The Lackawanna’s all-American caboose
PHOTO BY ED LEGAWICZ, AUTHOR’S COLLECTION PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN: AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
755-759. These cars were essentially the same but had one difference in out- ward appearance, the use of Bettendorf C.T.320 truck side frames (what Kadee refers to as the Bettendorf “T-Section” caboose truck). Possibly because of the slightly smaller truck wheelbase on the T-section truck (5′-6″ versus 6′-0″ on the passenger truck), the steel underframe is a half-inch shorter, 25′-0″ versus 24′- 11¹⁄₂″. Magor built the next 24 in 1926. From November 1926 through October 1928 the DL&W’s Keyser Valley shops built the last 45, all with the T-section truck side frame. In all, Keyser Valley built 100, Mt. Vernon built 100, and Magor built 50.
Caboose use In the context of modeling, the Lack-
awanna used cabooses at the end of trains as did most roads. The Lack- awanna in the 1940’s and 1950’s tend- ed to assign cabooses to the roust- abouts and drills, and to certain conductors. There were also pools of ca- booses kept in yards for road trains, work trains and as spares. None were outfitted for electric markers. Work trains tended to have cabooses at each end to simplify the runaround move. As for pusher service, there are pho-
tos showing steam pushing on cabooses and also with steam locomotives cut in ahead of the caboose. Several cabooses had “running cut-off devices” so crews could uncouple from helper engines on the fly. Possibly inspired by a wreck on
Caboose 683 (top) is pictured on an eastbound freight at Pater- son, New Jersey, in 1933, wearing the yellow paint and lettering of that era. The 250 wooden eight-wheeled cabooses were pretty much built to be identical, but there’s always an exception. Ca- booses 646 and 632 (above) are pool cabooses based in Kingston, Pa., but here, in this 1948 view, the center pair of win-
PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN, AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
dows and the cupola side windows were fitted with small awnings. A trainman enjoys a cupola breeze through the Pocono Mountains in caboose 785 (below). This is one of the cars that could have been painted red. Note the difference in tone between the tarpaper roof and the carbody. These cabooses were yellow when built, and boxcar brown when retired.
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