Cabooses should be around for a while yet.
Uhh, well I can answer maybe a few questions:
2.) BNSF has repainted a number of cabeese, some in an all-white scheme that I occasionally see parked on a siding in Cambridge, MN for use by the Hinckley Local.
3.) While not a shortline during their brief existence, the Chicago Central & Pacific routinely included a caboose on their Manchester-Cedar Rapids turn as late as 1994. I saw it many mornings on my way into work, on the end of their train as it was being yarded in the ex-IC yard downtown by the power plant.
4.) I don't think it's just a fancy name. I believe those cabeese carry specialized electronic gear for researching track/roadbed stability, defects, etc.
I have observed a number of cabooses still in operation over the past two years (more than I would have assumed), many as shoving platforms or sitting in yards but the occasional on locals, and some as "engineering cars". I have a few question for you who are more knowledgable about railroad operations that I...many thanks for your insight:
1) If cabooses are still relatively essential for some long back up moves and switch realignments on locals and shortlines, perhaps for MOW transport of workers and MOW offices, will the caboose ever truly be "dead", and what will the RRs do when those cabooses get really, really old...so many of them are beat-up and forlorn. Is there a day when new transfer cabooses or a new special type of shoving platform will be new builds? I mean, it looks like class one RRs keep up to a hundred or so on hand...probably every shortline has a caboose (?)...but what will eventually replace those, or are these old cabooses forever able to be "renovated". Is the caboose, however few in number, still a permanent fixture on RR rosters?
Are RRs building new transfer cabooses or shorter specialized shove platforms for their yard and local work? It always has struck me that it seems like an awful big platform, the caboose, to be shoving around just so a worker can stand on the far end with a radio. Is there a safety need for a platform as large as a caboose, or will such future platforms be shorter, and without a cabin? The cabins on cabooses often seem welded up, but not always. Is the short cabin, such as that on a transfer caboose, still a need/requirement?
There always seems to be new retirements of beat-up old cabooses, destined for scrap yard or such. What is replacing these retirements in terms of operational need?
2) Do class one RRs ever repaint their cabooses as a matter of maintenance, or will they eventually have to. I have noticed that a lot of these shoving platforms are hideously beat-up, though they are an interesting haven for fallen flag heralds.
3) Do shortlines ever use cabooses in their traditional role as end of train, or do all shortlines use EOTs now, no matter the size of the shortline? Is that a FRA rule?
4) What exactly is an "Engineering & Research Car". The nicest cabooses (NS has a few)I have seen are fixed up and painted as these engineering cars, and I am just wondering if this is a fancy name for MOW transportation or what exactly these specialized cabooses are for.
Thanks so much for filling me in on this!
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