when I run my repainted Harry Potter loco with my collection of Lima and other Euro freight cars I have to run this on the end.......

Don't bother me with facts about wrong van, road, era etc......I enjoy my 'ignorance is bliss' UK railroad running.

It's not Europe, but India still uses discrete brake vans:

They're mostly two-axle cars--the ride must be horrendous at times.

Passenger trains there have HEP cars that double as brake vans, with a large "X" painted on the ends.

---PCJ

A couple of interesting features in the India video. 

-- Very English/European looking goods vans with American-style trucks

-- The brake van looks just like a homemade transfer caboose as built by many American railroads. Very similar to Lionel's transfer caboose. 

Another interesting fact about Indian railroading is the majority of the country's diesel locomotives were built either by ALCo or using ALCo technology provided to Indian builder Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW). These units are still the backbone of the country's diesel fleet so the sound and smoke of the 251 Series engine are ever present.

Bob  

They also run COFC, doublestack-on-flatcar and RORO (Roll-on-Roll-Off, otherwise known as "carrying the tractor, trailer and driver") freight. Automobiles are carried in single-level cars, some of which are built from retired passenger coaches.

---PCJ