Yesterday afternoon a BNSF train was running on their Twin Cities-Chicago mainline a few miles SE of St.Paul. It had three large units on the point and appeared to be a normal mainline freight train...except at the rear it had a very new looking red-and-black caboose. It appeared to be an International extended vision type and was in 'like new' condition.
It wasn't an old caboose being used as a "shoving platform". It had something like a 7 or 8 letter word on the side which unfortunately I forgot before I could write it down (I was driving) that I think started with "M" but wasn't a railroad name. I wondered if it might belong to some company that does maybe track maintenance or some other work?? Otherwise I'm stumped.
Are you sure it wasn't a Department of Defense car? Occationally, we get DOD security cars fitting that description through the yard.
There's also a railroad research company that has cars like that, but the name escapes me at the moment.
Nick
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It could be, unfortunately it was just a long enough time from there to home that I forgot what was written on it. I know it had three windows on each side which was kinda unusual, most Intl cabooses have had the windows plated over for some time.
I think what was written on there was seven letters, I think starting with an M. I can't remember now if it was one seven letter word, or like four letters then three letters.
It was at Newport MN going north (railroad west) along the east bank of the Mississippi towards downtown St.Paul, about 3 PM. (I was on my way back from the Twin City Model RR club flea market on Saturday.)
User "Beaulieu" over on the Trains forum figured it out, it was from MAMMOET who apparently specialize in movements of unusual sized loads. Since this was on a 'normal' freight I'm guessing the caboose was maybe being moved to a location, or coming back from a trip or something.
http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/3/8/0/6380.1172581200.jpg
Possibly to house persons assigned to monitor the load, we used to call them riders whom were employed by the shippers to accompany the loads, they would perform frequent inspection on oversized load (s) to ensure no shifting or failure of blocking/load retention devices had occured, they also had the authority to advise the crew on train handling techniques, often a road/train master would be on board for these moves and if required security forces. On the SP we retained a half dozen converted light weight coaches for this service , when we could wrangle them away from the RR police who would borrow them to moniter high value shipments!
Dave