I understand Houston Belt & Terminal had ONE caboose they used in the late 1940s. But most HB&T transfer runs had no caboose. I lived near tracks first 21 years of my life and saw dozens of trains every day, never a caboose on HB&T. In 1950s, I used to see sometimes man (brakeman?) riding on top of last car of train.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Generally, before the 1980's, any time a railroad ran a 'train' (that is, weren't just moving cars around within yard limits) they'd have to have a caboose, even if it was just a transfer run from railroad A to railroad B. Also, when setting out and picking up cars, having crewmen at both ends of the train could speed up operations I'd assume.
IHB,BRC,Union RR, and EJ&E uses cabooses.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Looking at the transition era (crew size laws) there wouldn't have been room in the cab for the brakemen and switchmen.
And there was and is always need for a place to keep the paperwork dry.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Went to Yahoo, entered Transfer Caboose, a large quantity of photos, info available.
Lloyd
In April of 1961 the Terminal Railroad Association of St Louis had about 40 industry switching jobs that used a caboose. These were not yard switching jobs nor were they interchange jobs that delivered to connections.
Charlie
In the Chicago area before the popular use of transfer cabooses, B&O Chicago Terminal used wooden ex-B&O cabooses, many with their cupolas removed. Indiana Harbor Belt used cabooses that seemed to be very similar to Santa Fe cabooses, with blanked windows and other modifications.
Tom
The Internet is your friend. A quick web image search turns up at least one photo of a Detroit Terminal Railroad caboose.
From this web page comes this image
This is a newer-style transfer caboose, which suggests that there were probably earlier traditional cabooses in use as well. These may have been lettered for the Detroit Terminal, or borrowed from one of the corporate parents in their original livery.
Much smaller terminal operations without a lot of connecting trackage seemed generally less likely to use cabooses. Perhaps it depended somewhat on the number of road and rail crossings that needed to be shoved.
Era matters, too, of course. Cabooses were more likely in earlier eras. But they exist(ed) on terminal switching lines into current times. Here's the Richmond Pacific Railroad's former GN/BN caboose in use around 2011.
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This is an operations question for those who've worked on a belt line or terminal railroad. Did belt line or terminal railroads use a caboose when switching in a city? I'm talking about a railroad like the Detroit Terninal Railroad that just switched within a city and didn't have any through trains. Thanks for any help.