PHOTO BY EDWARD C. BARTZ; AUTHOR COLLECTION: CIRCA 1948
Caboose 660 is being pushed hard by one of Lackawanna’s 2100- class 2-8-2’s. In the 1950’s as the steel cabooses were entering
service, the rules required that wooden cabooses be unmanned, or the pusher engines be cut in ahead of a wooden caboose.
The Lackawanna’s all-American caboose
A look at the development of the DL&W’s eight-wheel wood caboose/Mike Del Vecchio I
n the years between the two World Wars, the trainmen on the Road of Anthracite called them everything
from Hacks to cabs to coffins. But the eight-wheeled wooden cabooses of the Delaware,
Lackawanna & Western
were as good-looking as they were use- ful, and they may appear familiar to railroaders across North America. With a center cupola, they were sym- metrical in design and balance and had a classic look. From a railroader’s stand- point, they had wide steps for easy on and off while in motion and convenient brake wheels with sprocket dogs easily operated by foot. Numbered 600-849, there were 250 cabooses on a busy rail- road just shy of 400 miles in length.
54 Born in the coal fields of the Lack-
awanna and Wyoming valleys in north- eastern Pennsylvania, the DL&W was the shortest route between New Jer- sey’s Hudson River ports and Buffalo, N.Y. It was a heady east-west competi- tor with the Erie, Lehigh Valley and New York Central. On the Lackawan- na, yard jobs and transfers were known as drills, while local freights were referred to as roustabouts.
A bobber beginning
The story of the eight-wheeled wooden cabooses on the Lackawanna actually begins with the four-wheeled bobbers de- veloped after the adoption of air brakes permitted longer trains. Nineteenth-cen-
tury wood cabooses were short in height and length. Almost all had two axles and no cupola. With the new DL&W presi- dent Truesdale in 1899 came a standard four-wheel caboose design with a steel centersill and frame. The cupola was at one end, while the carbody sides each had a centered side window.
An interesting feature on the four- wheeled cabooses was a revolving Arm- spear marker lamp centered on the cupola roof. Drawings show that the ro- tating marker lamp was mounted on a vertical shaft that extended through the roof and floor and was driven by the axle. We can imagine today how the trainmen liked this safety device, with its constant squeaking while in motion
JULY 2013
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