Ya, my memory is the GN plywood cabooses were older wood cars. It was easier / cheaper to use plywood than to do individual boards. I suppose WW2 could have been a factor, steel was in short supply and many new freight cars were built with wood sides for that reason.
Both CNR and CPR had quite a number of cabooses with plywood sides. But that siding was a later addition, often over top of the original tongue and groove. I am unsure of the reason. One possibility is that it was simpler to cover the sides with plywood than to attempt to repair a damaged or decayed section of T&G in kind.
John
There were both single and double sheathed cabooses, just as with boxcars, but obviously a caboose with a steel frame had less need for structural strength on the sides than a boxcar did. I think the Rock Island was particularly known for its so-called "outside braced" wood cabooses. In fact wood cabooses were surprisingly long lived and some New York Central wood cabooses from the 1880-90 era were still going strong into the 1960s if I read my references correctly. I know I still saw wood cabooses on the Chicago & North Western (admittedly in work train service) into the mid to late 1960s. Many railroad museums have DM&IR wood cabooses because so many of them lasted into the museum era of the 60s and 70s. I saw a wood caboose in active service on the Soo Line in the early 1980s.
You didn't ask about it but another kind of wood caboose, which the Great Northern used quite a bit, was the caboose whose exterior was plywood. So they looked smooth sided, except where the joints were. Ambroid used to offer a kit for the Great Northern plywood sided caboose. It buillt up into a very nice model. Why plywood? Not sure but just as railroads which coal mines as customers tended to use steam engines into the late 1950s, the GN had a fair number of on-line plywood manufacturing customers.
Dave Nelson
wjstix Very early freight and passenger cars had all-wood bodies. Somewhere around 1890-1900 cars began to be built of wood sheathing over a steel frame, and with a steel underframe. Boxcars and reefers usually had sheathing on the inside and outside ("double sheathed" cars), although some cars had sheathing on the inside and exposed the steel frame. These were called "single sheathed" or "outside braced" boxcars. Similarly, all-wood cabooses gave way to steel framed cars with wood sheathing.
Very early freight and passenger cars had all-wood bodies. Somewhere around 1890-1900 cars began to be built of wood sheathing over a steel frame, and with a steel underframe. Boxcars and reefers usually had sheathing on the inside and outside ("double sheathed" cars), although some cars had sheathing on the inside and exposed the steel frame. These were called "single sheathed" or "outside braced" boxcars. Similarly, all-wood cabooses gave way to steel framed cars with wood sheathing.
The "double sheathed" cars had a steel underframe with a wood superstructure, wood sheathing over a wooden frame. All the cars have an interior sheathing to provide a smooth surface to load against. The single sheathed cars were more around WW1 than the 1890's. Steel frames didn't have to be protected from the weather so the outside wooden sheath wasn't needed. All steel cars have steel underframe, steel superstructure framing and a steel outside sheathing, with a wooden interior sheathing.
"Wood caboose" and "wood sheathed caboose" could be the same thing. If there was difference I would say its in the frame. A wood caboose would have a wood underframe and superstruture and a wood sheathed caboose would have a steel underframe with wood superstructure.
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