Yea, I know we live in a train fantasy world...but...would there ever be a reason for a switcher to have a caboose or are they mostly used for short trips?
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It was and is still done. Not used to often today but I've seen them used at the head of a train when the engine is at the back on a shoving maneuver. Also used as idler cars when loading and unloading float barges.
The IC local I used to railfan used a SW9 with a ex-PRR N8 caboose painted in ICG colors. It was about 80 mile round trip.
NS used an road switcher and a bright blue Conrail caboose (ex PRR bay window I think) on a work train that you could see to the east of Hershey, PA. I saw a lot of it in the past decade.
Weirton Steel's "cinder-pot express" would use a caboose on its 3-mile run to Standard Slag. That train was pulled by Alco S-2's or S-4's.
So your "fantasy" train doesn't seem much of a departure from the prototype.
George
Yes ... My son tells me all the time he loves when they use the caboose as a shoving platform. It's easier to stand on the platform vs hanging off of a box car.
He also tells me when they use an engine with three axle trucks there are some switches that are troublesome. So if they want to set three cars in a siding, they might grab three or four extra cars and a caboose to set the first three so the engine does not have to run through the switch.
Plus it looks cool.
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I am VERY old school. I think that every freight train short or long-distance should have a caboose, including yard work. My grandfather was a freight conductor on the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR). Though he did get long distance assignments but, spent most of his time working the Bay View yards around the Baltimore waterfront. In his tenure with the PRR (1911 - 1953) ALL trains had cabin cars on the PRR and cabooses on the other railroads. The conductor was responsible for the whole train and its crew. The cabin car was the conductor's office to take care of any necessary paperwork and house any rear-end brakemen. On long trips, if the train had any trouble and had to make an unscheduled stop, the rear-end brakemen would have to walk the track behind the train and light flares to guard the rear of the train. On yard work where the yard train had to pick up loaded cars and deliver them to many stops in East Baltimore, the conductor had to plan the order of the stops and pick up the cars in reverse order of stops so that the last car on his work train were the first stop of the day. The rear-end brakemen and front-end brakeman (if the yard train carried one) on the engine cab with the two engine men (fireman and engineer on the PRR) were responsible for cutting the cabin (if it was at the end of the train. In yard work, sometimes the cabin car would be directly behind the engine's tender to make cutting cars on delivery sidings easier) from the train and cutting the cars being delivered from the train on the siding. Now, Cabooses are no longer used because there is some sort of transmitter that that is now put on the rear car of the train that sends a signal to trains approaching from behind that a train ahead is stopped. However, for modern yard work, though much of the switching and sorting of freight cars is done by computer, I cannot imagine how making up trains cannot be done without a conductor who knows the delivery area and brakemen to cut cars when put on their destination sidings. Cabooses are now not used anywhere to my knowledge.
I like to run switchers with a caboose or one boxcar and a caboose. There is no reason why a switcher could not be used on a short run to deliver a boxcar. But it needs a caboose and a conductor. And, after the car is delivered, the engine and caboose must return to the yard. Seems like a situation that must have occurred frequently, especially during the steam era.
MELGAR
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Search Milford-Bennington Railroad in Milford New Hampshire. There are lots of pictures, albeit mostly of the loco. They tow 8 or 10 cars down from a quarry to a concrete plant every day around noon. They shove back using a caboose to operate from. You will also find a Wiki article on them.
Some shortlines, like the Allentown and Auburn, use switchers as motive power and three cabooses to ride in instead of passenger cars.
Here is a very nice article and easy read on the caboose, why it was used, how the EOT device replaced the caboose main line operation and how the caboose is still used today in switching operations.
Fantastic Article! Thanks
In the 1940s-70s the Minneapolis Northfield and Southern Ry. normally ran wayfreights with a switcher, freight cars, and a caboose. Early on it might be an FM H-10-44 or H-12-44, or a Baldwin VO-1000; later it was often two EMD end-cab switchers running back to back.
These were some practices where I lived, when cabooses were still in regular use:
Pacific Electric Railway, which, after the mid-1950's dieselized and was pretty much absorbed into Southern Pacific, used switch engines (mostly EMD NW2's and cabooses on its trains.
Union Pacific regularly sent the local freight out on the Anaheim branch with an NW2 and also a caboose.
Santa Fe used Alco-GE S2 and S4 switchers on "Road Switchers". A "Road Switcher" on Santa Fe went on duty at an outlying station such as Santa Ana or Fullerton, and had a road crew instead of a yard crew. Because they worked off of the road board instead of the yard board, road crew work rules applied, and that included having a caboose. They never got further than 25 miles from their on-duty point, and mainly switched industrial spurs and coupled cars into cuts to be picked up by road trains. On some northeastern railroads these jobs were called "drills". Except for the Los Angeles Division and the Valley Division (both in California), Road Switcher assignments usually were given a GP7 or comparable engine.
Yard engines which left the yard and went down the main line to switch industry tracks normally had a caboose with them.
It could possibly be summarized this way:
a switcher working within ”yard limits” might not use a waycar. A switcher working over any stretch of main line might include a waycar.
That is how it was for us on the Oklahoma, Chickasha, and QA&P subs.
On all my older (e.g., the time when the caboose had not been phased out) trains, I have a caboose. 100% of the time.
When I run the new modern trains, I don't. I love the cars with the ETD's.
This is on the real trains forum so I am likely speaking a lot out of school. Personally, I have never seen a switcher in yard service, but don't see a lot of yards where I live.
@G3750 posted:NS used an road switcher and a bright blue Conrail caboose (ex PRR bay window I think) on a work train that you could see to the east of Hershey, PA. I saw a lot of it in the past decade.
Weirton Steel's "cinder-pot express" would use a caboose on its 3-mile run to Standard Slag. That train was pulled by Alco S-2's or S-4's.
So your "fantasy" train doesn't seem much of a departure from the prototype.
George
The PRR never owned any bay window cabooses, so if NS had them (even in Conrail blue), they came from another absorbed railroad!
Chuck
@PRR1950 posted:The PRR never owned any bay window cabooses, so if NS had them (even in Conrail blue), they came from another absorbed railroad!
Chuck
Chuck,
I believe you are correct. This one must have originally been an NYC caboose. PRR didn't have any extended vision versions either, unless you count the N6A (with the "Fort Wayne" cupula). But none of those survived into the PC era.
George