Again, Not a Locomotive!!

A couple of weeks ago I posted a post card without a picture of a locomotive on it. It is obvious that today's post is in the same league as that post - no locomotive; in fact, it is sort of the exact opposite.

It is a picture of a caboose. That means that today's post card is over 30 years old. Cabooses were used on railroads in both the United States and Canada until the 1980s. The caboose on the front of today's post card posed for the picture in 1970. I am living in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada. A local railway museum is the supplier of the details about cabooses in today's blog post. The museum is the Alberta Railway Museum in the northeast part of this city. Here is their website where I found the information below: https://albertarailwaymuseum.com/cabooses/ The caboose had many nicknames among railway workers: crummy, cab, van, doghouse, hayrack, waycar, conductor’s van, and even “brain box” or “brains box”. Modern CNR employees called it the cab or caboose while CPR employees called it the van as did CN eastern lines employees. The caboose was the conductor’s home and office. The conductor was responsible for the entire train, except the locomotive. The conductor and engineer work together to keep the train on schedule. The conductor must know exactly who and what was on his/her train, how many, the origin and destination of each item or passenger, etc. The conductor was assisted by one or two trainmen. They threw switches, coupled and uncoupled cars, checked brakes and made sure the train ran safely. The head end brakeman rode in the locomotive cab and the tail end brakeman or “brakie” rode in the caboose with the conductor. In the days before the installation of air brakes, brakemen had to climb on the roof of the train to manually set and release the brakes. The conductor and the brakeman rode in the cupola, which was the raised portion on the roof of the caboose or on its side. They looked down the length of the train to see or smell “hot boxes”: overheated axle bearings that could catch fire or seize up and cause a derailment. They also looked for dragging equipment, shifted loads, fires, loose straps, or hoboes. If anything out of the ordinary was detected the conductor signaled a stop with his lantern or pulled the emergency brake. The problem was fixed by the train crew or the car was set out on a siding to be repaired later. During the early days of railroading, conductors and brakemen saw the caboose as their home away from home. Each crew would often bring personal belongings from home. Conductors made their own symbol to put on the roof of their caboose to help them find their “home” in a crowded rail yard. At the end of a day’s work, the caboose was taken off the train and set out on a siding. The crew would eat and sleep in it overnight and be put on another train the next day. Each caboose came with three benches with mattresses stored underneath, a coal bin, a stove for heating and cooking, a sink, water for drinking and washing, a conductor’s desk, and an ice block refrigerator. The caboose also had a first-aid kit, stretcher, switchman’s hand lanterns, and a flag/flare kit. Newer cabooses had no beds, but did have an electric refrigerator, heaters, an oven, a toilet, lockers, an eating table, and a conductor’s desk. Eventually, the caboose was phased out. In February 1988, the Canadian Transport Commission gave permission to Canadian railways to replace the caboose with the new end-of-train unit. The conductor moved into the locomotive cab with the engineman and front-end brakeman. By the fall of 1988, CNR and CPR began the removal of the caboose from active duty. Trains are now operated by a conductor and locomotive engineer both located in the cab of the locomotive.

This is another post card (I have 204) from the publisher "Railcards.com" about whom I know nothing. The back of the card tells us that this Soo Line Caboose was photographed at Stevens Point, Wisconsin.