So you go Modern....what to do with a caboose???

That is cool.  I've thought of using one of those as a fast-food place/taco place on my layout (if I can find room).  The side cupola is a natural for a walk-up, drive up service window.

Beats seeing it waste away unused in a yard. A surprising but welcome re-purposing, made increasingly uncommon by stricter handicap, business building, and "home beautiful" codes. Wonder if any "historical" loopholes could be used to allow it where normally shunned?     

Dave,

Love it.   Thanks for posting. I'll have to come up with some kind of caboose business for my train club.

Very nice, very different.

There is of course, the Caboose Hotel by Lancaster, PA.

I took this picture in Missoula, Montana, several years ago.  Apparently a caboose is used as a remote control add-on to yard power.  Montana Rail Link??

This sign indicated the Missoula Yard was a remote control yard.

I should buy one, and make it my "summer place".  Then I could boast to my pretentious friends about having a get-away for the summer.  

The restored Clinchfield Carolina & Ohio cab car located downtown Banner Elk, N.C. for the past 35 + years has been used as a Wine Store, Law Office, Surveyor's Office, Software Store, Fireplace Vendor, Sandwich Bar and I forget what else. Recently repainted and currently a Wild Bird Store.

I have seen them used for switching moves confined to yard service. Cabooses for reuse arent too bad in cost..its the track laying ( if wheels are retained ) and transport costs thats a killer. I looked into it.

A few years back, I was on my way ironically to my LHS and the train gates came down. The tracks were assigned to the UP. After pleasurably watching a long freight go by, I was shocked to see a SOO Line caboose at the end. There was a railroad worker standing on the rear platform with a wave to me as the car went by. Were they just moving the caboose, probably, but it was really neat to see one at the end of this train.

My family and I stayed at the Red Caboose Motel, in Lampeter-Strasburgh, Lancaster County, Penna., a couple of times and both times we had great fun.

Where we live now, in Nassau County, Long Island, N.Y.S., when trains were mostly in vogue, there were two businesses that had a caboose, each, on a section of straight track, on their properties.

I don't know for what real reason, other than this now-a-dayS B.S., Political Correctness, but both cabooses, from both locations, are now gone, as is most ground level R.O.W's., in the local areas!!!!!!
Ralph

My layout requires cabooses at the end of all trains - modern or not.  My layout, my rules.

 

Joe

Me too Joe no freight train without a caboose.

The Caboose Motel at Strasburg was the first thing that came to mind though.

I know a guy that purchased a Southern Railway bay window caboose and had the inside gutted rebuilt with new walls and hardwood flooring. He's planning to add a new train layout in it when he's completed the interior rebuild.

Cabooses are still used here and there for different purposes. Short lines may employ them,

and some Class-1 locals employ them, especially if their runs involve frequent and complicated switching. They are in use around rail yards, and in inspection (especially after a widespread disaster, I would think) and MOW functions. Among these functions is simply to be a place an inspection crew (for example) can get out of the weather, or find a place of relative safety - or eat lunch.

 

So, a layout of a modern RR could have a functioning caboose here and there, even one

at the end of the train being used pretty much in the traditional way, or placed

in a train - near the locos, probably - for special purposes or simply being taken from

one assignment to another.

 

In running a railroad, all sorts of things come up.

I run them whenever I feel like it. No complaints, everybody likes a caboose. 

CSX still sometimes uses them on local trains in Florida.  When I went to Plant City I saw one on the end of a local train. 

CSX and NS call them "shoving platforms" for the protection of the crew during long back-up moves. The local Salisbury, NC switcher has an ex-N&W cupola caboose they use most of the time. I think the doors are secured shut, giving the crews access only to the platform ends. 

 

If you do keep a caboose around for modern trains, it should be heavily weathered and possibly have a few windows plated over. 

You can always take a small section of track and plant a caboose in a park on the layout. Or you can plant one in a wooded area as a hunting/fishing cabin.

There is another thread running about transfer cabooses that had me thinking about shove/push platforms and lack of access.

This thread had me thinking about the crummies Ive seen die in pieces. An unattended stationary caboose just seems to much temptation to pass up for a lot of people of all ages, adults, teens, kids. And all with minds set to who knows what reasoning: Sleepy hobos, sleepy workers, "Not in my pants". All Weather playpen, party den, hide out, or canvas. Vandalism, theft, sabotage, assaults, fires.

 I think we'll see even more welded closed into "Push & shoves".

Brighter skies..

In my cloud, I see I'm gonna have a static, multiunit caboose train "complex" set up for modern living. Lets do a walk thru.

 A bobber for bath. Then one extended cupola/bay window designed for sleep & clothes. Center cupola "breakfast nook"(ok, MY kitchen, MY coffee MY good stuff)...ok I'll share the coffee..  cookie too?.  Combo for the "man cave" & malts. Frozen or foamy ones. A custom stainless transfer caboose for a patio/kitchen/BBQ deck. And a work caboose to park the broken "toys" on, and around. (layout, billiards, hall car, and guest quarters will have to wait on a dome car thread)(Ill need emergency heat & electrical too. Better throw in a  generator equipped, oil fired porter or vucan).  

I took one broken caboose and made a yard office out of it. For my Grain train I have  FRED on the last car, otherwise I still use a caboose, especially on Steam consists

Steve

On the Twin Lakes Central...my railroad...cabooses are still in use right behind the train that is pulled by the most modern locomotives!  Funny thing is, when I decided not to employ cabooses on these modern trains, nearly everyone that visited asked where were the cabooses...?  I decided that the caboose is like a period at the end of a sentence...a train is not complete without a caboose!

 

Alan

Locally, my union workers require a caboose on the end of all my freight trains. !!!

 

A dear lady at our church who likes me a lot went out and bought me a PRR caboose. She is older and was very excited.

 

How can I not run it?

Near Passaic NJ, used to be a fast food place at one time.

 

 

UP uses an old SP Extended vision caboose on their local that switches cars on the line that goes through Santa Clarita, CA. I'll catch it from time to time- so apparently not all cabooses got scrapped, and it's prototypical to run one.

Geno

Cabooses are used behind Schnabel cars, which means that if you have one you can still run your caboose in a modern train.

 

 

Andrew

The White Pass railroad donated this caboose to the U.S. Forest Service. Today it is used as a cabin that can be reserved and used for free. It sits along the tracks outside Skagway, Alaska at the head of the Denver glacier trail.

 

 

 

 

Union Pacific has one caboose that hangs around the Salt Lake City yard. I'm not sure what they use it for.

I run a caboose at the end of my freights modern or not. A train just isn't complete to me without one.

Put it at the end of the train

I run a caboose no matter the era I am running that day guys.......

I figured it was a cool, railroad themed, small space business that almost anyone could replicate if they wanted......

A caboose is often required when transporting a very large load that requires special handling.  See photos of a schnabel car with trailing caboose used by the railroad or transport company crew.

 

 

 That's one option.

 

 

 

I too like the office at the end of my trains.

Ralph

 

We may have strayed a little from your original post but it is a great idea for a small piece of real estate on your layout. 

I have an MTH caboose from the late 90's that the center pickup doesn't work so good. I took the trucks off and was thinking of making a yard office out of it.

 

However, I pre-ordered this one to use for MOW etc ...

 

 

 

I agree with Allen, you need a caboose on the end of the train!

 

Lee Fritz

A number of short lines also use a caboose. These trains often back into yard sidings for pickups and deliveries. A conductor rides back there (I believe also throws the switches) and guides the engineer by intercom to back efficiently and safely into the siding.   I guess that this could also be done by having a person walk to or from the cab but it apparently saves time. Being a railroader himself Rich Melvin may know the answer.