and the rainwater that certainly must have leaked through the shaft opening. Since it was tradition that the youngest brakeman’s job was to trim the wicks and maintain the lamps and lanterns, the chore of keeping that lamp lit must have been cherished by the greenhorns. Old timers I’ve talked to who worked with these cars did say they were rough riding, but they felt safe enough in them. The bobbers were numbered 1-599. It is not known whether there actually were 599 ca- booses, but equipment summaries do show that in the first decade of the 1900’s there were more than 300 ca- booses in revenue service. Data hasn’t surfaced showing complete numbers of those in non-revenue service. The end of the four-wheel caboose
era was triggered by a series of rear- end collisions on the railroads in the first decade of the 1900’s, primarily in the East, that attracted a lot of public attention. Simultaneously the rail in- dustry had been moving toward steel underframes in freight and passenger cars. New York State was the first to ban the bobber cabooses, soon followed by the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion with a requirement that cabooses had to be of similar size and weight of a freight car. Railroads were given sev- eral years to comply. In New York the deadline was 1924.
The classic eight-wheel caboose In February of 1914 the Lackawan-
na’s Keyser Valley shops near Scran- ton, Pennsylvania, produced its
first
modern caboose, No.600. A total of 20 were ordered by the operating depart- ment for that month, 600-619. The fru- gal designers apparently reused many of the jigs and patterns as the finished caboose appeared to be two back-to- back bobber cabooses under one cupo- la. Results of train crew feedback re- sulted in wider steps than four-wheel cars. Four single-sash windows per
AUTHOR’S COLLECTION: CIRCA 1921
Caboose 655 (above) was the first one built by the Mt. Vernon Car Company in Illinois. It was painted yellow and had black lettering. Mt. Vernon built many of the USRA cars for the industry. Note the revolving marker atop the cupola in the top photo. Caboose 759, a Magor-built car with a change in truck styles, lacks this feature (below). It is pictured in its as-delivered yellow paint and black lettering at the Magor Car Co. plant in Clifton, N.J.
MAGOR CAR COMPANY PHOTO, ED KAMINSKI COLLECTION: CIRCA 1925
side extended to the roof provided more light, and a small passenger-style truck was used for a smoother ride.
DL&W eight-wheel wood cabooses Numbers
600-619 620-629 630-634 635-654 655-715 716-754 755-759 780-804 805-809 810-819 820-829 830-839 840-849
Date built Feb. 1914 Feb. 1915 Nov. 1915
Mar-June 1919 April 1921 Nov. 1924 Nov. 1925
April-June 1926 Nov. 1926
Mar-April 1927 July-Sept. 1927 Mar-April 1928 Aug.Oct. 1928
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN Builder
Keyser Valley Keyser Valley Keyser Valley Keyser Valley Mt. Vernon Mt. Vernon Magor Car Magor Car
Keyser Valley Keyser Valley Keyser Valley Keyser Valley Keyser Valley
Trucks
Passenger trucks Passenger trucks Passenger trucks Passenger trucks Passenger trucks Passenger trucks
Bettendorf T-section trucks Bettendorf T-section trucks Bettendorf T-section trucks Bettendorf T-section trucks Bettendorf T-section trucks Bettendorf T-section trucks Bettendorf T-section trucks
The design proved successful and an- other ten were ordered a year later, fol- lowed by five more in November 1915. There must have been a great need for them as another 20 identical cars were ordered and built at Keyser Valley dur- ing World War I, in 1919, when steel was in short supply. After the war-to- end-all-wars, the railroad turned to outside sources for its cabooses. An or- der for 60 was given to the Mt. Vernon Car Company of Illinois in 1921, fol- lowed by another 40 in 1924. Mt. Ver- non was one of the car-builders that built U.S.R.A.-design freight cars for the Government Equipment Trust for the War effort. Lackawanna’s USRA double-sheathed boxcars were built by Mt. Vernon in 1919. The following year Lackawanna went to on-line builder Magor Car Company in Clifton, New Jersey, for four cars,
55
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